Abstract
To explore whether Hong Kong English (HKE) is considered by Hongkongers as an acceptable model of English pronunciation, this paper investigates the attitudes of the university students in Hong Kong toward the phonological patterns in HKE. The results show that, though the standard English forms are still generally their first option, the students do attitudinally accept certain features in HKE. Such acceptability of a local L2 variety requires one to reconceptualize the paradigm in second-language research. That is, besides a learner’s native language and the “standard” target variety, researchers should also take into account the local L2 variety which prevails in a learner’s learning environment, as it provides input and is often linked with the learner’s identity. This may sound trivial, yet it is important.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
See Trent (2014), who also provides a thorough discussion on the distinction between standard and non-standard varieties/accents.
- 2.
For more details on the three circles, see Kachru (1985), 366.
- 3.
See, for example, Luk’s 2010 article “Differentiating Speech Accents and Pronunciation Errors—Perceptions of TESOL Professionals in Hong Kong.”
- 4.
For a comprehensive description of the linguistic features of HKE, see Kingsley Bolton, Hong Kong English: Autonomy and Creativity (2002), Jane Setter, Cathy S. P. Wong, and Brian H. S. Chan, Hong Kong English (2010). For a systematic analysis of the phonemic inventory of HKE, see Tony T. N. Hung, “Towards a Hong Kong English Phonology” (2000).
- 5.
These educated Hongkongers might or might not speak HKE, for various reasons. It was ascertained in the production test that all subjects were users of HKE to solicit HKE data. In the language attitude test, however, being an HKE speaker is not the primary concern. This is because the aim of the test was to see the acceptability of HKE to the community of university students, regardless of whether they spoke it. The impacts of people’s own accents on their language attitudes, though interesting, are not discussed here.
- 6.
Despite these similarities, it should be noted that the subjects can still have different levels of English proficiency. How such factors affect people’s language attitudes, though not within the scope of the present chapter, is worth exploring in future studies.
- 7.
Here I borrow Bao’s (2005) treatment of Singapore English. In language contact situations, an emerging variety may be affected by two types of language. The lexical-source language (in this case English) is called the superstrate language; the indigenous language which engages in the forming of the new variety is called the substrate language. Note that distinction should be made between the influence of the substrate language and the L1 transfer in interlanguages. HKE may be influenced by Cantonese, the substrate language, the same way as Singapore English can be affected by Chinese and Malay or Indian English by Hindi. It is, however, not to say that Singapore English or Indian English are interlanguages.
- 8.
In fact, all consonant clusters in English were collected in the production test. To keep the study to a manageable size, only CC clusters were analyzed, without probing into CCC and CCCC clusters (e.g. the clusters with three or four consonants). In the future, the scope of study could expand to those clusters.
- 9.
For a detailed discussion on Verlan, see Bruce Bagemihl “Language Games and Related Areas” (1995).
- 10.
The matched-guise technique was first developed in Lambert, Hodgson, Gardner, and Fillenbaum, “Evaluational Reactions to Spoken Languages” (1960). As pointed out by Cavallaro and Ng (2009), the technique is useful in preventing the involvement of speaker-related variables such as voice quality (pp. 145–146).
- 11.
Due to space constraints, the detailed results of the production and the language attitude test are not presented here. Interested readers may refer to Qin (2016).
- 12.
There can be variation within HKE. According to Pang (2003, 15), English serves in Hong Kong mainly as the language of law, administration, and international trade and finance, and is regarded as a “high” language. In other words, uneducated people are unlikely to be involved in these social sectors and thus have a slim likelihood of using English. The form of English used by them is likely to be, in Setter, Wong and Chan’s (2010, 5) words, “simple English” or “a quasi-creole caused by extensive mixing of English lexis in a Cantonese base” (Pennington 1994, quoted in Pang 2003, 14). This English can be structurally different from the educated HKE presented in this study, though such difference is not discussed here.
- 13.
- 14.
To ascertain whether the voiceless obstruents at surface level were true devoicing or simply voiceless in the underlying representations (cf. the RP fallacy pointed out by K. P. Mohanan in 1992), an –ing suffix test was conducted. For example, if the word range was realized as [ɹæntʃ] and ranging as [ɹæn.dʒiŋ], there was true devoicing. However, when ranging surfaced as [ɹæn.tʃiŋ], the devoicing process did not exist. The devoicing cases in this paper refer only to the true devoicing in the former situation, based on the results of the –ing suffix test.
