Current Issues In Language and Society
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Volume: 3 Number: 2 Page: 166–179
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English in Hong Kong: Emergence and Decline
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John E. Joseph
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The current situation of English in Hong Kong is the subject of two competing discourses, a public one centred on the decline of language standards, and an academic one centred on the emergence of a distinctive
Hong Kong English. It is not the case that one is right and the other wrong; they are two ways of looking at the same linguistic development, and both have validity for their very different purposes. After
considering the social changes behind the `decline' account, this paper examines the grounds for recognising an emerging Hong Kong English. It then looks at how various political changes might affect a
future Hong Kong identity, such that Hong Kong English might eventually become a public reality as well as an academic one.
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