ANALYSIS

 

The interviews allow viewers to see language through different lenses. With regard to the diverse views of languages of the interviewees, an attempt to analyze such diversity will be provided in this page. With the support of our interview results and theories learnt in lectures and from the reading materials, the following analysis focuses on i) summarising the major trends of the usage of minority languages in Hong Kong and proposing factors that may contribute to such phenomena; and ii) providing explanations on the reasons why the interviewees and local people hold such attitudes toward the languages. The proposed explanations will be supported with evidence from the interviews.

 

USAGE

 

1. Most of our interviewees reflected that they have quite a lot of chances to speak their mother tongues

 

HONG KONG: A METROPOLOSIS FAVOURING CULTURAL DIVERSITY

This could be susceptible to the reason that Hong Kong is a society which favours and nurtures cultural and linguistic diversity. One of our interviewee, Amruth, mentioned that he couldn’t feel rules or barriers that obstruct him from speaking his mother tongue. Even though some of our interviewees told us that locals would look at them if they speak their native languages in the public area, they didn't feel embarassed or ashamed at all. They don’t consider the look from the others as an obstacle to their wills to speak their mother tongues as they understand people are just curious about and unfamiliar with their languages.

 

A CONSIDERABLE PROPOTION OF ETHNIC MINORITIES IN HONG KONG: EASY FOR MINORITY LANGUAGES SPEAKERS TO FIND PEOPLE SPEAKING THE SAME LANGUAGE

Moreover, as an international city, there are quite a lot native speakers of different languages in Hong Kong. All our interviewees can find other native speakers of their mother tongue without much difficulties. For example, an interviewee who speaks Punjabi, Sumrit said that he can join the celebration of an Indian festival with many Punjabi native speakers in Happy Valley every year. And according to the Census and Statistics Department’s Thematic Report on Ethnic Minorityies (2011), there are about 450,000 ethnic minorities in Hong Kong. There are also various associations related to the minority languages in Hong Kong, such as Punjabi Youth Club Hong Kong and Indian Association Hong Kong. There are plentiful online forums like AsiaXPAT (http://hongkong.asiaxpat.com/) which serve as online platforms that help foreigners find their own people and even communicate in their own languages on the forum. Therefore, since it is not hard for the native speakers to find people who share the same mother tongue in Hong Kong, it could be speculated that the linguistic minorities enjoy a favourable environment that ecnourages them to utilise their language.

 

PERSONAL TRAITS OF SOCIALISATION

Another important factor that may affect the frequency of the interviewees’ usage of their languages is their own personal traits of socialisation. Some of them are: the proportion of local acquiantences and those from his/her race speaking the same mother tongue, what languages s/he chooses to communicate with others (even with his/her people), his/her willingness to share his/her mother tongue.

 

2.   All our interviewees use English as the means of communication with the non-speakers of their mother tongue. 

 

This indicates that English is the lingua franca for the ethnic minorities in Hong Kong. Hong Kong is in the ‘Outer Circle’ according to ethnographic distinction by Kachru (1983). When Hong Kong was still a British colony, the colonial government felt they had the duty to promote English in Hong Kong in order to promote international trade in Hong Kong and to promote British interest (Pennycook, 1998). With its continuous effort in popularising English in legislative, executive and civil services, along with the promotion of English in education system, industry and commerce, English has already become the second language for most Hong Kong people for more than half a century. As a global language, English acts as the lingua franca in Hong Kong and the vital language for communication with the world and foreign elites. In addition to the fact that all our interviewees (either students or professor) have life bonded to school and have a certain proficiency in English, English would be the most convenient communication medium for the ethnic minorities and local people.

 

 

 

ATTITUDE

The interviewees show diverse attitudes towards their mother tongue and presnet different thoughts on how the Hong Kong citizens view their language. In this part, we attempt to analysis the underlying causes of the results of our interviews.

 

First, we will provide possible explanations that construct the interviewees’ positive attudtide towards their own languages.

 

Second, we will present our proposition of the three determining factors that may affect the locals’ attitudes towards those minority languages. They are:

 

 a) The attitude towards the culture represented by the language

 b) The perception on the socio-economic status of the people speaking that language

 c) The international status of the nation using that language

 

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Interviewees' attitudes towards their own languages

 

All interviewees hold a positive attitude towards their mother tongue despite of their different socio-economic status. They all told us they like their mother tongues. Some are even proud of their languages, a particular one of them is Simon who speaks Korean. The reason behind is that the language is their first language. The interviewees did not consider the status of the language in the world while they express their attitude.

