Code-switching in Hong Kong

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Code-switching is very apparent in the spoken Cantonese of Hong Kong. It is very common for people in Hong Kong to say "聽日一齊去食lunch吖﹖" (Let's have LUNCH tomorrow) when inviting someone for a meal. Having been under British sovereignty for over 150 years, Hong Kong spoken Cantonese (and sometimes written Chinese) is still heavily influenced by English, particularly the lexicon, which contains numerous English words. Code-switching has become a sociolinguistics phenomenon that is adopted by the society, and is deeply rooted in the everyday lives of Hong Kong people.

Code-switching in Hong Kong is mostly intra-sentential - switching within a sentence or clause. The syntax of the sentence follows Chinese grammatical rules and applies to the English words or phrases that have been inserted into the sentence. For example, being an analytic language, Chinese uses particles instead of verb inflection. In the last example below, the verb book is not changed when being code-switched.

[edit] Why

There are several possible reasons for Hong Kong people to code-switch in their everyday lives. First, it is communicatively efficient. When code-switching is viewed as the norm in a speech community like Hong Kong, it can strengthen communication, especially when both parties understand the English words that are being used. In other words, it is a shortcut to communication.

Second, code-switching can be adopted as a tool to avoid embarrassment. It is a strategy to avoid uttering words or ideas which people might be uncomfortable saying in Cantonese. For example, it would be easier to say I love you in English than its Cantonese counterpart. Other examples in this category include sensitive words like underwear, toilet, gay or feelings such as I'm proud of you or I appreciate it.

Third, as code-switching is more prominent in Hong Kong than in other Cantonese-speaking regions in China, code-switching is most probably adopted as a linguistic habitus of Hong Kong. The fact that Hongkongers code-switch, continue to use traditional Chinese characters, and accord high prestige value to English, is to distinguish themselves from the rest of mainland China.

[edit] Examples

• 我有個project要present. (I have to PRESENT a PROJECT.)
• Instead of 星期一, 不如星期四. (INSTEAD OF Monday, why not Thursday?)
• 我book咗張機票去日本. (I have BOOKED an air ticket to Japan.)

[edit] References

• Chan, Elaine (2002). Beyond Pedagogy: language and identity in post-colonial Hong Kong. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 23 (2), pp. 271-285.
• Chen, Katherine & Carper, Gary (2005). Multilingual Hong Kong: A sociolinguistic case study of code-switching (video recording). Princeton, NJ: Films for the Humanities & Sciences.
• Milroy, Lesley & Muysken, Pieter (1995). One speaker, two languages: Cross-disciplinary perspectives on code-switching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Wright, Sue & Kelly-Holmes, Helen (Eds) (1997). One country, two systems, three languages: a survey of changing language use in Hong Kong. Clevedon, England; Philadelphia: Multilingual Matters.