Search

This paper sets out to discuss creativity and world Englishes from a range of perspectives. It begins with a discussion of the changing face of English studies over recent decades, and then proceeds to discuss definitions of 'creativity' and 'bilingual creativity'. In the later sections of the paper, there is discussion of postcolonial literature and world fiction in English, with particular reference to the work of Timothy Mo. Finally, the implications of this discussion for contemporary English studies in Hong Kong are also considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT: This paper suggests that Hong Kong English, insofar as it varies from Standard English, has not achieved wide acceptance in the community. The paper approaches this by investigating the attitudes of Hong Kong's English language teachers. Over a thousand messages on language issues to a computer network for English teachers were analysed, in terms of their discourse and the sources of authority the teachers referred to in support of their views on correctness or acceptability.(n1) The sources regarded as most authoritative were dictionaries and grammar or usage books from native speaking countries such as Britain. Hong Kong sources such as textbooks and the media were treated with more caution, and sometimes criticised. The model of English the teachers adopted was clearly exonormative. The term Hong Kong English did not occur anywhere in the 1,234 messages, and no deviations from a native speaker norm were referred to favourably. The paper concludes that these attitudes, similar to those in the business community, will constrain the use of Hong Kong English for formal communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT: While Asian Englishes such as Indian English, Malaysian English, Philippine English, and Singapore English have gained wide acceptance in the past two decades, relatively little notice has been taken of 'Hong Kong English'. This paper surveys the sociolinguistic background to the recognition of Hong Kong English, and considers the arguments in favour of a 'paradigm shift' in approaches to this issue. The paper begins by reviewing the history of English in Hong Kong and language planning and language policies in the late colonial period. It then goes on to discuss the ideological background to English in Hong Kong, noting the persistence of the 'monolingual myth' and the 'invisibility myth' in a number of recent sociolinguistic discourses. In the later sections of the paper, the case is made not only for a recognition of Hong Kong English in terms of distinctive linguistic features at the levels of accent and vocabulary, but also with reference to the creativity of the variety, in literary as well as less formal contexts. Ultimately, it is suggested, the notion of a distinct variety rests not only on the recognition of features of language, but also on the acceptance of a new space, or spaces, for the discourses of Hong Kong English. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT: The paper is divided into three sections, and traces my evolution as a 'Hong Kong writer' in English through questions of identity, language and creativity. In 'Ethnicity and culture,' I discuss how both factors constrain and heighten my creative process. Despite my Hong Kong origins, I am questionably 'local' because of my ethnicity and personal history. The city itself embraces a schizophrenic identity, neither Chinese nor Western, and lacks a 'national culture'. This offers rich material for fiction but is also confusing. 'Language as stumbling block' delves into being jammed between two national Englishes, British and American, in trying to give voice to Hong Kong's socio-political situation. The other linguistic issue, Chinese, is addressed by studying Mandarin in the US, so that my English is ultimately enriched by Chinese. Finally, 'Beyond the denial of self ' focuses on my most recently completed novel The Unwalled City. In writing it, I come to grips with many of the issues raised in the first two sections of this paper. Not denying reality as I know it is central to the process. The novel becomes my Hong Kong statement of a city and its people whose curious reality cannot be ignored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inspired by Schneider's (2007) innovative Dynamic Model, this paper traces the rise of English-knowing bilingualism in Hong Kong by analysing the authorship of 1,379 letters published in the city's leading English-language newspapers since the early 1840s. The evidence points to three main phases in the evolution of this community: 1840s-1910s, 1920s-1970s, 1980s-present. In the first phase, the bilingual segment of the Chinese community was apparently microscopic or, in the words of a colonial official, 'infinitesimal'. The second and third phases may be characterised as periods of spreading minority and majority bilingualism respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study seeks to explore the controversial issue of pronunciation modelling in the secondary classroom in association with the medium-of-instruction (MOI) policy in Hong Kong. The investigation centres on two dimensions: (1) students' exposure to English accents throughout their weekly school timetable by means of a data log sheet and (2) the phonological differences between the speech of local subject and English language teachers. The findings suggest that students' main source of English exposure at school is the English pronunciation of both English language and content-area teachers in English-medium lessons, who shared numerous Hong Kong English ( HKE) features although in differing proportions. The paper concludes by prioritising the educated HKE vowel and consonant features and promoting an internationally intelligible endonormative model in the globalised world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates employer perceptions of the nature and importance of the English language in public relations agencies in Hong Kong. Based on in-depth interviews with senior managers from eight Hong Kong-based public relations companies, it examines how the linguistic currency of English is used collaboratively in creative organizations. Findings suggest that English is used as the common language among transnational public