Hong Kong English

Sun Oct 31 17:51:18 UTC 2004

Anthea:

I am convinced that you are quite the tourist and enjoy drinking
coffee. I drink very little coffee and find tourism to be a sort of
addiction like watching television -- only it is more expensive and
only truly affordable by the world's wealthy.  Thus, we appear to
approach the entire notion of cross-cultural communication differently.

As before, I will address only those issues that I feel worthy. Please
forgive me, if I bypass others. Certainly you are welcome to bring your
points up again, if you give them higher priority.

As I am not familiar with either the Hui 2001 or Bolton 2002 articles,
I am only able to comment on their results as you have presented them.

Firstly, what one thinks about one's own ability, and how other's
perceive it, can lead to very different conclusions. Hong Kongers are
some of the most traveled people in the world. If they are measuring
their own command of English by their ability to find their way along
the world's major tourist routes, one can only wonder about their true
ability. It is one thing to be able to order a cup of coffee in three
languages, find your way to the toilet, and comment on the weather; it
is quite another to hold a lengthy conversation about current events,
sensitive political issues, or differences in cultural value. Also,
Hong Kong is an important East Asian tourist attraction, but most of
Hong Kong's foreign visitors come from other wealthy East Asian
countries such as Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, and Singapore. Among
these only Singaporeans have generally better ability in the English
language than do Hong Kongers. Thus, Hong Kongers overall domestic
standard of international comparison is quite low.

Secondly, I agree with you, when you say that age plays an important
role. Certainly, the 17% of Hong Kongers who claimed that they had no
English ability are probably among the very aged, or they are
immigrants from the Chinese mainland. With a universal English language
(UEL) requirement that extends from primary school to three years of
secondary school and longer, it is difficult to find anyone in Hong
Kong that does not at least no how to say "Hello!" and "Good-bye!".
Does this mean that they are bilingual in any meaningful sense of the
word? Probably not.

Thirdly, my understanding of the nature of language use in Hong Kong
primary and secondary schools appears to be quite different than yours.
Of the 514 certified public secondary schools in Hong Kong 400 of them
qualified as English Medium of Instruction (EMI) schools in 2004. In
order to qualify as an EMI school at least some of the schools
non-language subjects must be taught in English. This could mean
anything from learning from textbooks written in English with
completely Cantonese instruction to actually receiving instruction in
English.

In order to provide you with better perspective let us consider the
results of the 2002 HKCEE results. The HKCEE must be passed by a Form V
student, if he wishes to advance to the senior secondary level and have
a crack at entry into a Hong Kong university. Form V students may
choose to take their non-language examinations in either Chinese or
English. In 2002 40% of those who sat for the HKCEE elected to take
their non-English language examinations (mathematics, history, biology,
etc.) in Chinese. If you consider that only 80% of all Hong Kongers
even bother to sit for the HKCEE, already we are looking at well over
50% of the population between the ages of 15 and 17, who lack
sufficient confidence in the English language to sit for a passive
non-language related examination. The overall failure rate for the
English language test itself is well over 30%. Once again, we are
looking at well over 40% of the population between the ages of 15 and
17 with measured incompetence. Please keep in mind that these students
have spent approximately 20% of their classroom and homework lives for
11 years in pursuit of the English language. In addition, only 20% of
all students pass the second major filter known as the HKAEE at the end
of form VII and not all of these make it into the university. Moreover,
when one looks at the results of those who actually graduate from a
Hong Kong university six years after having passed the HKCEE, one is
astonished by how few are even considered competent users by the IELTS
in terms of English writing and speaking ability.

Before spending a lot of the lists time about something that may be of
interest only to you and me, may I recommend that you download the
HKLNA-Project's first research proposal and read through Appendix 1.
After you have finished the appendix, check out the sections entitled
"Hong Kong's English speaking community" and "Those who would promote
the UEL requirement". If you still insist afterwards that 50% of the
Hong Kong population has sufficient command of the English language to
get by, and that this ability was acquired in Hong Kong, then please
get back to me on the list. I would not want to give Hong Kong a bad
rub that it does not deserve.

