Media

HKU Social Sciences Research Centre announces
“Language use, proficiency and attitudes in Hong Kong” survey findings

24 Aug 2015

This report concerns a research project (funded by the Public Policy Research Funding Scheme of the Central Policy Unit, HKSARG) carried out by the Social Sciences Research Centre of the University of Hong Kong which involved (i) the conduct of a community-wide language survey from August 2014 – January 2015; and (ii) the detailed analysis of language data from the 2011 Census of the HKSAR. The results of the project have the potential to contribute to a much greater understanding of patterns of language acquisition, language use and multilingualism within the Hong Kong community; and will contribute to a much fuller understanding of language acquisition, language use and multilingualism within the Hong Kong community.

Key results from this project include:

Confirmation that Cantonese remains the key language for oral communication in many settings in Hong Kong;

Strong evidence that the Hong Kong community is becoming increasingly trilingual, as a strong majority of young people claim knowledge of all three of Hong Kong’s major spoken languages;

Data that shows that English remains an important language of the workplace, especially for written communication;

Results that highlight the diverse multilingualism of Hong Kong society with at least 27 major and minor languages;

Language maps that show groups of language speakers are distributed unevenly across the HKSAR;

That nearly all of Hong Kong’s younger citizens who speak South Asian languages also speak English, and many also speak Cantonese, in contrast with older South Asian language speakers, many of whom speak neither Cantonese, nor Putonghua nor English.

Policy recommendations:

• That the HKSAR government should continue to promote its stated policy of ‘trilingualism and biliteracy’ in the HKSAR, with the implications of continuing economic benefits of communication with the Mainland and the rest of the world in English and Putonghua and the social and cultural benefits of the continuing strength of Cantonese.

• That the government consider ways in which high-level proficiency in both oral and written English and simplified written Chinese might be more effectively promoted through Hong Kong’s education system, given the evidence in this report that the numbers estimated to be high-level performers in these three varieties is noticeably low with the implication that although the number of trilingual in Hong Kong are increasing, the number with high level proficiency is still relatively small, which hampers the high level of communication needed in executive level communication in business and government.
• That the government consider framing ‘biliteracy’ to encompass literacy in both traditional and simplified Chinese characters, with the implication that Simplified characters are important for national communication but there are currently relatively low levels of proficiency at present, while Traditional characters remain essential to preservation of Hong Kong culture. 
• That the government redouble its efforts to provide appropriate Chinese-as-a-Second-Language programmes for second language Chinese speakers, such as South Asian language speakers and immigrants, so as to allow these residents full access to the community, with the implication that although many younger South Asians have a command of spoken Cantonese, there remains a serious challenge is providing adequate and relevant teaching in literacy in written Chinese to the whole community as well as oral Cantonese to older members.
• That the government cease the inaccurate labelling of resident South Asian language speaking students as non-Chinese speaking (NCS) students and instead use the more accurate and less discriminatory term of ‘Second Language Chinese speaking’ (SLCS) students with the implication that this label is highly misleading and potentially discriminatory and the term ‘Second Language Chinese speaking’ (SLCS) is not only linguistically accurate, but also non- discriminatory, exclusionary and discouraging.
• That the government require that all research funded with government money should normally be made fully public, as is already the case for research funded from the Public Policy Research Funding scheme of the Central Policy Unit and most research funded by Food and Health Bureau, but not currently the case for research funded by the Standing Committee on Language Education and Research (SCOLAR) for language research that they fund from the Language Fund. Other jurisdictions have long recognised that publicly funded research is a public good that needs maximum publicity and access to ensure the maximum benefit to the community.
• That ethnic minority residents be recognised as constituting distinct language speaking groups with different characteristics living in different localities, as the language maps in this report illustrate with the implication that full recognition of the cultural and social capital from minorities will enhance Hong Kong’s position as China's leading financial and services centre, a great place to live and as Asia's world city.
• That future Censuses collect data on all the spoken and written languages of the HKSAR with the implication that only if the HKSARG records a full list of these languages will we have a full record of multilingualism in Hong Kong and show how competitive it is with the multilingualism that London is so proud of.
• That the government and society in the HKSAR fully value the multilingualism of the community as a valuable resource, rather than regarding this as a problem. The implication is that multilingualism and multiculturalism represent key Hong Kong values and should contribute to 'the Hong Kong advantage' regionally and globally.

For reply and enquiries, please contact Mr. Chiu Lam of HKU Social Sciences Research Centre at tel: 3917 1600 or e-mail: chiulam@ssrc.hku.hk.