- 15.
Final stops were less prone to neutralization, probably because the contrast for final stops can be maintained either through voicing or aspiration, while the contrast for fricatives can only be realized through voicing.
- 16.
For a detailed discussion on the greater tendency of men to use vernacular language forms, see Holmes (2013, 163–174).
- 17.
- 18.
- 19.
- 20.
Andy Kirkpatrick, World Englishes: Implications for International Communication and English Language Teaching, 188. In the same book, Kirkpatrick also presents an interesting discussion on whether English language teaching in Outer and Expanding Circles should follow a native-speaker model or a local-speaker model.
References
Bagemihl, Bruce. “Language Games and Related Areas.” The Handbook of Phonological Theory. Edited by John Goldsmith. Malden: Blackwell, 1995. 697–712.
Bao, Zhiming. “The Aspectual System of Singapore English and the Systemic Substratist Explanation.” Journal of Linguistics 41 (2005): 237–367.
Bauer, Robert S., and Paul K. Benedict. Modern Cantonese Phonology. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1997.
Boersma, Paul, and Bruce Hayes. “Empirical Tests of the Gradual Learning Algorithm.” Linguistic Inquiry 32 (2001): 45–86.
Bolton, Kingsley. Hong Kong English: Autonomy and Creativity. Hong Kong: Hong Kong UP, 2002.
Bolton, Kingsley. Chinese Englishes: A Sociolinguistic History. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2003.
Bolton, Kingsley, and Helen Kwok. “The Dynamics of the Hong Kong Accent: Social Identity and Sociolinguistic Description.” Journal of Asian Pacific Communication 1 (1990): 147–172.
Cavallaro, Francesco, and Bee-Chin Ng. “Between Status and Solidarity in Singapore.” World Englishes 28 (2009): 143–159.
Chiu, Crystal Y. L. “Consonant Cluster Simplification in Hong Kong English.” BA thesis, Hong Kong Baptist University, 2008.
Deterding, David. “ELF-based Pronunciation Teaching in China.” Chinese Journal of Applied Linguistics 33 (2010): 3–15.
El-Dash, Linda G., and Joanne Busnardo. “Brazilian Attitudes toward English: Dimensions of Status and Solidarity.” International Journal of Applied Linguistics 11 (2001): 57–74.
Hayes, Bruce, and Colin Wilson. “A Maximum Entropy Model of Phonotactics and Phonotactic Learning.” Linguistic Inquiry 39 (2008): 379–440.
Holmes, Janet. An Introduction to Sociolinguistics. Harlow: Pearson, 2013.
Hudson, Richard A. Sociolinguistics. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press/Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2000.
Hung, Tony T. N. “Towards a Hong Kong English Phonology.” World Englishes 19 (2000): 337–356.
Kachru, Braj B. “Models of English for the Third World: White Man’s Linguistic Burden or Language Pragmatics?” TESOL Quarterly 10 (1976): 221–239.
Kachru, Braj B. “Standards, Codification and Sociolinguistic Realism: The English Language in the Outer Circle.” English in the World: Teaching and Learning the Language and Literatures, edited by Randolph Quirk and H. G. Widdowson. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1985. 11–30.
Kachru, Braj B. “Liberation Linguistics and the Quirk Concern.” Languages and Standards: Issues, Attitudes, Case Studies. Edited by Makhan L. Tickoo. Singapore: SEAMEO Regional Language Center, 1991. 206–226.
Kachru, Braj B. “Teaching World Englishes.” The Other Tongue: English across Cultures, edited by Braj B. Kachru. Urbana: Illinois UP, 1992. 355–365.
Kioko, Angelina N., and Margaret J. Muthwii. “The Demands of a Changing Society: English in Education in Kenya Today.” Language, Culture and Curriculum 14 (2001): 201–213.
Kirkpatrick, A. World Englishes: Implications for International Communication and English Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge U, 2007.
