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Patsy Moy

Using English terms and phrases while speaking Chinese is acceptable in the right context and could even help to keep the audience's attention and inject some humour, according to one language professor.

'Premier Zhu Rongji used some English when he was making a public address in the US,' said Dan Lu, assistant professor at the Language Centre at Baptist University.

'He received overwhelming applause after his speech. Do you think he would have received the same amount of applause if his speech had been conducted fully in Chinese?'

Dr Lu said using both languages was meaningful and even necessary on some occasions, such as when trying to avoid embarrassment.

'When we want to criticise someone, it sounds less harsh if we put it in a second language.'

Dr Lu agreed that mixed use of Cantonese and English was common in all walks of life and all classes of people, ranging from academics to street hawkers.

'Almost every bilingual person has a frequent need to use mixed code. Hong Kong is the only place in the world which criticises the use of mixed code and regards it as responsible for the decline in the proficiency in English.

'There is no field experience or empirical data to support this idea,' Dr Lu said.

He said the standard of English among Hong Kong people was 'reasonably good' compared to other similar cities.

But he admitted there was room for improvement.

Tsang Wing-kwong, of the department of educational administration and policy at the Chinese University, said he did not believe that using mixed languages in the classroom would undermine students' skills.

Professor Tsang said previous studies on the controversial issue had been inconclusive.

But Sin Chow-yiu, head of the department of Chinese at the University of Hong Kong, warned that since the handover, it had become necessary for senior officials to be proficient in Chinese.

'In the past [pre-1997], the English language was highly valued but Chinese was ignored. So some high-ranking officials felt it was alright for them to speak only fluent English.

'Some of them might even have intended speaking awkwardly in Cantonese to show they were not Chinese-speaking.

'I cannot be sure of the standard of their Chinese. However, after the handover it became a political reality for them to be proficient in Chinese,' Professor Sin said.

Professor Sin warned that skill in both the English and the Cantonese language was poor among the general public.

He said many people chose to pick up Cantonese slang from television and films rather than learning proper phrases and words from books.

Commenting after a seminar on the use of English in Southeast Asia at Baptist University early this month, English professor Shirley Lim Geok-lin from the University of California in the United States said she was surprised to discover that many Hongkongers were unable to speak English fluently although broken English and 'Chingish' were popular.

'All this surprised me because Hong Kong had been a British colony for 150 years,' she said.

'But why has English never been taken up? A good reason is that Cantonese people are full of pride, they want to reserve their own vitality and their culture.

'At the same time, they do not want to speak English to avoid losing face [if they make mistakes],' she said.

'English is a global language. If Hong Kong is not more focused on teaching English and having the children successfully learning, its competitiveness will be threatened.'

Graphic: LANG26GET



Fusing languages can be good mix, academics say