Discourse features in Hong Kong English have not received much attention; for example, Bolton (2002a) includes chapters which deal with phonology (Hung 2000, reprinted in Bolton 2002a), grammar (Gisborne 2000, reprinted in Bolton 2002a) and lexis (Benson 2000, reprinted in Bolton 2002a), but there is no chapter on discourse. Nor is there much discussion in Bolton (2003), Kachru (2005) or Kachru and Nelson (2006), the latter two works looking at the broader context of Asian Englishes. One recent attempt to fill this gap is Wong (2007), which is an analysis of the forms and functions of question tags in the International Corpus of English, Hong Kong component (ICE-HK). Added to this are a number of corpus-based studies which compare the use of English discourse features between Hong Kong speakers and native speakers (Cheng and Warren 2001a, 2001b; Fung and Carter 2007b), but these studies do not presume a distinctive variety of Hong Kong English, generally referring to Hong Kong speakers as non-native speakers (NNS) or students, and their findings are not always consistent with our data. It may be more useful, therefore, to look at the discourse features which Deterding (2007) discusses in relation to Singapore English, as these may be relevant to Hong Kong English, given common substrate influence from Cantonese.

Compared with discourse, there has been more discussion of vocabulary in Hong Kong English; see for example Benson (2000), Bolton (2003), Carless (1995), Chow (2001), Cummings (2007) and Taylor (1989). These studies draw their data from certain genres or kinds of discourse.

This chapter starts by surveying general works on Hong Kong English and then goes on to consider specific books and key articles in each area.

General works on Hong Kong English

Both Platt (1982) and McArthur (2002) provide a comprehensive overview of all the features of Hong Kong English with reference to the larger context of varieties of Asian Englishes, while Kirkpatrick's (2007) description is presented in terms of implications for international communication and pedagogy.

Pennington (1998b) is an edited volume of nineteen chapters, in which authors discuss the linguistic situation in Hong Kong in the run-up to the Handover in 1997, not all of them on Hong Kong English. Wright and Kelly-Holmes (1997) survey the changes in language use during this period.

Kingsley Bolton has published extensively on Hong Kong English. Examples of his work include Bolton (2003), which is a sociolinguistic history of Chinese Englishes, including English in Hong Kong, and Bolton (2002a), which draws together sixteen chapters from different authors on linguistic and literary topics, including information on finding resources for analysing the variety, and ends with a chapter pondering the future for Hong Kong English.

For a historical perspective on language education in Hong Kong, see Lord and Cheng (1987).

Phonetics and phonology

For a brief overview of some of the features of the phonology of Hong Kong English, see Bolton and Kwok (1990).

There is no doubt that Hong Kong is seen as one of the most exciting cities in the world. The view across the harbour at night looking towards the neon lights, a silhouette of a junk against the setting sun, or the hubbub of lively business and commerce in a 24-hour city are quintessential images conjured up in the mind when one thinks of this exotic location. The self-portrait of Hong Kong as presented on the official government internet website describes it as ‘a vibrant city, and a major gateway to China’. Indeed, the geographic location of Hong Kong has unequivocally placed it as an entry port to greater China. The historical development of the city as well as the cultural composition of its population have provided the dynamics necessary for Hong Kong to thrive as a cosmopolitan urban centre in the Pearl River Delta region.

Hong Kong, a Special Administrative Region (SAR) of the People's Republic of China (PRC), is located adjacent to the Pearl River Delta, in the south-eastern region of China's Guangdong province, facing the South China Sea. Contrary to popular belief, Hong Kong is not just a single island territory comprising a built-up urban cityscape, but includes three major parts: Hong Kong Island, the Kowloon Peninsula and the New Territories. It is replete with country parks, sandy beaches and outlying islands large and small. Along the northern part of the New Territories is the border between Hong Kong and China. South of the New Territories is Boundary Street, which used to mark the boundary between Kowloon and the New Territories.

The interest in Hong Kong English as a variety is a relatively recent phenomenon, and its status is very much under dispute (see section 6.4 below). Because of this, there has been little, if any, documentation of historical language change. Empirically, there have been few studies which describe the formal linguistic properties of Hong Kong English in great detail (in comparison with, say, Singapore English); this, coupled with the emergent status of the variety, means it is virtually impossible to compare two datasets collected at different times for varietal differences. In addition, work on Hong Kong English, other than that which looks at it as a learner language, did not really start in earnest until Luke and Richards' groundbreaking research in 1982. Change, as far as Hong Kong English is concerned, has almost exclusively focused on the social status of English, or the changing status of English with reference to spoken Cantonese and written Standard Chinese in the Hong Kong context.

This chapter surveys the sociolinguistic history of English in Hong Kong. The description leads on to a discussion concerning the emergence of Hong Kong English as a new variety. This is intended to contextualise the preceding chapters of the book, which primarily describe the formal linguistic aspects of Hong Kong English.

English in pre-colonial Hong Kong (pre-1842)

Probably the most comprehensive description of the early development of English in Hong Kong is to be found in Bolton (2003), specifically chapter 3, in which he surveys the situation between the mid-seventeenth and twentieth centuries.

Hong Kong English is an emergent new variety and, as such, its status as either a legitimate variety or learner interlanguage is under dispute. Some writers prefer to discuss phonological aspects of Hong Kong English in terms of error when compared to varieties such as British or American English (see, for example, Stibbard 2004; Chan 2006; Chan and Li 2000). This chapter – and, indeed, this book – does not take this view, preferring to describe and evaluate Hong Kong English pronunciation on its own terms, and in terms of difference from other accents rather than deficiency. However, it should be recognised that, as it is an emergent new variety, features of Hong Kong English such as phonology are not always stable, and that there is wide variation amongst speakers in both intelligibility and similarity to other accents and varieties. It is therefore necessary to talk in terms of tendencies in phonology, rather than to assume all speakers share the same characteristics.

The pronunciation of English in Hong Kong varies along a continuum from native-like British English Received Pronunciation (RP) and/or General American accent features to virtual unintelligibility outside of the Hong Kong environment. What may be thought of as the typical Hong Kong English accent (see, for example, Deterding et al. 2008; Hung 2000; Peng and Setter 2000), spoken by educated individuals who have not spent much, if any, time outside of Hong Kong, is clearly influenced by features of Cantonese phonology.

As is the case with phonology, many of the morphosyntactic features in Hong Kong English reflect the interaction between English and Cantonese, two languages very different in terms of their morphological and grammatical structures.

Like other Chinese dialects, Cantonese is not morphologically rich. There are few inflectional and derivational markings in Cantonese (Matthews and Yip 1994: 31). When compared to English, Cantonese has no tense inflections on the verbs; nor are there any number or gender inflections on the nouns. As a result, the English morphological markings are realised in four different ways in Hong Kong English. One typical feature is the simplification of the English morphology (Budge 1989). For example, the suffix -s is omitted from verbs with third person singular subjects, as in ‘he give all the picture to you; he like de boy better den de girl’ (Platt 1982: 409). The second is the optional use of suffixes such as the -s for plural nouns. For example, in the sentence ‘where de movie all come from’ (Platt 1982: 409), the noun ‘movie’ is not marked for plural. In the noun phrase ‘many gardens and many famous place’ there are two noun phrases each headed by a plural noun. However, the first plural noun has the suffix -s while the second one does not. Third, the past tense is not marked, either. Platt (1982: 410) has the following examples reporting past events: ‘Mandarin, I learn it privately’ and ‘I don't learn at secondary school’. The fourth morphological feature that typifies Hong Kong English is morphologically doubly marked items such as ‘more better’ or ‘more richer’.