Lambert, Wallace E., Richard C. Hodgson, Robert C. Gardner, and Samuel Fillenbaum. “Evaluational Reactions to Spoken Languages.” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 60 (1960): 44–51.
Leben, William. “Suprasegmental Phonology.” PhD dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1973.
Lowenberg, Peter H. “Testing English as a World language: Issues in Assessing Non-native Proficiency.” The Other Tongue: English across Cultures. Edited by Braj B. Kachru. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992. 108–121.
Luk, Jasmine. “Differentiating Speech Accents and Pronunciation Errors – Perceptions of TESOL Professionals in Hong Kong.” Hong Kong Journal of Applied Linguistics 12 (2010): 25–44.
Macauley, Ronald. “RP R.I.P.” Applied Linguistics 9 (1988): 115–124.
McCarthy, John J. “OCP Effects: Antigemination and Gemination.” Linguistic Inquiry 17 (1986): 207–263.
McKenzie, Robert M. The Social Psychology of English as a Global Language: Attitudes, Awareness and Identity in the Japanese Context. Dordrecht: Springer, 2010.
Mohanan, Karuvannur P. “Describing the Phonology of Non-native Varieties of a Language.” World Englishes 11 (1992): 111–128.
Pang, Terence T. T. “Hong Kong English: A Stillborn Variety?” English Today 74 (2003): 12–28.
Peng, Long, and Jean Ann. “Obstruent Voicing and Devoicing in the English of Cantonese Speakers from Hong Kong.” World Englishes 23 (2004): 535–564.
Pennington, Martha. “Forces Shaping a Dual Code Society: An Interpretive Review of the Literature on Language Use and Language Attitudes in Hong Kong.” Research report, Department of English, City University of Hong Kong, 1994. Quoted in Terence T. T. Pang, “Hong Kong English: A stillborn Variety?” English Today 74 (2003): 12–28.
Pilus, Zahariah. “Exploring ESL Learners’ Attitudes towards English Accents.” World Applied Sciences Journal 21 (2013): 143–152.
Qin, Chuan. “Tethering Effect as an Explanation for the Bottleneck in Second Language Acquisition.” PhD dissertation, Hong Kong Baptist University, 2016.
Roach, Peter. English Phonetics and Phonology: A Practical Course. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2000.
Setter, Jane, Cathy S. P. Wong, and Brian H. S. Chan. Hong Kong English. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2010.
Sewell, Andrew. “The Hong Kong English Accent: Variation and Acceptability.” Hong Kong Journal of Applied Linguistics 13 (2012): 1–21.
Tan, Peter K. W., and Daniel K. H. Tan. “Attitudes towards Non-standard English in Singapore.” World Englishes 27 (2008): 465–479.
Trent, John. “Accents in English.” Public lecture, The Education University of Hong Kong. March 8, 2014. Accessed July 13, 2017. http://www.eduhk.hk/ele/pls/ppt/ppt2-Accent.ppt
Weinberger, Steven H. “The Influence of Linguistic Context on Syllable Simplification.” Interlanguage Phonology: The Acquisition of a Second Language Sound System, edited by Georgette Ioup and Steven H. Weinberger. Rowley: Newbury House, 1987. 401–417.
Zhang, Qi. “Hong Kong People’s Attitudes towards Varieties of English.” Newcastle Working Papers in Linguistics 15 (2009): 151–173.
Zhang, Qi. “Attitudes beyond the Inner Circle: Investigating Hong Kong Students’ Attitudes towards English Accents.” PhD dissertation, Newcastle University, 2010.
Acknowledgments
This chapter grew out of the research for my doctoral dissertation. I would like to thank Lian-Hee Wee, Stephen Matthews, Lisa Lim, Kenneth Kong, Hiroko Itakura, Eva Man, and the anonymous reviewer for their valuable comments. The speech production data in this chapter are from the research project supported by the grant GRFHKBU250712 (P.I., Lian-Hee Wee).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Qin, C. (2018). Becoming Hong Kong-Like: The Role of Hong Kong English in the Acquisition of English Phonology by Hong Kong Students. In: Polley, J., Poon, V., Wee, LH. (eds) Cultural Conflict in Hong Kong. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-7766-1_14
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-7766-1_14
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-10-7765-4
Online ISBN: 978-981-10-7766-1
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)