relations work teams and the clients that they service. It is also used as a creative resource for facilitating collaboration, staff development and socialization into corporate and professional cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines discourses of creativity in English-language education in post-colonial Hong Kong, where educational reform has mandated a change from transmissive to interactive modes of teaching and learning and a shift towards more creative methods of teaching English. The literature is reviewed with regard to discourses of creativity both internationally and in the Hong Kong context. An ethnographic study of an innovative project in a Hong Kong secondary school, using poetry and creative writing in the language classroom, is presented. Findings from this study, carried out between 1999 and 2001, illustrate how pedagogical discourses of creativity - such as creative tasks, the creative process and communities of practice - are more significant at classroom level than simple East-West dichotomies, and how such discourses can be productive both for teachers and students despite institutional and social constraints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1997 the government of Hong Kong reformed its policy on the language medium for teaching at the secondary-school level and removed schools' right to choose their own medium. Among the 404 public and 'aided' secondary schools in Hong Kong, the government allowed only 100 to use English as the medium for teaching and required the remaining 304 to use the native language, Chinese. The authors assess the spatial impact of the policy reform and estimate the bid function for English-language schools. The results show that the 1997 policy reform shifted parental preferences from public to private education and increased the marginal bid for proximity to private English schools by 2 percent. Following the reform, homeowners were willing to pay, on average, HK $8,400 for each additional 100 metres closer to a private English school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT: This paper discusses relative clauses in Hong Kong English, and considers a number of questions about the morphosyntactic feature system of Hong Kong English, comparing relevant attestations from local data to those found in other varieties of English. It looks at the ways in which relative constructions in Cantonese may affect how relative clauses in Hong Kong English are formed, and also examines the degree to which the relative clause system of Hong Kong English is independent of the relative clause system of both Cantonese and standard native-speaker varieties of English, and therefore could be said to provide evidence of whether Hong Kong English is an independent variety of English or not. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT: Whether or not Hong Kong English (HKE) has acquired the status of a 'new variety of English', there is no doubt that there exists an identifiable 'HKE accent', and therefore a HKE phonology. The paper embodies the author's findings in the first part of his research project on HKE phonology, which covered segmental phonology -- in particular the underlying phonemic system of HKE speakers, and the phonetic realisations of its phonemes in different phonological environments. The subjects comprised 15 undergraduates at the Hong Kong Baptist University. The initial batch of data consisted of a number of key words designed to capture all potential vowel and consonant contrasts in a variety of phonological environments. With the help of spectrographic analysis, it was found that the typical HKE speaker operates with a considerably smaller set of vowel and consonant contrasts than in native varieties of English. In particular, there is no length/tenseness contrast in vowels, and no voicing contrast in fricatives. HKE also exhibits a number of interesting and possibly unique phonological properties. An underlying phonemic system is postulated for HKE, and a number of allophonic variations are described. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT: The ideal description of a variety of English is one that is constructed within the terms of the variety itself. This paper discusses a number of issues involved in such a description in relation to the distinctive vocabulary of Hong Kong English. Attention to semantic and pragmatic relationships internal to the variety and the sociocultural context in which it operates is urged. These are illustrated with examples related to underlying definition, taxonomies, semantic opposition and the productivity of localised words. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT: In this paper the authors discuss the themes of autonomy and creativity as they have been expressed in this special issue. At a linguistic level, the emergence of Hong Kong English has been clouded by a cluster of language ideologies within a localised complaint tradition. This has included discourses relating to 'monolingualism', the 'invisibility' of Hong Kong English, and 'falling standards'. Parallel discourses have also constrained creative writing in Hong Kong, but the appearance of new Hong Kong writers points the way to a fresh and energetic future for literary creativity. One example of this is the new journal Yuan Yang, largely written and edited by creative writing students at The University of Hong Kong. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT: This paper provides a brief guide to published research relevant to the study of Hong Kong Kong English, together with a selective bibliography. Hong Kong now has a thriving research culture although a substantial proportion of published research has earlier been devoted to applied linguistic and language pedagogy, where the discussion of 'Hong Kong English' has frequently been linked to studies of error analysis and interlanguage. The selective bibliography attempts to survey published research in those areas of sociolinguistics and applied linguistics of most relevance to the world Englishes paradigm, and also includes a section listing publications related to Hong Kong creative writing in English. The final section lists extant bibliographies in print and/or available online via the Internet.(n1) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]