Should Hong Kong be classified into Outer Circle or Expanding Circle?

After reading the powerpoint slides discussing Kachru’s three concentric models of world Englishes, how will you comment on Hong Kong English with this perspective? Should Hong Kong be classified into Outer Circle or Expanding Circle?

The following questions may help if you have no ideas at all.

1. Are there any references such as dictionary and grammar books on Hong Kong English?

2. Can you think of any distinctive vocabularies or sentence structures that are originated from Hong Kong English?

3. Does Hong Kong English accent or phonetic structure exist?

4. Can you name any literature that is written in HK English style?

5. Do you think English is just a foreign language that you will only use when you encounter foreigners?

6. Do you accept the superiority of speaking Hong Kong varieties of English?

7.  Do you think only British standard English is taught in Hong Kong?

8.  Are you aware of Hong Kong English accent that cannot be international understandable?

9. Is Hong Kong English a good model for our next generations to learn?

10. Apart from Cantonese, is English the second official language in Hong Kong?

Answers

Based on the model of language standardization (Haugen, 1966) Hong Kong English should be classified into Expanding circle because the localized variety of Hong Kong English is not institutionized and identified with positive attitudes among local speakers.

Question 1 is related to the codification of HK English. Generally speaking, there are no textbooks, publications or dictionaries related to HK English published so far. Therefore, no norm of speech is formed implying that HK English is in expanding circle.

Question 2 and 3 are related to the selection of HK English linguistic feature. With more and more unique linguistic features of HK English, HK English is said to be moving towards outer circle.

Question 4 to 7 are related to the elaboration of HK English. No matter from the perspective of teaching, daily life usage of English, standardized native-like model is portrayed to be the correct one among HK people and this is the linguistic behavior of norm-dependent so that HK English still remains expanding circle.

Question 8 to 10 are correlated to the acceptance of HK English between HK local people and foreigners. But as we can observe from the language policy and legitimate acknowledgement on English genre, HK English is labeled as the deficient type of English in contrast to the inner circle Englishes.

Source of photo:

http://ws3.dk/?p=131

References:

Haugen, E. (1966). Language Conflict and Language Planning: The case of modern language. Norwegian.Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.