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2 Charting฀Multilingualism:฀Language฀Censuses฀and฀ Language฀Surveys฀in฀Hong฀Kong฀ John Bacon-Shone and Kingsley Bolton ABSTRACT฀ The chapter reviews census and language survey data to present a comprehensive, longitudina l surve y o f th e comple x patter n o f multilingualism an d languag e diversit y i n Hong Kon g ove r th e twentieth century. INTRODUCTION฀ Throughout th e 1980s , on e basi c assumptio n whic h underla y man y commentaries o n the local language situation was that Hong Kon g was a n overwhelmingly monolingual Cantonese-speaking community and that the extent o f individual bilingualis m i n the community wa s severel y limite d (see Lord and T'sou , 1985 ; Luke and Richards , 1982; Quirk, 1986) . To some extent, the belief tha t Hong Kong is essentially a monoethnic, monolingua l community ha s persisted int o the 1990s. For example, So (1992) expresse s this widely-held vie w whe n h e states , almost axiomatically , tha t "Hon g Kong i s essentiall y a monolingua l Cantonese-speakin g societ y wher e English is used i n only a restricted numbe r o f domains"(p. 79). This chapte r set s ou t t o challeng e th^ e myt h o f Hon g Kon g a s a monolingual societ y by reviewin g a wide rang e o f empirical researc h o n multilingualism in the Hong Kong speech community1 It does this throug h a discussio n o f macrosociolinguisti c researc h draw n chiefl y fro m tw o sources. First, we collate and evaluate language census data from a numbe r 44฀Joh n฀Bacon-Shone฀and฀Kingsley฀Bolton฀ of censuses administered i n the period 1911-1991 . Second, we consider th e findings o f two major sociolinguisti c surveys carried out in the communit y in 1983 and 199 3 (Bacon-Shone and Bolton , forthcoming; Bolton and Luke , 1997). The picture that emerges suggests that multilingualism and linguisti c diversity (eve n in the Chinese languag e community ) hav e been generall y underestimated i n th e past . I t also suggest s tha t bilingualism i n Chines e and Englis h increase d ver y rapidl y i n th e year s 1983-1993 , an d tha t knowledge o f Putonghu a als o gre w remarkabl y throughou t th e sam e period. I t i s a picture wher e th e boundarie s o f th e Hon g Kon g speec h community n o longe r hal t a t th e L o Wu border , o r thre e mile s sout h o f Stanley, bu t reac h oversea s t o Sydney , Sa n Francisco , Toront o an d Vancouver. The firs t par t o f this chapte r review s an d comment s o n th e results o f the seve n Hon g Kon g governmen t censuse s between 191 1 and 1991 . The second par t look s a t languag e survey s i n th e community , payin g clos e attention t o two sociolinguisti c survey s carrie d ou t i n 198 3 and 199 3 an d the final sectio n provides a commentary o n patterns of multilingualism i n Hong Kong . HONG฀KONG฀GOVERNMENT฀CENSUSES฀1911-1991฀ The firs t censu s figure s o n th e language s o f Hon g Kon g dat e fro m 1911 . Although a number o f importan t censuse s wer e carrie d ou t durin g th e period fro m 1841-1906 , it was not until 1911 that censuses administered b y the Hong Kong government began to include questions that dealt with th e language background s o f its colonial subjects . The฀1911฀Census฀ The total population o f Hong Kon g in 1911 was 456 739. In the census on e question deal t specificall y wit h th e 'home language ' o f respondents. Thi s question required respondent s t o give information abou t 'Dialect s spoke n in th e hom e fo r Chines e Populatio n o f th e Colony' . Th e result s fo r thi s question constitute d th e firs t result s...

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