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The emergence of "translanguaging" as a concept referring to bilingual practices has challenged the appropriateness of "code-switching" – the term that has been most influential in studies of bilingualism and language mixing. Reassessing the literature on Cantonese-English mixing in Hong Kong, this paper suggests that the kind of spontaneous code-switching in peer talk, largely intra-sentential (or intra-clausal) and intra-turn, can indeed be recast as translanguaging, where speakers transcend language boundaries between Cantonese and English for the purpose of meaning-making. Nevertheless, Hong Kong speakers do constantly draw language boundaries by marking words as English or Cantonese, both in metalinguistic judgment and in real-time language production. Revisiting an unpublished dataset of radio talk, this paper further illustrates a number of sequences in which Cantonese speakers may "languagise" the code-switched words or expressions as "English". It is concluded that, in a Conversation-Analytic understanding, the difference between "translanguaging" and "code-switching" boils down to "languagising", and the contrast between the two notions may have been overstated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) classrooms where students' L2 proficiency has not reached the threshold level, teachers have been observed to use L1 to assist students in grasping specific technical terms and abstract concepts. It is argued to be a ‘realistic’ approach to the learning problems caused by students' limited L2 proficiency, particularly in English-as-a-foreign-language contexts. Nonetheless, researchers have also warranted ‘judicious’ and ‘principled’ use of L1 so that both content and language learning are facilitated. The question thus remains is whether teachers can use L1 appropriately to suit their students' needs. This study seeks to address this question. It includes data from 30 Grade 10 lessons in Hong Kong CLIL classrooms, where students' L2 proficiency varied considerably. Using both quantitative and qualitative analyses, this study shows that when teaching students with limited L2 proficiency, teachers used a significant proportion of L1 in lessons to explain the subject content, interact with students and develop students' L2 metalinguistic awareness. In contrast, with students highly proficient in L2, teachers used little L1, mainly to provide translation equivalents for L2 subject-specific vocabulary items. This study thus shows that teachers seemed to be sensitive when making use of students' existing linguistic repertoires. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, I review the four articles in this special issue, elucidate the main challenges faced by bilingual teachers when helping their Cantonese-dominant students learn both the content and target language (English) through content and language integrated learning-compatible pedagogies, and give a critical appraisal of their respective contributions to good practices and theory-building in research on translanguaging or classroom code-switching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores language ideologies and language uses in a multilingual university in Hong Kong by exploring the voices and experiences of both mainland Chinese and Hong Kong students. Drawing on the notions of language ideologies, separate multilingualism, and translanguaging, the research illustrates how students' linguistic ideologies are shaped by multilingual encounters in the educational setting and index broader institutional and ideological frameworks and examines the identity positions they construct and present and the social spaces they jointly establish. It also demonstrates that the multilingual university context provides students a site to establish a translanguaging space with hybrid language use in which linguistic resources are employed to perform a range of subject positions and to play a number of roles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to Tsou ( 1978), post-1949 Hong Kong has evolved from a multi-dialectal society to a Cantonese-speaking society, and that not only is the scale of the shift relatively big, its pace is also unusually fast. In addition there appears to be significant differences in the rate of shift among the four dialect groups identified in the study. However a validation of Tsou's observations and a more precise estimation of the pace and scale of the shift have been hampered by (1) the inherent constraints of census data used by Tsou, (2) the loose and inconsistent use of dialect-group labels and (3) the absence of a direct study of the groups concerned. This paper reports the findings of our attempts to address these issues via documentary (census and historical) evidence, and a sociolinguistic survey conducted from 2005-07 among members of the groups concerned. Specifically, findings from our study of the documentary evidence largely corroborate Tsou's observations as they indicate that ( 1) Cantonese-speakers' share of the population increased from somewhere between 51.8% and 57.2% circa 1949 to 88.2% in 1971 ; (2) a significant differential rate in the groups' shift to Cantonese is in evidence albeit the number of dialect groups involved should be seven instead of the