Thursday, May 12, 2005
On Language 5/12: Teaching English in Hong Kong, Or Not
Hong Kong’s students left at a loss for words
Chicago Tribune, May 12, 2005
By Nathan Bierma
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Hong Kong’s linguistic situation is nearly as complex as its political situation. Hong Kong has partial independence as a “special administrative region” of China. Both English and Chinese are official languages of the territory, although English is, in practice, mostly restricted to politics and business, while Chinese is used in the home and in social settings.
To make matters more complicated, the Hong Kong government says it wants students to be “biliterate but trilingual.” That is, students should be able to write in both English and standard written Chinese, and they should be able to fluently speak English, Cantonese (a regional dialect of Chinese spoken in Hong Kong and parts of mainland China) and Putonghua (the spoken equivalent of standard written Chinese, which has its own distinct features).
Dan Lu provides more background by e-mail: