Language And Discourse Issues In Hong Kongs Change Of Sovereignty

The book shows how the study of the evolving discourse employed during a political process spanning more than a decade can provide insights for critical discourse analysis, on the one hand, and understanding of a real world political process on the other, thereby demonstrating the potential role for critical discourse analysis in historiography.

Discursive Change in Hong Kong: Sociopolitical Dynamics, Metaphor, and One Country, Two Systems is an interdisciplinary study of sociopolitical and discursive change in Hong Kong—a westernized Chinese society once under British rule, now decolonized but without independence, and with a constitution promising universal suffrage sometime in the future. Starting off with interesting and frequently contradictory debates surrounding the discussions on the Handover of Hong Kong to mainland China, Jennifer Eagleton provides a stimulating, politically well-informed, and comprehensive “insider” account of many aspects of the press media and official discourse on democracy and political change in Hong Kong as part of “One Country, Two Systems.” The book shows how historical, cultural, and identity issues have shaped and molded post-1997 political discourse and how the seemingly dramatic changes in the city since 2020 may not have been that surprising for long-term observers of Hong Kong. By going beyond consideration of the purely linguistic dimension of the selected texts to encompass the larger historical and socio-political context, and incorporating textual, discursive, and metaphoric analysis over time, this book provides a detailed examination of Hong Kong political discourse and its constituent themes.

The world was watching Hong Kong as its sovereignty was returned to China in 1997. Many predicted that it was the doomsday of press freedom in the city. Now, a decade after the handover, this book provides an up-to-date review of the dynamic relationship between media and political power in the post-handover years. It covers seven key issues including the mapping of the changing boundaries of press freedom, the impact of media ownership change on editorial stance, the development of national and hybrid identities, the tension between self-censorship and media professionalism, the rising importance of government public relations, the power and limits of hegemonic discourse, and the countervailing force posed by collective actions and public opinion. These studies combine to reveal how the media are transformed as power structure is reconfigured and how the media may act upon politics in exerting their roles as the people’s voice. The book will serve as a reference for anyone who is interested in the evolution of political communication in a transitional society.

The dominant view of many linguists and educators has been that Hong Kong English is a variety of the language that is derived from, and dependent on, the metropolitan norm of British English. It has been argued that English in Hong Kong was never 'nativized' as in other Asian societies, and that it has not deserved the recognition accorded to other varieties of Asian English. The contributions to this book challenge that view in a number of ways. In addressing sociolinguistic, structural, and literary issues, they provide an up-to-date survey of current use of Hong Kong English, and redress the question of its autonomy in terms of both distinctive linguistic features and the growing literary creativity of the variety. An original and highly informed discussion on the futures for Hong Kong English, and chapters providing additional resources for the study of the variety, are also included.

"Hong Kong: Past, Present and Future first explores the "non-national" features of Hong Kong citizenship by analysing its development in relation to three key features: people's identities, uneven political participation, and the development of civil society. The subsequent study explores ideological detachment from ideas of "nation-ness", if English language discourse is to produce a stable model of Hong Kong identity. The authors examine the discourses of young people and older people pertaining to socio-political issues concerning Hong Kong, reviewing major research studies conducted in Hong Kong on young people's attitudes towards the society. The closing review provides an extensive summary on phonetics and phonology research on Hong Kong English in the past two decades, and also discusses how the codification and standardisation of Hong Kong English would aid in its development"--

This paper traces the democratic development of Hong Kong from its beginnings as a Crown Colony of the United Kingdom to its current status as a Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China, paying special attention to the political issues that led to widespread street protests in 2014. Those protests, dubbed 'Occupy Central', grew in part from a longstanding tension between the desires of the people to have a greater role in policy-making through democratic representation, and the desires of successive governments to focus on stability and economic growth. Both before and after the restoration of Chinese sovereignty over Hong Kong in 1997, local governments have attempted to manage this tension by advancing rhetoric regarding the 'rule of the law' as THE central principle of local governance, accompanying it with a series of minor reforms. Yet, though Hong Kong's institutions of representative government have evolved substantially over time, it remains the case that the power of the average resident to give effect to her political values through electing representatives to government remains substantially weaker than elsewhere in the developed world. This paper suggests that though Hong Kongers have often appeared to accept that adherence to the 'rule of law' in the territory negates this democratic deficit, Occupy Central indicates that this tolerance may be weakening. Moreover, analysis of the language deployed by both the government and the protestors during Occupy Central reveals a troubling shift to a virtually value-free conception of the rule of the law, in which serious questions about institutions and the relationship between the citizen and the state are shifted aside in favor of populist questions about 'law-breaking'. This change in the discourse that surrounds the rule of law in Hong Kong is an unwelcome development, and in the long run harmful.

This dissertation, "Official Language Policy in Hong Kong: With Particular Reference to the Legislative Council" by Lung-shan, Peter, Chung, 鍾龍山, was obtained from The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong) and is being sold pursuant to Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License. The content of this dissertation has not been altered in any way. We have altered the formatting in order to facilitate the ease of printing and reading of the dissertation. All rights not granted by the above license are retained by the author. Abstract: Abstract of dissertation entitled Official Language Policy in Hong Kong, with particular reference to the Legislative Council submitted by Chung Lung Shan, Peter for the degree of Master of Arts at The University of Hong Kong in July 2003 This study aims at analysing Hong Kong's official language policy, which pivots on the Official Languages Ordinance in 1974 and the subsequent amendments in 1986, in the administration, legislation, judiciary and education domains. Special reference is made to the Legislative Council and its secretariat. Specific issues to be addressed in this study include: (a) The official language policy of the Hong Kong Government at different times; (b) The social and political background against which the official language policy was formulated; (c) The implementation details of the policy in various domains; (d) Relevance of the development in the past with the present and the future; and (e) Roles of the Legislative Council in the formulation and implementation of the official language policy in Hong Kong and the effects of the policy on the membership of the Council and the practices of its secretariat. Through detailed examination and analysis of the relevant government papers and documents, as well as the data and tables compiled from various sources, the present study suggests that the official language policy of Hong Kong has always been formulated according to its social and political situation. During the colonial time, English had been the de jure and de facto sole official language while Chinese was allowed in the colony without government interference. After the Second World War, because of the change in social and political situation, consideration was given to making Chinese one of the official languages. There is strong evidence showing that the Chinese Language Committee appointed by Governor David Trench in 1968 charted the course of the change in Hong Kong's official language policy between the 1970s and 1990s. The enactment of the Official Languages Ordinance in 1974 pronounced the government's official languages policy for communication between the government institutions and the general public. The amendments to the Official Languages Ordinance, the establishment of the Chinese Language Division under the Civil Service Branch and the expansion of the Office of the Unofficial Members of the Executive and Legislative Councils were responses to the political reality after the signing of the Sino-British Joint Declaration in 1984. In 1995 and 1996, the Report of the Working Group to Review the Use of Chinese in the Civil Service and the Education Commission Report No.6 prepared for the substantial change of the government's policy to give Chinese a de facto equal, if not superior, status after the return of Hong Kong's sovereignty to China in 1997. The establishment of the Standing Committee on Language and Research in 1996 and its Action Plan published in 2003 symbolize another major change in the official language policy of Hong Kong, especially towards the wider use of Putonghua. There are signs showing that Hong Kong is preparing for a substantial change in its language policy which may extend into every corner of the Special Administrative Region. DOI: 10.5353/th_b2676574 Subjects: Language policy - China - Hong

This volume offers a view of the linguistic situation in Hong Kong in the final years of the twentieth century, as it enters the post-colonial era. In the chapters of this book, scholars from Hong Kong and around the world present a contemporary profile of Chinese, English, and other languages in dynamic interaction in this major international economic centre. Authors survey usage of different languages and attitudes towards them among students, teachers, and the general population based on census data, newpapers, language diaries, interviews, and questionnaires. They address issues of code-mixing, the shift from English-medium to Chinese-medium education, the place of Putonghua in the local language mix, and the language of minority groups such as Hong Kong Indians.This wide-ranging group of original studies provides a social and historical perspective from which to consider developments in language among the past, present, and future populations of Hong Kong.