Expatriate Cantonese Learners in Hong Kong: Adult L2 Learning, Identity Negotiation, and Social Pressure

Language Policy and Cantonese in Hong Kong

In the history of early modern Hong Kong, many expatriates in Hong Kong thought that learning Cantonese was not a must in Hong Kong although Cantonese was and still is a language commonly used by local Hong Kong people in their daily life, in the media and in education (Cheung, 1984). This kind of thinking mainly developed from the fact that English language had been the only official language of government, the language of law and in fact the more prestigious medium of secondary and university education before 1970s. The language situation started to change in 1974, The Official Languages Ordinance started to say that Chinese and English ‘enjoy equality of use’ and measures were taken by the Hong Kong Government to promote this policy. In the Sino-British joint declaration, which determined the arrangements for the Hong Kong 1997 handover issues, the position and status of Chinese was further strengthened. The Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administration Region, Article 9 stated that ‘In addition to the Chinese language, English may also be used as an official language by the executive authorities, legislative and judicial organs of the Hong Kong Administrative Region’. The language policy was summarized in a number of government’s statements as trilingualism and biliteracy (兩文三語), which refers to the promotion of trilingualism—Cantonese, English and Putonghu—and biliteracy in written Chinese and English.