Quick viewing(Text Mode)

Lifestyle Diglossia

1

Faculteit Letteren & Wijsbegeerte

Multilingual :

A comparative study of diglossia in and

Charlotte Martens Prof. Christoph Anderl

Masterproef voorgelegd tot het behalen van de master Oosterse Talen en Culturen: Sinologie

2015-2016

3

Preface During the courses of ‘linguistic research: East Asia’ last year my interest in the linguistic diversity that actually characterizes Chinese was aroused. To be fair, before these courses I barely was aware of the fact that the I had been studying for three years could diversify in so many different ways. The particular interest I developed during these courses in the Chinese dialects, how they relate to one another and the profound efforts of the Chinese government nowadays to keep linguistic standards to a certain extend unified, guided me towards the particular research subject I have chosen for this M.A. thesis. During writing I have encountered difficulties especially in the development of my theoretical framework, which required the learning of certain fundamental linguistic and sociolinguistic concept in a very short period of time. Also the fact that my knowledge of is limited to the basic sentences ‘néih hóu’ and ‘néih giu(jouh) mātyéh méng a’ (‘Hello’ and ‘What’s your name?’) has in a way impeded my research. Nonetheless, closely studying Cantonese and its current status in the linguistic ecology of ‘Greater China’ has not only motivated me to extend my knowledge of this particular Sinitic language but also made me much more aware of what it means to know and use more than one language. Consequently, as an inhabitant of a country wich claims to have three officially recognized I felt, in a way, connected to this research subject.

Charlotte Martens, May 23, 2016

5

Acknowledgements I am grateful to my supervisor, Prof. Christoph Anderl, whose expertise, understanding, generous guidance and support made it possible for me to work on a topic that was of great interest to me; it was a pleasure working with you. Furthermore I would like to express my gratitude to Dr. Mathieu Torck for providing additional guidance and support during the seminar courses: your unrelenting stream of assignments and deadlines related to the thesis has always kept me working carefully and diligently. Last but not least I cannot afford not to mention Jensen Vercamer for his general support and advice; you have helped me in many different ways.

Index

List of abbreviations ...... 3

List of figures ...... 4

List of tables ...... 5

Introduction ...... 6

1 Theoretical framework ...... 10 1.1 Previous Research ...... 10 1.2 Conceptual and methodological frameworks ...... 12 1.2.1 Instrumental and integrative approach ...... 12 1.2.2 Diglossia ...... 13 1.3 China’s diglossia ...... 14 1.3.1 Seven Sinitic varieties ...... 15 1.3.2 One ...... 17 1.4 Cantonese: general characteristics ...... 20 1.4.1 Geographical history ...... 20 1.4.2 A genuine regional standard ...... 22 1.4.3 Linguistic features: a contrastive analyses with Putonghua ...... 23

2 Guangdong critical diglossia: State-sponsored language distribution ...... 29 2.1 The promotion of Putonghua and SMC (“H”) ...... 29 2.1.1 Language Planning and language policy ...... 30 2.1.2 Corpus-status-acquisition ...... 30 2.1.3 The Language Law and other contemporary regulations ...... 33 2.2 The importance of cultural identity: Cantonese (“L”) ...... 39 2.2.1 Signs of local language activism ...... 39 2.2.2 Affections towards Cantonese ...... 41 2.3 Guangdong critical diglossia summarized ...... 42

3 HKSAR critical diglossia: pragmatic trilingualism ...... 44 3.1 Historical approach: victim of linguistic imperialism ...... 44 3.1.1 English (“H”) during the British rule ...... 45 3.1.2 Cantonese (“L”) and Hong Kong cultural identity ...... 46 3.1.3 1997: Questioning the high-low distribution ...... 48 3.2 Current language planning: pragmatic trilingualism ...... 50

1

3.2.1 Laissez-faire tactics ...... 50 3.2.2 Active agents of pragmatic language choice ...... 53 3.3 Hong Kong critical diglossia summarized ...... 55

4 HKSAR and Guangdong: lifestyle diglossia ...... 56 4.1 Changing lifestyles, changing language practices ...... 56 4.2 Internationalization, localization and mainlandization ...... 57 4.3 Reversing theories: Hongkongization ...... 58 4.3.1 Increasing closer economic and cultural ties ...... 59 4.3.2 Is there something like hongkongization? ...... 61 4.4 Urbanization as a new research angle ...... 62 4.5 Redefining diglossia in the light of sociocultural processes ...... 64

5 Discussion and conclusion ...... 66 5.1 HKSAR and Guangdong diglossia compared ...... 66 5.2 Analyzing perspectives of the current language distributions ...... 67 5.3 Limitations of the research ...... 68 5.4 Conclusion ...... 69

References ...... 71

2

List of abbreviations

HKSAR Hong Kong Special Administrative Region 6 PRC People’s Republic of China 6 SMC Standard Modern Chinese 15 CCP Chinese Communist Party 30 MOE Ministry of Education (of the PRC) 34 PRD Pearl River Delta 59

3

List of figures

Fig. 1 Geographical distribution of the Sinitic Languages 17

Fig. 2 Cantonese tonal system 24 Fig. 3 Mandarin initial 25 Fig. 4 Cantonese initial consonants 26 Fig. 5 Slogans for the National Publicity Week for Putonghua Promotion 38 Fig. 6 Daily reports on ‘Cantonese Day’ 39 Fig. 7 HKSAR diglossia according to Snow (2004) 48 Fig. 8 HKSAR diglossia according to Liang (2015) 54

4

List of tables

Table 1 Use of the suffix 子 25 Table 2 Similar pronunciations of Cantonese and Putonghua 26 Table 3 Grammatical function words 27 Table 4 Direct object precedes indirect object 28 Table 5 follows verbal predicate 28

5

Introduction

For those who do not know a lot about China and its linguistic features, the diversity that actually characterizes what is commonly known as ‘Chinese’ or ‘Mandarin’ is probably astonishing. During the past century this diversity, encompassed by the Sinitic language family, has been the subject of intense linguistic and sociolinguistic research.1 However it is not only the linguistic diversity in itself that makes Chinese such an interesting research subject, also the way the several historical stages an geographical variants of this linguistic continuum relate to one another and how this is exhibited in the contemporary Chinese language situation is worth investigating.2 A particularly interesting relationship that can be observed in the Chinese linguistic ecology today is the one between China’s National Standard, Putonghua (普通话; common speech) and Cantonese, a dialect mainly spoken in South-China. After Mandarin, which served as the basis for Putonghua, Cantonese is the single most examined Sinitic language. It enjoys an unusual status among other regional dialects because of its long-lasting position as a genuine regional standard,3 its de facto official status in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (hereafter: HKSAR)4 and its that is still in use up till today.5 A few decades ago, in particular in the light of the Hong Kong 1997 handover, the history, status and linguistic features of Cantonese as well as its relationship with Putonghua became the subject of a great deal of literature. 6 This was complemented more recently with several sociolinguistic surveys investigating the language attitudes of Cantonese speakers, mainly from an instrumental-integrative perspective. 7 What is remarkable about these surveys is that all of them chose to either investigate the attitudes of Cantonese speakers within the borders of the People’s Republic of China (hereafter: PRC),

1 Ramsey, 1987; Norman, 1988; Sun, 2006; Wang & Sun, 2015. 2 Erbaugh, 1995: 80. 3 This paraphrasing from Ramsey (1987: 99) will be used during this thesis to refer to the specific prestigious status that is generally associated with Cantonese. See following chapters (1.4.2). 4 Ramsey, 1987: 100; Bauer and Benedict, 1997: xxxi. 5 Bauer, 1988: 246 6 Hashimoto, 1972; Bauer, 1988; Matthews & Yip, 1994; Bruche-Schulz, 1997; Bauer & Benedict, 1997; Snow, 2004. 7 Kalmar et al., 1987; Kwok, 2004; Lai, 2001, 2005, 2011, 2012; Liang, 2014: 91-116, 119-149. The integrative- instrumental approach will be explained in later chapters (2.2.1). 6

more specifically the inhabitants of Guangdong province, or either aim their research to those inhabiting HKSAR.8 Both regions have in common that a vast majority of their population are native speakers of Cantonese. Moreover they are not only narrowly connected with the Cantonese language but also with the strong sense of cultural identity that goes with it: Guangdong is generally seen as its cradle, whereas Hong Kong is regarded as its center today. In the past, the linguistic situations in Guangdong and Hong Kong-or the archipelago where it belongs to- were more or less the same, however the ceding of Hong Kong to the British Crown in 1842 marked the beginning of a political, economical and cultural split that would last for more than a century. Not surprisingly, like many other social and cultural aspects, also the linguistic situation of both regions developed in different directions. Consequently, these different sociolinguistic situations were one of the challenges policymakers had to face when Hong Kong was returned to the Chinese Mainland in 1997. In the light of this reunification a contrastive analyses will be made of the linguistic situations in today’s Guangdong and Hong Kong. More specifically we will investigate how different languages are distributed in an unequal fashion and why this asymmetrical distribution came into being. Consequently the sociolinguistic phenomenon of diglossia will be of particular interest for this thesis. Diglossia can be defined as a linguistic situation in which a certain speech community uses two languages in clearly distinct functions and by which one language is regarded as high and another as low.9 Already in 1959 Ferguson made a profound description of diglossia and his theory has been expanded by numerous scholars ever since; however, it is the very recent approach of Mukul Saxena,10 in which the classical notion of diglossia is revised and divided into critical diglossia on the one hand and lifestyle diglossia on the other, that will be used to describe Guangdong and HKSAR linguistic situations and the divergent ways they have developed over time. Comparing the Guangdong and HKSAR diglossic situations, it will be the aim of this thesis to indicate differences and similarities in the way language policies and practices generally impose the current diglossic situations. Subsequently, sociocultural processes that enable diglossia to develop from below also will be discussed. Ultimately we want to suggest the perspectives of diglossia in both regions as one, hereby make an assumption of the status

8 There is also a noticeable quantitative difference as there are significantly more surveys conducted in HKSAR then in Guangdong. We have not found any particular reasons for this in other literature, though would suggest that perhaps British colonial rule provided the opportunities for the development of a strong linguistic tradition. 9 Ferguson, 1959: 325, 328-235. A more profound definition will be given in following chapters (2.2.2). 10 Saxena, 2014: 92-95. 7

of Cantonese as a genuine regional standard in the future. As no surveys were conducted for this thesis we will also aim to pave the way for more profound and extensive research concerning this matter. Chapter I will give a status quaestionis and briefly explains the phenomenon of diglossia. Furthermore, this will be linked to the instrumental-integrative approach. Diglossia is relevant for the contemporary Chinese language situation in many respects: despite the widespread notion of ‘one Chinese language’, diversity in China’s linguistic ecology can hardly be denied. This diversity is embodied in the Sinitic language family that comprises all regional variants spoken in inner China. 11 The Sinitic language family is furthermore classified in seven main groups of which Cantonese or Yue will be highlighted as the focus of this thesis. Consequently, a brief description of the general characteristics of this group seemed indispensable. Chapter II describes Guangdong’s critical diglossia as having a strong political dimension: the implementation of PRC language policies in the region is currently resulting in a stable high-low language distribution between respectively Putonghua and Cantonese. This not only becomes clear in the practical outlines of Chinese language planning today, but is also exhibited in the apparently accelerating feelings of cultural identity among the Cantonese speaking population. Chapter III subsequently will describe critical diglossia in HKSAR. Both the regions history as a British colony as well as its particular demographic evolution has shaped its unique diglossia today. Whereas political intervention is upholding a strong diglossic situation in Guangdong it can be observed that the organic and pragmatic way in which HKSAR critical diglossia evolved has caused it to be increasingly complicated: apparently, English, Putonghua and Cantonese are currently occupying the high-low axis.12 Finally, chapter IV discusses lifestyle diglossia for both regions. The reunification of Hong Kong with the Mainland has put into motion several processes that are currently influencing language attitudes in at least one of these regions. Furthermore, also other sociocultural processes that influence the linguistic situation, such as urbanization, need to be taken into account. Conclusively, it is suggested how future research from the perspective of these sociocultural processes might shred new light on the development of current Guangdong and HKSAR diglossia.

11 Excluding the languages of ethnic minorities. 12 Snow, 2004: 17. 8

Chapter V eventually will contain a discussion and conclusion. This will be a diptych in which the current diglossic situations of Guangdong and HKSAR will be compared on the one hand and the potential perspectives of these high-low distributions are speculated on the other. In the first part a contrastive analyses between Guangdong and HKSAR will be made in order to overlook the similarities and differences of their diglossic situation. The second part subsequently will suggest the perspectives of the current high-low distribution between English-Putonghua-Cantonese. The increasing narrow ties of the two regions within the Chinese territory as well as in the globalizing world order eventually could result in stricture or even disappearance of the contemporary distribution. As no sociolinguistic survey was conducted for this thesis the last part of the discussion will suggest how more profound sociolinguistic research and the collecting of data can contribute to this matter.

9

1 Theoretical framework

1.1 Previous Research

In the light of the reunification of Hong Kong with the Chinese mainland in 1997 a great deal of literature emerged concerning the status of Cantonese in the region. This literature ranges from predictive assumptions of scholars right before the handover, to all kinds of surveys concerning current attitudes towards Cantonese. In the preamble of the handover many scholars expressed their concern for the potential downgrading of Cantonese in favor of Putonghua: Bauer 13 for instance argued that “the impact on the Hong Kong speech community after its return to the PRC in 1997 seemed predictable as Putonghua inevitably would replace English as Hong Kong’s new language of political power and prestige.” According to Bauer eventually the importance of Putonghua would rise to the extent that Cantonese would be reduced to the category of ‘just another ’ as was the case in Guangdong. Postiglione14 indicated the importance of Hong Kong’s educational system as either “an agent of or a resistor to change”, meaning that the persistence of Chinese-medium (Cantonese-medium) schools would be crucial to the Cantonese course. Additionally, Bruche- Schulz15 worries that eventually will disappear in favor of SMC and wonders how much linguistic diversity the PRC can and will allow when Hong Kong finally becomes theirs. Studies of Hong Kong language attitudes before the handover mainly focused on the instrumental value of English. Pennington & Yue16 notice a strong motivation to learn English with secondary school students; furthermore they indicate that English is not seen as a threat to the Hong Kong cultural identity.17 After the handover Evans & Green18 demonstrated that the high instrumental value of English was also applicable to Hong Kong professionals. At the time scholars furthermore began to include the use of Cantonese and Putonghua in their research. The work of Lee-Ming Lai19 in this respect is quite comprehensive: in a number of surveys she conducted throughout the first decennia after the handover she attested an increasingly positive attitude towards Putonghua with young Hong Kong students.

13 Bauer, 1984: 86-87. 14 Postiglione, 1992. 15 Bruche-Schulz, 1995. 16 Pennington & Yue, 1994. 17 The results of their survey were echoed in Littlewood et al., 1996. 18 Evans & Green, 2001. 19 Lai, 2001, 2005, 2011, 2012. 10

In 2014 Isabella Valentini presented a M.A. thesis entitled “Cantonese and Putonghua in Hong Kong: Trends, Challenges and Coexistence”, in which she takes the above described suspicious voices concerning the future of Cantonese in HKSAR as the bases of her research. By giving a sociolinguistic overview of the relationship between Cantonese and Putonghua Valentini finally concludes that instead of a clash between both, a fruitful coexistence can emerge provided that the government carefully manages this.20 Other than Valentini’s work this thesis will use the idea of coexistence as its base rather than its conclusion. It will depart from the aforementioned surveys that use the instrumental-integrative theory as their base, and offer a new research angle for future investigation. Already in 2004 Don Snow21 suggested in his book on Written Cantonese that the current Hong Kong language situation could be described as a kind of diglossia. This assumption was further expanded in a 2010 article in which he compared the Hong Kong diglossic situation with the diglossic situation in German-speaking Switzerland (one of the exemplary cases in Fergusons’s groundbreaking article22 about the phenomenon of diglossia). What is interesting about describing HKSAR language situation on the basis of diglossia is that this sociolinguistic framework not only includes the idea of coexistence, it also takes into account the status of the languages that take part in this particular coexistence. Consequently, diglossia and the way it may change over time offers an interesting research angle as regards the investigation of the general perspectives of Cantonese’s status as a genuine regional standard. Whereas literature about Hong Kong language attitudes apparently has been booming business since the 1997 handover, we observe that those who want to know about Guangdong attitudes more or less remain unsatisfied. Nevertheless, recent events, such as the Guangdong television case in 2010,23 clearly indicate the unequal fashion in which languages in the province are distributed. In 1987 Kalmar et al. used the case of Guangzhou to prove that diglossia is relevant for the contemporary Chinese language situation today, which was also used as the research angle of Wang & Ladegaard’s research conducted in 2008 and the work of Zhu published in 2015. 24 Very recently Liang Sihua 25 also published “linguistic

20 Generally she reproaches HKSAR government for being somewhat neglectful when it comes to the future of Cantonese, with ‘carefully manages’ she aims for strictly regulated school curricula in which both Cantonese and Putonghua are (equally) included (Valentini, 2014: 123-124). 21 Snow, 2004, 2010. 22 Ferguson, 1959. 23 In 2010 there were several local protests when it was advised that Guangzhou television station should broadcast in Putonghua instead of Cantonese. The Guangzhou television case will be discussed in a later chapter (3.2.1). 24 Kalmar et al., 1987; Wang & Ladegaard, 2008; Zhu, 2015. 11

ethnography” in which she urges the need for a more multilingual framework in the research concerning Guangdong language use. Although not very numerous, these surveys indicate that Guangdong language attitudes probably are equally interesting than those in HKSAR. Given the recent reunification of Hong Kong with the Chinese Mainland we furthermore assume that the general perspectives of Cantonese depend on the attitudes of its users in both these regions and how they relate to one another. In this respect a comparative analysis of their diglossic situations and the way these came into being is interesting. We found it rather striking that, to our knowledge, no comparative study of both has been made so far. Although Valentini26 mentions the case of Guangdong in her thesis she does not connect it to her final conclusion concerning the status of Putonghua and Cantonese in HKSAR. In this thesis it will be suggested that -since Guangdong and HKSAR, after more than hundred years of separation, are reunited again- the future status of Cantonese depends on their attitudes as a whole rather than on their language situation apart. Furthermore it will be suggested that following the theoretical framework of critical and lifestyle diglossia also other sociocultural processes need to be taken into account in future research.

1.2 Conceptual and methodological frameworks

Describing the sociolinguistic situations of Guangdong and HKSAR this thesis will draw on a number of sociolinguistic concepts, the most important of which will be the phenomenon of diglossia. Next to diglossia, the instrumental-integrative approach and the input-output model, both mentioned in the work of Baker “Attitudes and Languages,”27 will be of considerable significance. In the following chapter we will briefly explain the content of these concepts and the way they will be relevant for this thesis.

1.2.1 Instrumental and integrative approach

In his book “Attitudes and Languages” Baker28 described the investigation of language attitudes from a range of different approaches of which two will be relevant for this thesis. The first one is the input-output model suggesting that attitude is not only an input variable but also an output variable. This correlation between ‘language’ and ‘attitude’ implies that while attitudes can influence the status and acceptance of a language in a particular speech

25 Liang, 2014. 26 Valentini, 2014: 18-24. 27 Baker, 1992: 48-76. 28 Baker, 1992: 48-76. 12

community, language itself at the same time influences people’s attitude towards the culture associated with this language. This then is narrowly connected with a second approach Baker made, namely the instrumental-integrative approach. The instrumental value of language refers to pragmatic and utilitarian motives of speakers; it is mostly associated with upward mobility, economic advantage and political status. The integrative value of a language is located on the social and interpersonal level and is connected with such things as cultural identity and intimacy.

1.2.2 Diglossia

In previous studies the input-output model and instrumental-integrative approach of language attitudes has been associated with another sociolinguistic phenomenon, namely diglossia.29 Diglossia refers to a situation in which a single language community uses two or more languages. In addition to the community’s everyday or vernacular language a second variety is used in certain situations such as literature, formal education, or other specific settings, besides ordinary conversations. The everyday variety is in almost all cases the mother tongue of a specific speech community and is usually labeled “L” or “low”. The second, other variety is then usually labeled “H” or “high”. The most important feature of diglossia is that the functions of these two languages are strictly demarcated: only “H” is appropriate in a certain set of situations, whereas “L” is in another.30 The input-output and instrumental-integrative approaches are of particular interest for diglossia in the sense that “H” usually is associated with a high instrumental value whereas “L” is associated with a high integrative value. This then is complemented with the input-output model in which it is not only the speakers attitudes towards the language that define its status, but also vice versa the language and its status that influences the speakers’ attitudes towards it. In his 1959 article Charles A. Ferguson described diglossia as a relative stable language situation in which, in addition to the primary dialects of the language, there is a very divergent, highly codified superposed variety. This language is often the vehicle of a large and respected body of written literature, either of an earlier period or used by another speech community, is learned largely by formal education, and is used for most written and formal spoken purposes, but is not used for ordinary conversation. According to Ferguson diglossia distinguishes itself by nine main features: function, literary heritage, prestige, acquisition,

29 Kalmar et al., Wang & Ladegaard, 2008. 30 Joshua Fishman suggested the terms exoglossia and endoglossia for respectively “high” variants and “low” variants (Fishman, 1967: 78). 13

standardization, stability, , lexicon and .31 In Ferguson’s definition high and low variants are always related, however this was later expanded by Joshua Fishman to include also unrelated languages, in which case bilingualism often occurs.32 Quite recently, Mukul Saxena33 has used the term ‘diglossia’ and applied it to different data, adding a critical perspective to Ferguson’s previous definition of diglossia. On the one hand he revises Fergusons notion of diglossia by underpinning “the state influencing ideological dimension of the high-low functional distribution of languages and the attitudes towards these languages.” However, critical diglossia not only describes how language varieties and languages in a particular linguistic market are functionally distributed in formal and informal domains, but also studies the reasons why this asymmetrical relationship develops, as well as the role that historical and current political processes play in its construction. Moreover, while it accepts the acknowledgment that diglossia is generally imposed from above, it goes further in incorporating the role of agency as proposed in an additional concept: lifestyle diglossia. This second concept encompasses how and why diglossia can also develop from below in the way individual’s everyday sociocultural practices and projection of identities shape their language attitudes. What is most interesting about Saxena’s model is that it not only describes contemporary diglossic situations but also embeds its consequences and perspectives. In this thesis the framework of critical diglossia and lifestyle diglossia as described by Mukul Saxena will be used to discuss contemporary language situations in Guangdong and HKSAR; however, the phenomenon of diglossia is of particular interest for the Chinese language situation in general.

1.3 China’s diglossia

It has been argued that sociolinguistic frameworks developed in the West are not necessarily applicable to the East: “Western frameworks concerning the social stratification of languages in the West possibly only throw light at Western capitalist social organization or western culture.”34 Consequently Kalmar et al.35 questioned if the phenomenon of diglossia is applicable to the contemporary Chinese language situation. Based on a study they conducted

31 Ferguson, 1959: 325, 328-235. However, grammar, lexicon and phonology will be of less interest for this thesis. 32 Fishman, 1967: 29-38.The terms ‘diglossia’ and ‘bilingualism’ should not be used in overlapping fashion: bilingualism characterizes linguistic behavior of the individual whereas diglossia characterizes linguistic organization at the sociocultural level (Fishman, 1967: 78). 33 Saxena, 2014: 91-112. 34 Kalmar et al., 1987: 499. 35 Kalmar et al., 1987: 507. 14

on language attitudes in Guangzhou they concluded that a high-low distribution could be observed, as the speakers in their survey clearly admitted the social advantages of Putonghua (“H”) without losing affection for Cantonese (“L”).36 However, as they themselves honestly pointed out much more extensive work, in more varied locations of China is required for a conclusive answer. In a way the presence of diglossia in China can be traced back to early Han (韩) times when the were standardized and the written script wenyan (文言) became the official lingua franca of the Chinese empire next to the several colloquial languages that were spoken throughout the territory. According to Ferguson37 the situation of diglossia eventually alters when certain trends appear: “The need for a more widespread literacy and broader communication between different regional and social segments of a speech community; and the desire for a full-fledged standard ‘national’ language as an attribute for autonomy or sovereignty.” These trends emerged in China at the beginning of the 20th century and were followed by countless efforts of Chinese policy makers and intellectuals of all sorts to unify and standardize the Chinese colloquial language and abolish the old-fashioned wenyan. In doing so they eventually denominated one of the hundred regional varieties as the new national standard pronunciation and developed a simplified version of the complex character script, Standard Modern Chinese (hereafter: SMC). One could consequently argue that current Chinese language policies tend to shift this ancient situation in that a colloquial variant is coming to be used in writing.38 However, given the enormous diversity spoken Chinese had evolved in over time, diglossia remains relevant for the Chinese language situation up till today.39

1.3.1 ‘Seven Sinitic varieties’

The Chinese efforts for language standardization cannot be understood unless one does not have a basic insight in the general linguistic characteristics of what is called ‘Chinese’: Chinese is generally classified as part of the Sino-Tibetan language family and is usually considered as one language with several regional variants.40 These regional variants that are

36 Cantonese is the mother tongue of most people in Guangzhou. 37 Ferguson, 1959: 338. 38 Ferguson, 1959: 339. 39 Bauer, 1984: 66. 40 Handel, 2015: 38. 15

referred to as both ‘dialects’ as well as ‘languages’ all together form the Sinitic language family.41 The Sinitic languages are generally divided into seven major groups. Stretching roughly from north to south these are: Mandarin, Gan (赣), Wu (吴), Xiang (湘), Min (闽), Kejia (客 家) and Yue (粤／越).42 Although phonological distinctions among the Sinitic languages stand out most conspicuously, diversity in syntax and lexicon is also considerable.43 The Mandarin languages are also called the northern varieties; they are spoken by more than two- third of the Chinese population within the whole northern and southwest area of China. Putonghua, the language that is promoted by current Chinese language policies, is based on Beijing-speech, which belongs to the Mandarin-group. The other six main dialect groups are usually referred to as the southern varieties and are spoken from the coastal area of Shanghai to the very south of the Chinese territory and Taiwan.44 The formation of these seven language groups can generally be attributed to demographic dynamics such as forced migration, migration caused by war and natural disasters, or the gradual invasion of non-Han tribes from the north and northwest.45 Between north and south one can furthermore observe an interesting linguistic difference: the northern area is much

41 Goddard, 2005: 37-38. For the Sinitic languages this ancestral language can be traced back to the language of the Zhou (周) (eleven to third century BC) (Norman 1988: 4). Although by most scholars subscribed it can be noted that the Sino-Tibetan language family is still a hypothesis: It implies a coordinate relation between Chinese on the one hand and all the hundreds of Tibeto-Burman languages on the other hand. Subsequently, it assumes that Chinese split off from the Tibetan-Burmese group approximately 6,000 years ago. Convincing evidence for this furcation is still lacking, however (Wang, 1995: 26). There is also a variation of this hypothesis in which it is presumed that Chinese is part of the Tibeto-Burman group, in this case consisting of an eastern and a western section instead of splitting off at a higher level of the tree diagram (Van Driem, 1997, 219-250). More dissident voices, such as the French scholar Sagart, proposed an entirely different hypothesis in which Chinese is genetically related to the Austronesian language family (Sagart, 1993, 1-62). Sagart later accepted the Sino-Tibetan hypothesis, but his views remain worth exploring until the present time. Furthermore, in the light of these divergent ideas a number of scholars argued the existence of a “super-family” that includes the Sino, the Austronesian, as well as the Tibetan-Burman and other Asian language families (Van Driem, 1997: 240). 42 Goddard, 2005: 38. In addition to these seven major groups sometimes the Jin group (spoken in Shanxi and the Autonomous Region of Inner Mongolia) is also mentioned. Since it historically shares a common source with Mandarin its position as a non-Mandarin dialect is often disputed. More recently, Hui and are also recognized as separate branches of Chinese (Ho, 2015: 150). As regards to the characters 粤 and 越: Actually, the character 越 is used in the Shiji ( 史記; Historical Records) and 粤 is used in the Hanshu (漢書; Book of Han)(Hashimoto, 1972: 59). 43 Chen, 1993: 510. However, linguists have given less attention to this. 44 Some scholars however also have suggested an alternative division in three groups: Here in addition to the northern group the southern group is divided in a southern group (which then comprises Min, Kejia and Yue) and a central group (Wu, Gan and Xiang). The central group is regarded as a transitional group, which means that they incorporated to a certain extend elements of Mandarin (Norman, 1988: 182-184; Bauer and Benedict, 1997: xxxvi). 45 Ho, 2015: 153. According to these three reasons generally three types of demographic dynamics are distinguished: these are respectively the resettlement model (ximin moshi; 徙民模式), the refugee model (liumin moshi; 流民模式) and the invasion model (ruqin moshi; 入侵模式) (Ho, 2015: 150-153). 16

more uniform (Mandarin has no more variety than for example English or, say Dutch), whereas the south seems extremely varied. This diversity has a mostly geographical explanation and is so great that sharp oblique forms of speech often are separated within a few miles.46 Figure 1 illustrates the geographical distribution of the Sinitic language groups:

Fig.1: Geographical distribution of the Sinitic Languages, Goddard, 2005: 37.

1.3.2 ‘One Chinese Language’

The fact that both ‘dialect’ and ‘language’, two linguistically incompatible terms are used to indicate the Chinese variants of speech already reveals a thorny issue of the Chinese striving for language unity: are the Sinitic variants to be seen as different dialects from one standard language or would it be more appropriate to say they are different languages related to one language family.

46 Ramsey, 1987: 21. 17

The question whether the Chinese regional variants should be seen as languages rather than dialects has been the subject of quite some lively debate. From a linguistic point of view, the most objective basis to distinguish ‘languages’ from ‘dialects’ is mutual comprehensibility. Based on this criterion the Chinese regional variants of speech are not dialects but rather would qualify as different languages.47 According to Liang there is also the functional argument, which focuses on the social role of linguistic varieties. Following this argument a ‘language’ is expected to have more functions than a ‘dialect’ (it may for example serve as a lingua franca among different dialects) and is consequently more ‘developed’ in the sense of being codified and standardized. Within each Sinitic variety or ‘dialect’ group usually one, two or even more prestigious varieties that serve as a regional standard can be observed, such as for example Cantonese for the Yue group （粤 or 越)48 or the variety spoken in Fuzhou for the Min (闽) group.49 Additionally, it has also been argued that when a shared written language is lacking the term ‘dialect’ is more applicable than ‘language.50 However, even this appears to be in the favor of the Sinitic variants in the capacity of different languages, as traces of written forms of the dialects can be found in many written , e.g.: the Buddhist literature that emerged during the Tang (唐)51 and flourished during the Ming (明).52 The conception of one Chinese language with several regional variants is nevertheless underpinned by some solid political and cultural justifications: Even among its own speakers, the idea of the existence of a Chinese language seems, after all, to be widespread. The explanation is to be found at both the sociocultural as well as the linguistic level and is well explained by Ramsey: 53

47 Ramsey, 1987: 6; Goddard, 2005: 37; Liang, 2015: 12. 48 Actually 越 is used to describe this language group in the Historical Records or Shiji (世纪), while 粤 is used in the Han chronicles or Han Shu (汉书) (Hashimoto, 1972: 59). 49 Liang, 2015: 12. 50 Chen, 1999: 10; Norman, 1988: 181-183. 51 618-907 AD. All the dates of Chinese dynasties and other historical periods or events mentioned in this work are taken from Fairbank & Goldman (2006). 52 1368-1644 AD. 53 Ramsey, 1987: 16-18; Norman, 1988: 2. It is perhaps remarkable that the Chinese scholar Zhou Zumo acknowledges the difference between the Chinese dialects in lexicon, phonology and grammar, however he does not consider these differences to cause mutual intelligibility, but merely ‘difficulties’ in mutual understanding (Zhou Zumo, 1981, 3-6). 18

Because of the profound unity of the Chinese culture that can be traced back to the third millennium BC the Chinese people rather believe they speak different dialects of one single language. Subsequently, a group of people who share a well- defined culture usually has a single set of standards for language use. These standards more or less serve as a lingua franca in various social situations and for social mediums of all sorts, such as books, papers, television, etc.

Whereas in China the spoken language has evolved in many different ways, these national standards always have been preserved in or wenyan; today they are furthermore maintained in current language policies that are actively promoting the use of Putonghua and SMC by means of al sorts of media.54 It is exactly these policies that contribute to the relevance of diglossia for the Chinese language situation today in the sense that a high-low distribution between the national standard (in the form of Putonghua and SMC) (“H”) and the regional languages (“L”) still can be observed. Speakers of regional languages other than Mandarin learn to control two related but distinct linguistic systems. In his 1984 article Bauer55 argued: “When the child who speaks a non-Mandarin regional dialect goes to school to learn to read and write, he learns to distinguish between the language he speaks but doesn’t write and the language he reads and writes but doesn’t speak.” In a way China’s diglossic situation is thus also associated with bilingualism. In his 1967 article on the relationship between diglossia and bilingualism Fishman56 proposes a single theoretical framework for viewing bilingual speech communities and speech communities whose linguistic diversity is realized through varieties not (yet) recognized as constituting ‘separate’ languages in which both diglossia and bilingualism exist. He concludes that many modern speech communities that are normally thought of as monolingual are actually marked by both diglossia and bilingualism if their several registers are viewed as separate varieties or languages; “Speakers of a certain speech community engage in a considerable range of roles; the access to these roles is encouraged or facilitated by powerful institutions and processes; these roles are clearly differentiated.”57 The functions of both these regional languages and the National Standard are clearly demarcated.

54 In the light of the theoretical framework of diglossia, which implies the use of two different languages, in this thesis the Sinitic varieties will be referred to as ‘languages’. 55 Bauer, 1984: 67-68. 56 Fishman, 1976: 77-78. 57 Fishman, 1967: 77-78. 19

1.4 Cantonese: general characteristics

In this thesis the status of Cantonese as a genuine regional standard will be investigated. Consequently, its relationship with Putonghua in Guangdong and with English in Hong Kong will be discussed. Cantonese is one of the most prestigious and consequently most studied Sinitic languages today. Because of a number of exceptional historical, social and linguistic features Cantonese has, more than any other Sinitic language, established a wide influence in- and outside China.58 Despite its rich heritage and great prestige it has however not escaped the aforementioned profound efforts of the Chinese government for language standardization and generalization. It was after all Mandarin, or more specific the variety spoken in and around Beijing, and not Cantonese, that formed the basis for the national standard Putonghua. Despite the rigorous promotion of this new national standard, the exceptional status of Cantonese as a genuine regional standard 59 however remained partially untouched. Its position as a de facto official language in HKSAR definitely contributes to this, however it needs to be mentioned that even in serves as “L” whereas English serves as “H”.

1.4.1 Geographical history

Cantonese actually is part of the Yue-group, however the terms Yue and Cantonese are often used in overlapping fashion, as it is the most prestigious and well-known language of the group. In Chinese Cantonese is referred to in many ways e.g.: Guangzhou hua (广州话), Guangdong hua (广东话), baihua (白话; simple speech),60 Tang hua (唐话; reference to the Tang-dynasty) and Xiangganghua (香港话; Hong Kong speech).61 In its most narrow sense it is the language spoken in Canton city,62 but the territory of the Yue-group in a broader sense stretches over the area of Guangdong, and the southernmost point of the South China coastline.63 Cantonese is moreover the mother tongue of most people in Hong Kong and

58 Hashimoto, 1972: introduction xIi; Liang, 2015: 19. 59 Ramsey, 1987: 99. 60 This refers to a new type of written language, developed toward the end of the Tang dynasty, which was much closer to the contemporary vernacular (Chen, 1993: 507). 61 Bauer & Benedict, 1997: xxxi. 62 The term ‘Canton’ from which ‘Cantonese’ is derived is originally a of Guangdong (广 东)(Hashimoto, 1972: introduction xIi). 63 Naturally it needs to be noted that this area is not exclusively Yue speaking. The Yue speakers always have lived closed to Kejia and Min speakers and so today speakers of different Sinitic language groups happen to be living in the same villages (Hashimoto, 1972: 8) 20

enjoys a de facto official status in the region. Remarkably it is also the main language in several China towns overseas.64 Today the Yue-group is both geographically and typologically the closest Sinitic language group to the languages of South-east Asia. It is especially related to the family of Tai, whose speakers originally inhabited the region of Guangdong.65 The modern Yue-languages are believed to be the result of centuries of between these indigenous people, which in pre-Han and Han historical records are referred to as ‘Yue’ 66 and the people from the Central Plains, the cradle of Chinese civilization. Already during the Autumn and Spring Era (chunqiu shidai; 春秋时代) 67 the first historical records of contact between the two regions can be attested, however it was not until Qin (秦)68 times that large-scale emigration started.69 The earliest immigrants mostly were military personnel and government officials who were dispatched to cultivate and assimilate the newly annexed territory. This process of gradual assimilation seemed to have become truly significant since the Tang-dynasty. The fact that even nowadays the speakers of Yue refer to themselves as Tangren (唐人; tang people), call their country Tangshan (唐山; Tang mountain), their food Tangshi (唐食; Tang food) and their clothes Tangyi (唐衣; Tang clothes) indicates that a certain cultural consciousness began to arise during this time. Concerning the true ethnic identity of the Cantonese speakers today Hashimoto70 notes that it is difficult to trace the process and extent of cultural diffusion and warns for oversimplification: “It is now difficult to determine whether the present day Yue speakers are descendants of the Central Plain immigrants rather than the aborigines who adopted the Central Plains culture.”

64 Ramsey, 1987: 100; Bauer and Benedict, 1997: xxxi. Because of its location (in the very south of China, very accessible from the sea) and status as international trade bastion the Yue speaking region since long has a strong tradition of emigration. The period between 1850-1950 witnessed a large-scale emigration, mainly from the southern provinces of China and mainly into North America and South-east Asia. The emigrants mostly were people from rural villages or small county towns. Emigration of intellectuals and professionals due to political suppression is a phenomenon of the past decennia (Hashimoto, 1972: 10). This explains why the majority of Chinese people living in North America today actually speak a form of Yue and have little to no competence in Putonghua (Ramsey, 1987: 98). 65 Ramsey, 1987: 99. 66 Sun, 2006: 31. ‘Yue’ actually is an abbreviation of ‘Bai-Yue’ (百越 or 百粤; hundred Yue’s). These people inhabited a vast area stretching from present day Hangzhou to the north of Vietnam. Later it also became a geographical term to refer to the region in the very south of China (Hashimoto, 1972: 31). Although the object of various studies, so far no conclusive answers were formulated concerning the questions who the Bai-Yue were, what their exact ethnicity was or what language they spoke (Bauer & Benedict, 1997: xxxix). 67 771-476 BC. 68 221-206 BC. 69 Hashimoto, 1972: 1. 70 Hashimoto, 1972: 4. 21

Nevertheless, it is clear that local cultures mostly adapted to the Central Plain culture and not the other way around.

1.4.2 A genuine regional standard

There are quite some examples of the unusual status of Cantonese among the other Sinitic languages. First of all it became to function as the predominant language of business in southeast China. This found its roots in the economic success of Guangdong during the Ming- dynasty, and revived when Hong Kong and Guangdong economic ties narrowed after the 1997 handover.71 Secondly, it stands out as the only regional language that is extensively used in broadcasting media in the PRC as the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television gave permission to several television stations in Guangzhou to broadcast in Cantonese.72 Reason for this was to reduce the potential impact of Hong Kong media in Guangdong.73 Thirdly, because of the long-lasting trade relationships of South-China with foreign regions it is next to the Tai-languages strongly influenced by other non-Sinitic languages.74 Finally, Cantonese is currently the only Sinitic variety next to Mandarin with a widely recognized, non-traditional writing system the roots of which can be found in the Ming dynasty, when the Guangdong province flourished as an international trade bastion. Today Written Cantonese may not have been codified by a set of clear prescriptive norms, nevertheless there seems to be a high level of consensus on how most of the words should be represented in writing.75 Although in Mainland China SMC is the only written language to be used in all public domains and educational activities, Written Cantonese still creeps into the daily lives of many Guangdong people in the form of subtitles, some newspapers and magazines and in private written correspondences. In Hong Kong, where language policies developed relatively independent from the Mainland, one will even regularly encounter Written Cantonese in the streets, for example in large, lighted advertisement boards in public spaces such as subway stations.76

71 Bauer & Benedict, 1997: xxxiii; Liang, 2015: 18-20. 72 Since the implementation of The Language Law in 2000 all broadcasting media ought to be in Putonghua, The Language Law (Article 12). See following chapters (3.3). 73 Liang, 2015: 19. 74 Hashimoto, 1972: 5-7; Bauer & Benedict, 1997: xii. 75 Ramsey, 1987: 99; Liang, 2015: 19; Bauer, 1988, 247-248; Snow, 2004: 15. Furthermore, despite the lack of official status for Cantonese many linguists collected and published lists of Cantonese characters. One outstanding example is the Guangzhouhua fangyan cidian (广州话方言词典; Cantonese dialect dictionary) by Rao and Jueya Ouyang in 1981, which contains a list of 332 characters (Rao Bingcai & Jueya Ouyang 1981: 377-379). 76 Snow, 2004: 2. 22

Today in China and around the globe more than 50 million people speak Cantonese. It is not only learned by many immigrants in Guangdong and many Chinese communities overseas, but also seems to be replacing other regional languages in nearby areas.77 Nonetheless, the prestigious status of Cantonese is not a very recent development; Ramsey and Sun rightly argue that Guangdong speech has enjoyed this reputation for centuries, as already since the Ming dynasty the region had become the most important economic and cultural center of the Deep South.78 Most scholars however tend to explain the prestige associated with Cantonese by the remarkable economic growth and increasing international importance of Guangdong since China’s market-oriented economy of the 70ties on the one hand,79 and the currently close economic and cultural ties between the Guangdong region and Hong Kong today on the other. Also the widespread diaspora overseas is an obvious factor.80

1.4.3 Linguistic features: a contrastive analyses with Putonghua

The linguistic features of Cantonese will be described in contrastive analyses with Putonghua, the language the Chinese government promotes as the national standard. With Cantonese, Putonghua-SMC and English as the protagonists of this thesis it seemed only logic to provide at least some insight in the linguistic differences between the Mandarin based National Standard and this Southern prestigious language. Although Cantonese and Putonghua cannot be considered mutual intelligible, they still do belong to the same language family. Generally Cantonese is said to be more conservative than Putonghua; this is partially true as it preserved a lot of phonological features that date back to the Tang dynasty. In other categories, however, Cantonese proved more progressive than the northern group.

1.4.3.1 Phonology When it comes to phonology great differences between Cantonese and Putonghua can be observed.81 The most evident phonological difference between Cantonese and Putonghua is the number of tones. Whereas Putonghua has four main tones (high and level; high and rising; falling and then rising; high falling) and a neutral , Cantonese has up to nine tones: six

77 The main reason for Cantonese ‘heading north’ is the increasing popularity of Canton pop culture since the 60ties. Some have interpreted this as an opposition to the linguistic development in China. Others, in favor of linguistic diversity, emphasize that the functions and power of a dialect cannot be underestimated (Zhan Bohui, 1993: 54). 78 Ramsey, 1987: 100; Sun, 2006: 31. 79 Guangdong is China’s leading economy since 1980 onwards (Liang, 2015: 18). 80 This also might encourage foreigners to learn Cantonese. Daisann McLane, gives an honest account of her experiences using Cantonese in New York, Chinatown. New York Times, July 2003. 81 Ramsey, 1987: 100. 23

tones and three so-called ‘entering tones’, which indicate they end with an abrupt stop (-p, -t, -k). This tonal system is preserved from the Tang dynasty literary standard; the first six tones can be described as follows: 82

Fig. 2: Cantonese tonal system, So, 2002: xxv,xxvi.

Because the number of tones in Mandarin is particularly low, the problem of homophony becomes more severe. This is compensated in Mandarin by an excessive use of suffixes that are relatively infrequent in Cantonese. For example the suffix 子 which is widely used in Mandarin often lacks in Cantonese equivalents:83

82 There is no standard romanization for Cantonese. In recent years, a system recommended by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong, , has become increasingly popular; another reference is the grammar of Cantonese by Matthews & Yip, which uses a slightly different system (Goddard, 2005: 156; Matthews & Yip, 1994: 10-14). This system, based on the Yale International Phonetic Alphabet (developed by Parker Huang and Gerald Kok, and here illustrated by So, 2002), will be used in this thesis. The Yale transcription has the particular advantage of resembling the Romanization used for Mandarin (Matthews & Yip, 1994: 10). 83 Matthews & Yip, 1994: 47. 24

Tabel 1: Use of the suffix 子84

Putonghua Cantonese English zhuozi (桌子) toì (枱) Table xiezi (鞋子) haaìh (鞋) Shoe

wazi (袜子) maht (襪) Sock

Another phonological difference is the number of possible combinations that is for Cantonese considerably larger then for Putonghua (respectively 645 and 404). This is mainly due to the fact that Cantonese has preserved a wider inventory of finals: A Cantonese syllable can end with an offglide (–u or –i), or with one of the six final consonants (–m, -n, -ng, -p, -t, -k), whereas Mandarin only has two possible finals (–n and –ng). Nevertheless, Cantonese has been less conservative when it comes to initial consonants: it has nineteen initial consonants with only one series of . This is rather simple when compared to other Sinitic languages: Mandarin for instance has three different series of sibilants: palatals, dentals and retroflexed, which all disappeared in Cantonese. 85 Speakers of Cantonese often have great difficulties making these distinctions when learning Putonghua,86 e.g.: they tend to pronounce shan (山; mountain) as san (三; three) or chi (迟; late, slow) as ci (词; word).87 Following figures illustrate the Cantonese and Mandarin initial consonants:

Fig. 3: initial consonants, Goddard, 2005: 156.

84 Examples: Charlotte Martens. 85 Browning, 1974: 43-38; Ramsey, 1987: 100-103. 86 Norman, 1988: 140. 87 Examples: Goddard, 2005: 155. 25

Fig. 4: Cantonese initial consonants, Goddard, 2005: 157.

Cantonese and Putonghua might have many words in common; their pronunciation is often very different. For instance the Mandarin word for ‘to study’ xuexi (学习) is written the same way in both Cantonese and Putonghua, but is pronounced hok6zaap6 in Cantonese.88 Another example is the female marker 女, pronounced leuì in Cantonese but nǚ in putonghua.89 Nonetheless, other words actually have very similar pronunciations e.g.:

Table 2: Similar pronunciations of Cantonese and Putonghua

Cantonese Putonghua English

hóu (好) hǎo (好) Good

jàn (人) rén (人) Human

bàhnfaat (辦法) bànfǎ (办法) Method

syùfuhk (舒服) shūfu (舒服) Comfortable

1.4.3.2 Lexicon The linguistic differences between Cantonese and Putonghua can also be observed from a lexical point of view: Ramsey argues that most of the vocabulary of Cantonese is the same as that of the other Sinitic languages.90 Ouyang additionally notes that despite this observation about one-third of the lexical items used in Cantonese speech are not present in Putonghua.

88 Example: Snow, 2004: 48. 89 Example: Matthews and Yip, 1994: 40. 90 Ramsey, 1987: 103. 26

Both scholars however agree that the rate of lexical difference is significantly lower for the formal registers, as the formal speech is far more exposed to the influence of the standard than the colloquial form.91 The greatest lexical differences are found in grammatical function words and in very colloquial expressions:

Table 3: Grammatical function words92

Putonghua Cantonese English

Bù (不) m`h (唔 ) negative sentence marker

zhè/nà (这/那) nì/gò (呢 /嗰) proximal demonstrative

Examples of colloquial expressions:93

Zàn haih baih gà leùaa (真係弊家呀; “When something goes out of your control”.)

Néih tùhng ngóh saù dè laà (你同我收爹啦 ; “shut up”)

Next to the preservation of the Tang dynasty tonal system and final consonants Cantonese also seems to have been quit conservative when it comes to lexical change. Some of its everyday words correspond in Mandarin to very archaic lexical items and expressions, e.g.: háng (行; to walk), sihk (食; to eat), keng (頸; neck).94

1.4.3.3 Syntax and morphology Cantonese and Putonghua are very similar when it comes to grammatical structures, hence they do not present great diversity in morphology or syntax: Almost any Mandarin grammatical pattern can be used in Cantonese, however native speakers often reluctantly receive these locutions. Conversely, a colloquial Cantonese discourse always contains patterns that would sound peculiar in Putonghua. With regard to morphology Cantonese word formation happens by the same means as Mandarin;95 there is however one remarkable difference between the two when it comes to word order: In some compound words the components are placed in reversed order opposed

91 Ramsey, 1987: 103; Ouyang, 1993: 23, 80-82. 92 Examples: Charlotte Martens. 93 Examples: So, 2002. 94 Examples: Ramsey, 1987: 103. 95 These are: reduplication (or the doubling of words), affixation (adding prefixes and suffixes) and compounding (combination of independent forms to form a complex word)(Matthews and Yip, 1994: 38). 27

to Putonghua. For instance, the usual pattern in Putonghua ‘qualifying element + qualified element’ appears to be the contrary in Cantonese.96 Also concerning syntax Cantonese and Putonghua differ sometimes. In Cantonese for example direct objects precede indirect objects instead of the other way around or certain follow the instead of preceding it. Some examples to illustrate the aforementioned: 97

Table 4: Direct object precedes indirect object

Putonghua Cantonese English

他给我一本书 他給一本書我 “He gives me a book.”

tā gěi wǒ yī běn shū kheuíh pei yāt bún syù ngóh

Here the direct object ‘书／書’ in Cantonese clearly precedes the indirect object ‘我’ whereas in Putonghua it is the other way around.

Table 5: Adverb follows verbal predicate

Putonghua Cantonese English

我先上街买东西 我開啟迷藥先 “I first go to the market to buy things.”

Ngòh hoíh ka:i ma:ìhyèh Wǒ xiān shàngjiē mǎi dōngxī sìn98

which in Putonghua always precedes the verb, follows the verbal predicate ’ض‘ In this example the adverb in the Cantonese sentence.

96 Hashimoto, 1972: 20. This reverse order is considered to be an influence of the Tai languages, although this feature is not limited to Cantonese, but is common in most of the Chinese southern groups. 97 Examples: Ramsey, 1987: 103. 98 The colon in ‘ka:i’ and ma:ìhyèh indicates this has to be pronounced longer than usual. In Cantonese the length of a vowel changes its quality (Ramsey, 1987: 102). 28

2 Guangdong critical diglossia: State-sponsored language distribution

2.1 PRC language planning: the promotion of Putonghua and SMC (“H”)

Critical diglossia often holds a strong political dimension: In his 2014 article Saxena describes critical diglossia in Brunei as the state sponsored language distribution between Malay (“H”) and Tutong (“L”), meaning that Malay is not only promoted and used for all official purposes, it is furthermore also closely related to the national ideology of ‘Nation, Monarchy and Islam’. This then becomes clear in a rigorous corpus-status elaborated language planning, in which Malay is both the language of education as well as acquired in al crucial tests for citizenship, scholarships and government jobs.99 In the following chapter we will describe how diglossia is imposed from above in Guangdong province. Guangdong and its famous capital Guangzhou are generally seen as the cradle of Cantonese language and culture. The region has a long and remarkable history of foreign influences: Being part of the Silk Road Guangdong flourished throughout China’s imperial history as a national and international trade bastion. Moreover, when the first colonizers arrived at the South-China coastline in the 18th century, it was privileged as the only region allowed trading with the new foreign infiltrators.100 After the First Opium War, due to the fact that the British Empire obtained Hong Kong, Guangdong lost its flourishing and prestigious status of trade haven and gradually started declining. 101 Nonetheless, Guangdong has revived as a large port city since China’s economic reforms of the late seventies, it is nowadays one of the fastest growing economic zones in China and South-Asia in general. 102 Although in the light of recent economic developments the area is becoming increasingly multilingual, today still over thirty million people in Guangdong regard themselves as Cantonese-speaking.103 Because of its aforementioned status as a genuine regional standard, Cantonese sometimes is viewed as a stronghold against the promotion of

99 Saxena, 2014: 96. 100 The imperial court, which was established in Beijing, rather kept the European colonizers at a fair distance (Zhu, 2015: 226). 101 This resulted in a large influx of immigrants from Guangdong to Hong Kong. See following chapters (4.1.2). 102 Zhu, 2015: 227. 103 Figures of the year 2000 (Zhu, 2015: 223). Also Kejia and Chaozhou (潮州) have a relatively big speech community in Guangdong. Chaozhou refers to the language spoken in Chaozhou prefecture, located in the east of Guangdong. This particular variant of speech is classified with the Min-group (Liang, 2015: 69-75). 29

Putonghua and SMC in the Chinese Mainland, which is currently resulting in the maintenance of a strong diglossic situation in the region.104

2.1.1 Language Planning and language policy

The position of Putonghua as a high language is narrowly connected to the contemporary language policies and planning of the Chinese Communist Party (hereafter: CCP). Generally, language planning can be broadly defined as “all efforts that aim at changing the linguistic behavior of a speech community”.105 In turn, language policy refers to “the more general linguistic, political and social goals underlying the actual language planning process”.106 Or “the formation and implementation of policies designed to prescribe, or influence, the languages and varieties of language used in specific contexts”.107 In other words, although these highly similar terms are often used in overlapping fashion,108 there seems to be an agreement that language policy refers to the more general beliefs, considerations and ideologies relating to the orientation of such decision-making bodies as governments and educational authorities, whereas language planning is more specifically applied to the actions of such decision makers.109 With regard to language planning scholars usually make a distinction between status planning, corpus planning and acquisition planning.110 Concerning the PRC since 1950 until the present times a straightforward corpus-status- acquisition planning has been conducted. Although entrenched in well-meaning intentions to demolish the ancient high-low distribution between and the colloquial, in some regions this policy turned out to rather continue than alter the existing high-low language distribution. In the following chapter the concrete shape and practical outlines of PRC language planning will be described. Specifically the promotion of Putonghua and SMC (“H”) over Cantonese (“L”) will be discussed.

2.1.2 Corpus-status-acquisition

As described above, scholars usually distinguish three dimensions in their approaches to language planning, namely: corpus planning, status planning and acquisition planning.111 The

104 Indicated by the surveys of Kalmar et al., 1987 and Wang & Ladegaard 2008. 105 Bolton, 2011:51. 106 Mesthrie et al. 2000: 384. 107 Wiley, 1996: 104. 108 Bolton, 2011:51. 109 Milton, 1992: 382. In this case ‘language planning’ is sometimes also referred to as language-management. 110 Spolsky & Lambert, 2006: 561-563. 111 Wan, 2014: 66. 30

first component, corpus planning focuses on the adequacy of the form of languages and their literacies. More concretely this refers to “the redefining of old and coining of new terms, reforming spelling and adopting a new or revised script.”112 The second component status planning refers to “ all efforts directed toward the allocations of languages and literacies in a given speech community”113 and is consequently associated to the official recognition of various language varieties by national governments. Finally, acquisition planning refers to the efforts towards creating opportunities and incentives for learners to acquire additional languages and literacies. 114 In terms of corpus planning the Chinese government has dedicated itself to two main tasks, namely: simplifying the traditional Chinese script on the one hand and designing a system of phonetic symbols representing the pronunciation of Mandarin Chinese on the other.115 The Chinese script is quit unique in the sense that it consists of ideographic characters that provide little to no information about their pronunciations. The total number of contemporary Chinese characters can be roughly estimated at fifty or sixty thousand, however only six to seven thousand are frequently used. Among these six thousand most commonly used characters it is estimated that only 28 percent contain less than eight strokes.116 Even in contemporary Modern Chinese an average of eleven strokes per character is still observed. 117 “Not surprisingly, the complexity this ideographic system brings about makes Chinese one of the most difficult written languages in the world.”118 According to Zhou, Wei and Xie the standardization of Chinese characters concerns five main areas: official documents and personal names; names of commercial goods, packaging and the description of products; architectural buildings, public signs and advertisements; medical records, prescription, physical examination reports, medicine instructions and labels; subtitles displayed in movies and TV productions.119 In order to represent the pronunciation of Putonghua a phonetic system Hanyu Pinyin (汉 语拼音) was developed. Much as it had been the believe of Mao Zedong and many others that, in order to reduce illiteracy, the Chinese character script eventually had to be replaced by

112 Hornberger, 2006: 28. 113 Hornberger, 2006: 28. 114 Wan, 2014:66. 115 Liu, 2010: 2; Wan, 2014: 66. 116 Lin, 1956: 20. 117 Chen, 1999: 24. 118 Hsia, 1956: 146. 119 Zhou, Wei, Xie, 2008: 12. 31

this phonetic alphabet,120 the Hanyu Pinyin system today merely functions as a medium for the teaching of Putonghua to non-native speakers and transliteration of Chinese names and terminology in foreign languages.121 When it comes to status planning the chief effort of the Chinese government has been to select a national language,122 which eventually led to the standardization and promotion of Putonghua, a common language largely based on Mandarin spoken in the vicinity of the capital.123 As described above, spoken Chinese is actually extremely diversified, in this linguistic landscape where mutual unintelligibility is not only observed over long distance but also within a few miles the usefulness of a common speech by no means needs further explanation. Moreover, a national standard was necessary in order to develop solid means of communication and a sense of national identity among the many ethnic minorities residing in the Chinese territory, among them several with their own mother tongue and writing system. In 1955 the ‘Central Working Committee for the Promotion of Putonghua’ was established and its official definition was laid down by the ‘Directive Concerning Popularization of Putonghua’ issued by the State-Council that same year. This official statement was stipulated in the revised version of the Chinese constitution in 1982, 124 however it would take another 40 years until the policy actively was carried out: 125

Putonghua is the Common Speech of Language of the Han people, which adopts the Beijing sound system as its standard of pronunciation, Northern Mandarin as its base dialect and the exemplary works of modern Baihua literature as its grammatical model.

