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11. Hong Kong Language in Context: The Discourse of Ch'u
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11 HongKongLanguageinContext: TheDiscourseofCh'u Ron Scollon Mencius said to Tai Pu-sheng ... 'Suppose a Counsellor of Ch 'u wished his son to speak the language of Ch'i. Would he have a man fromCh'i to tutor his son? Or would he have a man fromCh'u?' He would have a man fromCh'i to tutor his son.' 'With one man fromCh'i tutoring the boy and a host of Ch'umen chattering around him, even though you caned him every day to make him speak Ch 'i, you would not succeed.' Mencius, Book III, Part B. 6 (Lau, 1970, pp. Ill, 112) Since the time of Mencius it has been understood tha t the most natura l outcome o f growin g u p i n a speech community i s to learn to speak i n th e ways of that speech community. Mencius also recognized tha t attempts t o teach one language, the language of Ch'i, when surrounded by a community of speaker s o f anothe r language , th e languag e o f Ch' u (o r a numbe r o f other languages) , is bound t o be a frustrating experienc e a t best. Hong Kon g i s a communit y i n whic h Englis h an d Standar d Writte n Chinese stan d a s languages of Ch'i in a community o f Ch'u speaker s who , as th e researc h studie s collecte d i n thi s volum e ampl y demonstrate , maintain a highl y comple x an d variegate d discourse . T o the exten t tha t social identity is tied to language identity, a key issue in Hong Kong is that of identit y In many way s th e studies indicat e tha t th e essence o f the Hong Kon g identity lies in the ambivalence that comes with learning to be a speaker of Ch'i i n a lan d o f Ch' u speakers . A high socia l value i s placed o n th e Ch' i 278 Ro n Scollon language, English, and increasingly on Putonghua, while an active discourse is maintaine d i n Ch'u , th e vernacular , mixed , an d flui d varietie s o f Cantonese an d othe r language s employe d i n the speech community . The chapter s i n Par t I , 'Languag e Us e Profiles' , mak e i t abundantl y clear tha t Hon g Kon g i s linguistically a highly varied speec h communit y having bot h a significan t numbe r o f varietie s o f Chinese , includin g Putonghua (Pierson , Chapte r 3) , Cantones e (al l chapters) , an d mixe d varieties (Chan, Chapter 7; Li, Chapter 6; Luke, Chapter 5; and Penningto n and Balla , Chapte r 9) , an d a significan t numbe r o f othe r non-Chines e languages i n active use, such as Filipino or Tagalog (Afendras, Chapte r 4 ) and Hindi, Urdu, and Punjabi (Pannu, Chapter 8). While none of the studies specifically treat s o f th e varietie s o f Englis h presen t withi n th e speec h community, there is an equally diverse range of Englishes present in Hon g Kong (Bolto n and Kwok , 1990 ; Pennington, 1995) . Not onl y spoke n language , bu t printe d discourse , especiall y tha t o f newspapers, appear s t o be essentia l t o th e complexit y o f th e Hon g Kon g identity Bacon-Shon e and Bolto n (Chapter 2) point to the very high level s of literac y i n Hong Kong , even from th e earlies t censu s dat a the y surve y The general figures of 87.6% (non-Chinese) and 52.7% (Chinese) in the 1911 census compar e favourabl y wit h th e figur e o f 75 % in Britai n jus t fou r decades earlier (1870 ) as cited by Cook-Gumperz (1986) . Public discourse — local as well as international and overseas—is no w and ha s been fo r a century on e o f the central commodities o f Hong Kon g business. As a n indicatio n o f this , it may b e observe d tha t Hon g...