The proposal can be obtained at
<http://homepage.mac.com/moogoonghwa/earth/current/hklna/documents/
proposals/030828-1a.pdf>

Cheers,

Hamo

R. A. Stegemann
EARTH's Manager and HKLNA-Project Director
EARTH - East Asian Research and Translation in Hong Kong
http://homepage.mac.com/moogoonghwa/earth/
Tel/Fax: 852 2630 0349

On 29 Oct 2004, at 02:09, Anthea Fraser Gupta wrote:

> Obviously I am very much in sympathy with Aurolyn's views, which were
> expressed in a similar way to mine, and which I would like to endorse.
>
> "Just what do you consider a large proportion of Hong Kongers? Five,
> ten, or fifteen percent who one might consider trilingual? Ten, twenty,
> or thirty percent who one might consider bilingual? For this, all of
> Hong Kong should be considered a trilingual, biliterate territory? This
> is what Hong Kong's Education and Manpower Bureau would have the world
> believe."
>
> As my posting would make clear, I find it difficult to think in terms
> of
> 'a bilingual territory'.  All countries include people who switch
> between languages on a daily basis. But I perceive Hong Kong as more
> bilingual than the UK because a higher proportion of the HK population
> engage in such switching than is the case in the UK.  I also have a
> different definition of 'bilingual' from yours.
>
> As you  must know, knowledge of English is linked to place of origin
> and
> educational experience. Age is a major factor, with the very old being
> less likely to know any English. But something like half of Hong Kong's
> secondary schools are teaching at least partially in the medium of
> English (Hui 2001, quoted in Bolton 2002). Bolton quotes a 1993 in
> which
> 34% of respondents claimed to speak English 'quite well' and better,
> while only 17% claimed they knew no English. I reckon that if around
> half the population can get by in English that is a lot.
>
> "In Hong Kong they have the audacity to call this same phonological
> distortion English."
>
> Dear me.  I guess they speak English with a Hong Kong accent. That's
> fine by me. There are lots of accents of English.
>
> "The next time you are in Hong Kong for anything more than an overnight
> visit, count the number of times that you are asked to spell a word."
>
> When people are faced with unfamiliar accents, it is helpful to clarify
> by using the shared written code. I don't have a problem with this.
>
> " Moreover, the dependency on sound for understanding what one reads in
> the West simply does not exist in the East to the same degree. East
> Asian languages are far more graphic than their Western counterparts.
> As
> such, one often understands what one cannot speak even in one's native
> language. "
>
> I don't know what can be meant by a 'graphic language'.  We all learn
> to
> speak before we become literate. Indeed, many people never do become
> literate. But once we are literate, the writing system becomes a
> resource to exploit.  And plenty of languages in East Asia use an
> alphabet or a syllabary.  (Not to mention those parts of the world
> other
> than 'the West' which are not East Asia.)
>
> "Certainly there are many people who are satisfied with others acting
> as
> go-betweens on their behalf. Then too, most are probably like me, they
> like to be able to find their own way. How about you?"
>
> I speak English adaptively and am prepared to work a bit to understand
> other speakers and to help them understand me.  I speak a lot of other
> languages to different degrees, which range from French (super reading
> skills, especially in academic texts and nineteenth century novels;
> weak
> on current colloquialisms, reliable ability to get fed and watered,
> find
> way around, and understand history and architecture) through German
> (great strengths in vocab associated with Goethe and Schiller...) and
> then deteriorating down to Italian, Mandarin, Bengali, Malay.  I can
> hack it in most Romance and Germanic languages, especially in reading
> them and getting basic wants attended to.  My family regard me as a
> multipurpose tour guide. My greatest ever success was in ordering
> 'Three
> coffees' in Lao (a language I don't speak at all) and getting it right
> enough so that the response was to deliver the coffee and correct my
> pronunciation! I hope that when I am speaking languages badly I will
> run
> into people with Aurolyn's attitude rather than into people with your
> attitude.
>
> Anthea
>
>
> *     *     *     *     *
> Anthea Fraser Gupta (Dr)
> School of English, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT
> <www.leeds.ac.uk/english/staff/afg>
> NB: Reply to a.f.gupta at leeds.ac.uk
> *     *     *     *     *
>
>
>
> 6) If defining a multilingual society means that different people speak
> different languages, and some people speak more than one, then most
> societies are likely multilingual. Certainly there are many people who
> are satisfied with others acting as go-betweens on their behalf. Then
> too, most are probably like me, they like to be able to find their own
> way. How about you?
>
>
> Hamo
>
>
> R. A. Stegemann
> EARTH's Manager and HKLNA-Project Director
> EARTH - East Asian Research and Translation in Hong Kong
> http://homepage.mac.com/moogoonghwa/earth/
> Tel/Fax: 852 2630 0349
>
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