The definition of the national standard has long been the subject of broader political and intellectual bickering,126 nonetheless are the choices that eventually were made substantiated

120 The idea of which is to be found in the previous Latinxua movement. This movement finds its roots in the Soviet Union, where Chinese communists and Russians developed a writing system to reduce the illiteracy of the Chinese immigrants (Ramsey, 1987: 14; Wan, 2014: 76.) 121 Rohensow, 2004: 22. However, more recently it also proved very useful as a devise for typing Chinese characters (Rohensow, 2004: 22.) 122 Wan, 2014: 66. 123 Zhou, 2001: 11. 124 Chen, 1993: 508. 125 Rohensow, 2004: 25-27. 126 In the early twenties there seemed to be a division between two irreconcilable factions concerning this matter: namely those who came from northern, or Mandarin speaking, China and those from the coastal southern area (Shanghai, Wu-speaking area). Those from the north advocated Mandarin as the new national standard, as this variant had almost always been the language of officials throughout China’s history. The Southerners countered these opinions by arguing that the adaptation of Mandarin as the national standard was unacceptable, as this variant had not preserved many of the old distinctions that were indispensable for the people of the south 32

by strong political and pragmatic arguments. First of all, as Beijing is the capital of the PRC, the adoption of the Beijing sound system was a politic strategic move. Secondly, because in speakers Mandarin is the Sinitic variant used by a majority of Chinese speakers it obviously served as the most comprehensive base for a national standard. One could furthermore argument that in a way Mandarin has served as the lingua franca for centuries, as it has been the language of the Imperial Court during a considerable part of China’s imperial history.127 With regards to acquisition planning the first actual law on language and script in the PRC was officially implemented on the 5th of July 2000. With this law the use of Putonghua, the simplification of the Chinese characters, and the use of Hanyu Pinyin in the learning process of both, was safeguarded. The Chinese government, policy practitioners and intellectuals of all kinds have come a long way to develop this law as it is implemented today. Although the very beginning of modern Chinese language planning already finds its roots in the deep nationalistic feelings among Chinese intellectuals right after the overthrow of China’s last dynasty, the Manchu (1911),128 it would take almost a hundred years for this law to be implemented. Whereas the historical development of these policies has been the subject of a great deal of previous literature129 this thesis focuses on the contemporary outlines of PRC language planning and its challenges and consequences today.

2.1.3 The Language Law and other contemporary regulations

The law implemented in 2000 was entitled Zhonghua renmin gongheguo guojia tongyong yuyan wenzi fa (中华人民共和国国家通用语言文字法; Law of the People’s Republic of China on the National Commonly Used Language and Script; hereafter: The Language

(Ramsey, 1987: 5). Later, during the Chinese Civil War, the Communist party (at the time opposition party) came up with their alternative language reform, the aforementioned Latinxua movement (ft.117). The movement opposed the idea of a national language in the sense that it emphasized the importance of regional diversity. Instead of the promotion of one common language it was proposed that separate Latinization schemes for the different regional variants of China ought to be created. By that time the debate on language reform thus became part of the political struggle between right and left (Ramsey, 1987: 14; Wan, 2010: 76). 127 Saillard, 2004: 164. 128 In the preamble of this resignation the unsuccessful Wuxu Reform (1898) after the First Sino-Japanese War (1884-1885), two Opium Wars (1839-1842, 1856-1860) and a series of foreign invasions and colonial attempts from Western countries such as France, Britain, Germany and US, had caused huge losses and both physical and mental humiliation (Fairbank & Goldman, 2006: 217). A reform movement in favor of the establishment of a new Chinese nation-state as a replacement for the old-fashioned imperial and feudal structures began to rise. The idea of a national language as an indispensable element in the functioning of this modern nation-state was based on observations of the West, where powerful nations had established national languages as vital and integral parts of nationalism in their own states. Classical Chinese and dialectal diversity both became associated with backwardness and were seen as hindrance for a united and modernized nation (Ramsey, 1987: 3; Chen, 1999: 13-30). 129 Ramsey, 1987; Rohensow, 2004; Wan, 2014. 33

Law).130 Before the passaging of the law, comprehensive research on language and script use in thirty cities and counties throughout the Chinese territory, as well as of language laws in other countries, was conducted. 131 The Language Law, which was promulgated under president Jiang Zemin and vice-president Hu Jintao contains four chapters and 28 articles132 and is implemented at both the provincial and the local level, however ultimate authority lies with the Ministry of Education (hereafter: MOE) at the national level. It is furthermore accompanied by a manual, which in its turn is supported by a handbook. Both of these publications inform provincial and local governmental institutions how to implement and manage the policies. Additionally there is the regularly publication of ‘Report on the Language situation in China’ to support the ongoing evaluation of the impact of The Language Law of which the most recent edition was published in 2008.133 The evolution and eventual formulation of the law demonstrates a realistic understanding of the limits of language planning as a form of social engineering: next to the promotion of the use of Putonghua and SMC, the recognition of local varieties is assured134 as is exhibited in are article 14 that is complemented by article 16, both included in the chapter II of the law.135

第十四条: 下列情形，应当以国家通用语言文字为基本的用语用字:（一）广 播、电影、电视用语用字;（二）公共场所的设施用字；（三）招牌、广告用 字； (四）企业事业组织名称;（五）在境内销售的商品的包装、说明。

Article 14: Under the following circumstances the national common spoken and written language shall be used as basic common language and script: 1) the spoken an written language used in advertisements, cinema and television; 2) written language that is used in the facilities of public spaces; 2) written language used in signboards and advertisements; 4) the names of enterprises, institutions and other organizations; 5) packaging and explanation of commodities sold in the country.136

130 Adopted at the 18th Meeting of Standing Committee of the Ninth National People's Congress on October 31, 2000, promulgated and went into effect January 1, 2001. 131 Rohensow, 2004: 32. 132 The four chapters are I General provisions (8 articles); II Use of the Standard spoken and Written Language (11 articles); III Administration and Supervision (8 articles) and IV Supplementary Provisions (1 article). 133 An English version of this report was published with Mouton de Gruyter (Li & Li (Eds.), 2008). The book was published in 3 volumes, as we only were able to gain access to the first volume this is the only volume mentioned in the references. 134 Liu, 2010: 3. This is also related to the aforementioned Latinxua movement the CCP adhered to. At first the general conceptions of this movement were to be taken as the base of the new language reforms, however this soon turned out to be impracticable and ultimately the CCP merely echoed the ideas there rightist counterparts had been trying to achieve for years (Ramsey, 1987: 13-14). 135 All legal statements from The Language Law that will be used in this section are collected from the following source: http://old.moe.gov.cn/publicfiles/business/htmlfiles/moe/moe_619/200409/3131.html. Accessed: October 25, 2015. 136 In this section, all translations from Chinese are mine. 34

第十六条: 本章有关规定中，有下列情形的，可以使用方言： （一）国家 机关的工作人员执行公务时确需使用的； (二）经国务院广播电视部门或省 级广播电视部门批准的播音用语；（三）戏曲、影视等艺术形式中需要使用; （四）出版、教学、研究中确需使用的。

Article 16: Concerning the relevant provisions of this chapter, regional dialects may be used under the following circumstances: 1) When those who work for state organs need to use them in doing their official duties; 2) when they are approved by the broadcasting and television department at State Council or the broadcasting and televison department at the county level to be used in broadcasting. 3) when they are required in opera, cinema and telvision programs and other forms of art; 4) when their use is actually required in publishing, teaching and research.

Also minority languages are included, as shown by article 8, chapter I:

第八条: 各民族都有使用和发展自己的语言文字的自由。少数民族语言文字 的使用依据宪法、民族区域自治法及其他法律的有关规定。

Article 8: All the minorities shall have the freedom to use and develop their own spoken and written languages. The spoken and written languages of the ethnic peoples shall be used according to the relevant provisions of the constitution, the law on regional national autonomy and other laws.

Although in theory apparently unprejudiced it needs to be mentioned that the promotion of Putonghua in quite some respects means the detriment of the local variants of speech, e.g.: job recruitment in certain businesses, education or government agencies remains conditional on having a level 1 or 2 in Putonghua. The most important medium for the government to promote the use of Putonghua and SMC is mass media and education, as is illustrated in article 12 and 10, chapter II:

第十二条 广播电台、电视台以普通话为基本的播音用语。需要使用外国语 言为播音用语的，须经国务院广播电视部门批准。

Article 12: Putonghua shall be used as the broadcasting language by broadcasting and television stations, when foreign languages are required as broadcasting language this matter shall be subjected to the broadcasting and television administration under the State Council for approval.

35

第十条: 学校及其他教育机构以普通话和规范汉字为基本的教育教学用语用 字。法律另有规定的除外。 学校及其他教育机构通过汉语文课程教授普通话 和规范汉字。使用的汉语文教材，应当符合国家通用语言文字的规范和标准。

Article 10: Putonghua and the standardized Chinese characters shall be used as the basic language in education and teaching in schools and other institutions of education, except where otherwise provided for in laws. Putonghua and the standardized Chinese characters shall be taught in schools and other institutions of education by means of the Chinese course. The Chinese textbooks used shall be in conformity with the norms of the standard spoken and written Chinese language.