aforementioned four. Findings of our sociolinguistic survey of six of the seven groups indicate that (1) bi lingualism is in evidence among most immigrant (G-0) interviewees, suggesting the shift is already in progress among them; (2) the shift to Cantonese with the corresponding loss of native-tongue proficiency is relatively complete among most G-1 and G-2 interviewees but (3) there are sufficient difference in native-tongue retention among the groups to rank them according to this ability in descending order as follows: Weitou, Kejia, Minnan, Chaozhou, Siyi and Shanghainese. Moreover the survey data indicate that ( 4) the shift took place with a relative absence of linguism, and that (5) it might have been facilitated by an apparent multiplicity in the number of factors that the survey participants use to define their nationality. Initial analysis of the data also indicates that the groups' settlement patterns might contribute to the differential rate of shift. It is further observed that Cantonese is not indigenous to Hong Kong, and that this shift may develop in tandem with the emergence of the Hong Kong identity. The shift may also be unique in the context of Modern China as it involves the replacement of the native tongues of both indigenous and immigrant populations by another non-indigenous dialect-group of the same nationality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study on the semantic shift on basic Hong Kong English vocabulary items in China. The study explores the subtle differences between the meanings of these items in standard English and Hong Kong English. Moreover, it emphasizes the process of addressing a gap in the literature on Hong Kong English concerning lexical traps in the form of semantic shift on everyday English items.

During the last two decades of colonial rule, a wide gulf existed between policy and practice in Hong Kong's English-medium secondary schools: while English was the medium of textbooks, assignments and examinations, Cantonese and Cantonese-English mixed code were the dominant media of classroom communication. Although mixed-mode instruction was defended in some quarters, during the 1990s it was regarded in government circles as the main cause of unsatisfactory English standards. To eliminate mixed-mode instruction, and thereby ensure the consistent use of English or Chinese as teaching media, the postcolonial government introduced a controversial language policy in 1998 which permitted only 112 schools to remain English-medium, while most schools were forced to switch their medium of instruction from English to Chinese. This paper presents the findings of an investigation which aimed to gauge the extent to which the new policy has been translated into classroom practice in the 'reformed' English-medium stream. The findings indicate that teachers and students make greater use of English in the classroom than their counterparts during the era of 'mass' English-medium education, although, as might be expected, the language-learning experience provided in the 'reformed' English-medium stream generally falls short of the full immersion programme envisaged by policy makers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at patterns of language use in Hong Kong around the time of the end of colonial rule by Britain in 1997 to identify some of the issues arising in that context from language contact and language shift. Two different models used in the study of multilingualism or bilingualism will be discussed -- language use reflecting function or status (diglossia) and overlapping language forms reflecting linguistic constraints (code-switching). The changes in language use and form in Hong Kong are seen to be more dynamic than traditional models of diglossia or code-switching suggest, which may partly indicate the special history of language contact in Hong Kong, but also may indicate the need for more flexible models of multilingualism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT: 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. [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]

This study seeks to investigate the shift of language practice in Hong Kong and Guangzhou, People's Republic of China. As Hong Kong's sovereignty has been returned to China, Putonghua (Mandarin Chinese) has made its way to Hong Kong, a Cantonese-speaking region with English as its official language in colonial times. In Guangzhou, also a Cantonese-speaking region, Putonghua, the national standard language, is being used in more domains due to the economic development in the region. This study aims to show (1) how social changes such as economic reform and political change are reflected in the choice of language in Guangzhou and Hong Kong; (2) how the shift to language practice is indicated in code-switching between Putonghua and Cantonese in these two regions. The data for the study came from audio-recorded verbal interactions in service encounters. I argue that code-switching between the two languages is an indicator of the changing political and economic situations in these two regions, which have brought about changes in ideology and business practice in current China. Implications for the use of Putonghua in these two regions will also be discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]