David C.S. Li

Discriminatory news discourse: some Hong Kong data

This article analyses the discriminatory discursive practices of one leading liberal Hong Kong newspaper, the South China Morning Post, with a view to examining to what extent they mirror those found in the literature (which to date has focused primarily on Europe). The data for the study consist of 80 articles concerning one news event, Chinese Mainlanders claiming the right-of-abode in Hong Kong during the period 30 January 1999 to 19 August 2000. A review of the rather diffuse literature leads to the development of a composite taxonomy of discriminatory discursive practices. The Hong Kong data are then tested against this taxonomy. Examples of all of the strategies in the taxonomy are found to be present in the Hong Kong data, with certain local variations due to the particular situation of Hong Kong. The findings are all the more striking because the people who are the focus of the discrimination are from the same ethnic and linguistic background. In contrast to the news stories, a comparison with the editorials on the right-of-abode issue in the South China Morning Post reveals a much more liberal tone in the latter. This raises the question as to whether it is the news stories or the editorials that represent the true institutional ideology of this influential Hong Kong newspaper.

Cantonese‐English code‐switching research in Hong Kong: a Y2K review

This paper is a review of the major works in code-switching in Hong Kong to date. Four context-specific motivations commonly found in the Hong Kong Chinese press - euphemism, specificity, bilingual punning, and principle of economy - are adduced to show that English is one of the important linguistic resources used by Chinese Hongkongers to fulfill a variety of well-defined communicative purposes.

Attitudes Towards English and Cantonese Among Hong Kong Chinese University Lecturers

This article describes a study that used primarily in-depth interviews to investigate the attitudes of 20 lecturers towards the English medium of instruction policy at a Hong Kong university at the moment of the former British colonys transition to Chinese sovereignty. The results of the study document the overall attitudes of the lecturers towards the policy, their reasons for supporting it, their problems in applying it, and their reported use of Cantonese to overcome their problems in applying it. The rather ambivalent attitude towards English that the study reveals is seen as indicative of the sociolinguistic tensions within the society at large. The article concludes with a discussion of ways to tackle the perceived problems.

Chinese lecturers' perceptions, problems and strategies in lecturing in English to Chinese-speaking students

This paper reports on the third stage of a longitudinal study into lecturing in English to non-English speaking students conducted at a university in Hong Kong. The first stage of this project (Flowerdew and Miller, 1992) focussed on the perceptions, problems and strategies of non-native speaking students receiving lectures in English from native-speaking lecturers. In the second stage of the project (Flowerdew and Miller, 1996a) the lecture situation was considered from the other side of the lecture equation, that of the lecturers. In the third stage of the project, which is reported here, the ESL lecture is again investigated from the lecturers point of view, but this time the focus is not on expatriate native-speaking lecturers, but on local Chinese lecturers who share the L1 of their students and for whom English is also therefore a second language. After presenting the findings of this third stage of the project, the results of the three studies are compared and contrasted. Finally, the implications of the three studies when viewed collectively are considered and recommendations made for each of the three groups of subjects: NNS students, NS lecturers and NNS lecturers.

Borrowed identity : Signaling involvement with a Western name

Abstract Western-style English names are very commonly used by Chinese Hongkongers to communicate with Westerners and among themselves. The inventory of traditional Chinese address forms does not favor the quick development of friendship and intimacy, which is somehow crucial in multicultural business transactions. The adoption of a Western name is largely motivated by a preference to switch to a reciprocal first-name address pattern typical of egalitarian interpersonal communication in the West, in order to speed up the process of getting acquainted, both in inter- and intra-cultural encounters. This pragmatic transference may be regarded as a result of bilingualism and biculturalism. Similar patterns and background of innovations in address forms have been noted in many Yoruba-speaking communities in West Africa.

Linguistic Convergence: Impact of English on Hong Kong Cantonese

This article presents two types of evidence obtained from the Hong Kong Chinese press before and after the handover – lexicosyntactic transference of English words and specific functions assigned t...

Form‐focused remedial instruction:an empirical study

This article reports on an empirical study exploring the effectiveness of giving oral remedial instruction to secondary and university students using a consciousness-raising approach. The focus of remedial instruction was three high-frequency lexico-grammatical anomalies: ‘pseudo-tough movement’, the verb concern and the related adjective concerned, and the connective on the contrary. The instrument consisted of two identical tests before treatment (pre-test) and after treatment (post-test), as well as a delayed post-test with different test items. The tests were also administered to some control groups, but while the experimental groups received treatment using a rigorous consciousness-raising approach, the control groups received a milder version of it. It is found that effective acquisition took place and both the experimental and control groups show significant improvement in their performance. Where conditions of treatment were the same, students in the experimental group slightly outperformed those in the control group, suggesting that a model of remedial instruction structured in the form of proceduralized steps supported by explicit rules is more manageable and therefore more conducive to acquisition.

Incorporating L1 Pragmatic Norms and Cultural Values in L2: Developing English Language Curriculum for EIL in the Asia-Pacific Region

AbstractAfter briefly reviewing two research paradigms, Contrastive Rhetoric and New Varieties of English, this paper reaffirms the intimate relationship between language and culture and calls for the incorporation of L1 pragmatic norms and cultural values in the teaching of English as an international language (EIL) in the Asia-Pacific region. Since transfer may take place at the discourse/pragmatic level in the EFL learning process, apparent anomalies in rhetorical organization and the linguistic realization of speech acts which deviate from standard Anglo-American practice should be interpreted with care, for the perceived anomalies at the discourse level may sometimes be accounted for by the learners resistance to adopt such norms. The legitimacy of the use of L1 pragmatic norms and cultural values in EFL should be acknowledged, and that native-speaker EFL instructors would benefit from raised awareness to such L1 norms and values, especially when they clash with those of English. Given the specific ...