 

Baker (1988) once suggests one's choice of favoring his/her mother tongue or any other language is due to various social, economic and political reasons. One's decision of maintaining or shifting a language to or from mother tongue is related with sentimental and instrumental orientation toward that language. (Hofman & Cais, 1984:151). Sentimentalism usually accounts for the preference of mother tongue based on an emotionalised attitude without satisfactory reasons, while shifting from mother tongue to other language with respect to economic concerns is due to instrumentalism. 

 

Our interviewees' attitudes towards the mother tongue are mostly based on their emotions, which is a sentimental judgement. Moreover, Sumrit, the Punjabi speaker who has learnt Punjabi from his father, said that he would like to teach his children Punjabi so as to pass the language on. It is a kind of inheritance, which is another sentimental approach of the language. Also, They are all willing to teach their children their mother tongues. Most of them thought it is good to learn more languages. This may related to the language status and the speakers’ socio-economic status. One interviewee, Amruth, mentioned that ‘a particular language helps find jods in a particaular field’, like it is easier for a Tamil speaker to get a job in South India. Letting their children learn more languages seems to help their children to have more job oppotunities and hence a higher socio-economic status. Yet, Amrita, who is a native speaker of Hindi and Indonesian but speaks English the most in her home and with her friends, takes an instrumentalist approach by saying that her two native languages only have little importance in the world's economy and thus viewing them as not that important to excel in using those languages.

 

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Three determining factors that may affect the locals’ attitudes towards those minority languages

 

 

 a) The attitude towards the culture represented by the language

 

 

As Jian (2000) suggests, “language simultaneously reflects culture, and is influenced and shaped by it. In the broadest sense, it is also the symbolic representation of a people, since it comprises their historical and cultural backgrounds, as well as their approaches to life and their ways of living and thinking” (328). People’s perception of a language is mainly determined by their attitude towards the culture represented by the language. We can illustrate this proposition in Hong Kong by examining the status of European languages in the city. European language courses such as French, Spanish and German courses are ubiquitous in various educational institutions: Tertiary institutions such as the University of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong Baptist University are offering bachelor-degree programmes of German, French and other European languages, while myriads of official and private language learning cetnres in Hong Kong open those language classes at all levels. At the same time, the Hong Kong Government also initiates cultural programmes such as Le French May and German Bierfest in Hong Kong which attract many locals to experience those cultures, while TVB introduced interior-design and food programmes produced in France (1x5 Des Espaces et des Idées (2013) and Fourchette & Sac à Dos (2013)). This shows prevalence of a culture in the society facilitate public interest and knowledge of the language.

 

Poon (2010) reinfroces the relationship between people’s attitude towards culture and a language in her research Language use, language policy and planning in Hong Kong: “people learn foreign language like French, Spanish because they aspire to the high culture of Europe” (12), while the growing popularity of Korean films and popular music also encourages the Hong Kong locals to learn Korean as a foreign language. Our Korean interviewee Simon mentioned that he believed Hong Kong people generally hold a welcoming and positive attitude towards Korean and he also relates this phenomenon to the hype of Korean popular cultures in Hong Kong.

 

On the other hand, the Punjabi-speaker Sumrit often encounters judgemental looks in the MTR when he speaks Punjabi with his friends. He also suggests the relationship between people’s attitude towards Punjabi with the people’s general stereotypical impression and disdain of their Sikh outfits and turbans, and sometimes also their smell. In fact, China Real Time published a news article “Hong Kong’s ‘Embarrassing’ Racial Attitudes” that features a survey about Hong Kong people’s tolerance of ethnic minorities. The results show that less than half of the 1860 respondants would feel comfortable having Africans, Nepalese, Filipinos, Indians and Pakistani in their personal lives, for example as friends or spouses. This shows that a correlation bewteen people’s attitudes towards a culture and that towards a language do exist.

 

Our Sri Lankan interviewwee Amruth states that people are generally curious about or ignorant of both his languages. In fact, before interviewing him, our group, same as most of the Hong Kong citizens as we would speculate, thought Sri Lankan would spoke a unified “Sri Lankan” language. Not only did we finished interviewing Amruth did we realise Sri Lanka speak two major languages and share those languages with neighbour countries like India. At the same time, few Hong Kongers have good understanding of Sri Lankan culture. This could suggest that ignorance of a language is usually associated with unfamiliarity of that culture, reflecting yet again the unseperable relationship bewteen a culture and a language.

 

 

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