Saillard has pointed out that the shortcomings of the above language education policy, in which only a passive, comprehensive knowledge of Putonghua is required and no actual speaking competence,137 have contributed to the fact that Putonghua has not yet encountered the spread the government had hoped for. Obviously Saillards assumption needs be complemented with several other factors that contribute to this fact such as the prestige of some regional languages and the importance of regional language use in local economies.138In the light of this the government has, in recent years, closely focused on the theme of Putonghua promotion, hereby adopting three basic strategies: Goal Management and Quantified evaluation, the Putonghua Proficiency Test and the National Publicity Week for Putonghua Promotion. Goal Management and Quantified Evaluation (mubiao guanli lianghuapinggu;目标管理量

化评估) has proved to be an effective strategy for supervision and refers to the annual inspections of the MOE in schools, government offices, press, media and the public service industry. The content of the evaluation facilitates both the popularization of Putonghua and the normalization of the use of SMC in society.139 The State Language Commission, the department in charge of the work related to spoken and written language under the State Council, furthermore issues standards for the testing of Putonghua at different grades.140 As already mentioned above job recruitment in education, government or certain other business is conditional on having a certain degree in Putonghua. The so-called Putonghua shuiping ceshi (普通话水平测试；Putonghua Proficiency Test) has three levels, each subdivided in two degrees: The highest degree (first degree of level one) should be attained by teachers specialized in the phonetics of Putonghua, radio broadcasting, movie, television, theater and soundtrack professionals, as well as all graduate students in

137 Saillard, 2004: 165-166. 138 Norman, 1988: 247; Chen, 1999: 28. 139 Wang & Yuan, 2008: 29. 140 Saillard, 2004: 166-167; Wang &Yuan, 2008: 29. 36

these domains. Teaching staff and graduates of normal schools should in theory attain at least a degree in level one, but if they fail to do so level 2 is generally also accepted. Level 3 is the minimum requirement and not sufficient to work in the aforementioned professions. For this test oral proficiency is the only skill required, listening, and writing abilities are not tested. The main objectives of the test are to find out the examinee’s accuracy in pronunciation, fluency in reading aloud the written form of literary works, oral presentation ability and mastery of .141 The jie quanguo tuiguang putonghua xuanchuan zhou (全国推广普通话宣传周; National Publicity Week for Putonghua Promotion), every third week of September, is another fundamental strategy for the promotion of Putonghua. It includes “a wide propagation of the necessity and urgency of Putonghua promotion to Chinese society for its modernization; a further spread of the awareness of language normalization to the citizens and to enable their participation in Putonghua promotion, thereby creating favorable atmosphere for the advancement of Putonghua.” 142 The Week is always accompanied with a particular theme, (e.g.: the 8th National Publicity Week for Putonghua Promotion in 2008 had “facilitating smooth communication and building a harmonious society” as its main theme.) Furthermore the main location of the event changes every year. During the event Putonghua reading and writing competitions as well as Putonghua learning workshops are organized.143 Figure 5 displays posters and slogans of the first National Publicity Week that was organized in 1998. The slogans from left to right respectively mean ‘Speak Putonghua, start with yourself’ and ‘The State Promotes the Nationwide Use of Putonghua-constitution of the PRC’:144

141 Kwok, 2012: 2. There are five main tasks: 1) reading aloud monosyllabic words, 2) reading aloud polysyllabic words, 3) to choose and to decide (e.g.: read aloud the correct Putonghua word from a series of five) and matching measure words and , 4) reading aloud a short passage, 5) oral presentation. http://hkpeac.edu.hku.hk/assessment/national-putonghua-proficiency-test-psc/content-and-format-of-the-test/. Accessed 2016-04-20. 142 Wang &Yuan, 2008: 31. 143 Wang & Yuan, 2008: 32. 144 In this section, all translations of Chinese are mine. 37

Fig. 5: Slogans National Publicity Week of Putonghua Promotion, MOE145

As can be observed the CCP regards the strict regulation of language use as a priority. The above described policies are to be implemented in the entire territory of the PRC, however this has occasionally caused problems, mainly in regions that have a regional language standard which is unrelated to Chinese or -as in Guangdong is the case- have a regional standard which phonologically, lexically and grammatically differs greatly from Putonghua. The following section will discuss some of the challenges PRC language policies face in Guangdong province and how this is currently resulting in a relatively stable diglossic situation.

145 http://www.moe.edu.cn/jyb_xwfb/xw_zt/moe_357/jyzt_2015nztzl/2015_zt08/15zt08_wqhg/201509/t20150902_ 205094.html, Accessed: 2016-04-19. 38

2.2 The importance of cultural identity: Cantonese (“L”)

In his article 1992 article on language policies Milton146 observes that: The status of language is in many ethnically divided countries a matter of considerable sensibility. Groups within the same state tend to defend and promote their collective interests by political action because these interests may be jeopardized by the policies of the government, for whom language policy often is an instrument to manage ethnic conflict and achieving political community. Because language is often strongly related to the core and pride of ethnic identity, the status of language tends to be a fundamental issue on which contending factions in ethnic movements are most likely to come together and maintain solidarity. Multiethnic and by extension multilingual countries thus unavoidably are confronted with this issue.

As regards to Guangdong province the aforementioned efforts and measurements of the Chinese government in order to create language unification have not always been appreciated. Already during the Ming dynasty Cantonese developed its status as a genuine regional standard, holding much economic and cultural capital. Today Cantonese upholds this position being the main variant of speech in one of the fastest growing economic regions of China.147 Furthermore recent events indicate that the speakers of Cantonese are developing an increasing sense of cultural identity.148 In order to illustrate the low position Cantonese is currently maintaining in Guangdong diglossia the following sections will discuss some of these events. Additionally, several surveys concerning the current feelings of affection of Cantonese speakers towards their mother tongue will be listed.

2.2.1 Signs of local language activism

December 24th, 2008, the leading newspaper of Guangdong, the Guangzhou Daily, published a rather unusual news item at their front page. It was reported that a Guangzhou downtown school started a campaign called ‘Cantonese Day’ because they believed many children had lost the ability to speak Cantonese. By officially promoting Cantonese on campus the school policies naturally conflicted with the aforementioned Language Law,149 which obliges the use of Putonghua in all educational activities. Although the report turned out to be exaggerated and distorted (Apparently ‘Cantonese Day’ was only a small part of a series of activities in the school introducing the culture of Guangzhou in the light of the

146 Milton, 1992: 382. 147 See previous chapters (1.4.2) 148 Ramsey, 1987: 100. 149 Article 10. See previous chapters (2.1.3). 39

upcoming Asian Games150 of 2010), the news report was still fascinating in another respect: The main title of the article was written in Cantonese instead of the usual SMC. This is interesting in the sense that, as the article talked about competences in Cantonese, the construction and consumption of it required at least some level of biliteracy in both Written Cantonese and SMC.151

Fig. 6: Guangzhou Daily reports on ‘Cantonese Day’, Liang, 2015: 4.152

Some time later, in July 2010, shortly after a proposal to replace Cantonese language television with Putonghua, a call was issued to meet for a Cantonese songfest to demonstrate support for Cantonese. Guangzhou dianshitai (广州电视台; Guangzhou Television) already in the early 80ties had obtained the political authorization for broadcasting in Cantonese, however, in occasion of the upcoming Asian Games to be held in Guangzhou in 2010, it was suggested by the Guangzhoushi zhengxie (广州市政协; Guangzhou Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference) that Guangzhou Television should use Putonghua over Cantonese in its programs in order to be broadcasted nationwide. Nonetheless many residents considered the formal suggestion as an attempt to eliminate Cantonese and diminish regional identity and culture. After the call hundreds of Guangzhou youth showed up at renmin gongyuan (人民公园; People’s Park), joining in singing Cantonese songs.153 A few days later another call went out on the Internet asking for ten thousands of people to gather at the Henanxi subway station (河南西地铁站) on July 25 for qi cheng yueyu da xingdong (齐撑粤 语大行动; Big Movement to support Cantonese Together). As local authorities declared the

150 The Asian Games, also known as ASIAD, is a pancontinental multi-sport event held every four years among athletes from all over Asia. It is said to be the second largest sport event after the Olympic Games (Ching, 2008: 51). In 2010 the Asian Games took place in Guangzhou. 151 Liang, 2015: 3-4. 152 In this section, all translations from Chinese are mine. Main title: ‘Many Guangzhou kids cannot speak their own language.’ Smaller title: ‘Xian Lie Zhong Primary School designates one day each weak to be ‘Cantonese Day’ in order to eliminate Cantonese illiteracy. On that day students should not speak more then 20 Putonghua sentences.’ Cantonese features in the main title are for example: 细路 (saihlou; children) and 唔 (ng; negative marker). 153 http://chinamusictech.blogspot.be/2010/08/is-cantonese-in-danger-of-extinction.html; Accessed: October 25, 2015. 40

gathering illegal the original organizers tried to call it off, however still over two thousand people showed to participate in shouting slogans such as Baodonggua shou pi guangzhouhua qimao (煲冬瓜收皮广州话起锚; Mandarin, Pack It Up, Cantonese, Anchors Ahoy) and Guangzhou hua wansui (广州话万岁; Long Live Cantonese).154 Although rather small, it is remarkable how local authorities endeavoured to cover up the whole incident: Users of Sina Weibo155 promptly could not use certain keywords or upload any photo’s relating to the event. Local television stations did not mention the incident, and when Hong Kong stations reported it, their broadcasts through the cable network in Guangzhou were interrupted. 156 The aforementioned incidents clearly prove the strong feelings of affection Cantonese speakers in Guangdong have towards their language. The fact that also a lot of young people participated in the protest suggests that this is not only an affection shared by the older generations. At this point we also would like to add that the timing of these events, namely the preamble of the 2010 Asian Games to be held in Guangzhou, is probably not coincidental. In the prospect of Guangzhou getting attention from all over China as well as from other Asian countries it seemed that the Chinese government all of a sudden felt the urge to keep up -one Chinese language- appearances.

2.2.2 Affections towards Cantonese

Strong feelings of cultural identity related to a certain kind of language often safeguard the use of this language in certain situations. In their 1987-survey Kalmar et al.157 already demonstrated how Cantonese speakers considered someone who speaks Putonghua with a heavily Cantonese accent more congenial and trustworthy than someone who speaks flawless Putonghua. In their survey they selected two stretches of speech of the same speaker, one in which the speaker speaks heavily ‘Cantonized’ Putonghua and another in which the speaker speaks excellent Putonghua. Subsequently, the selected samples were given to a group of judges, both Cantonese and non-Cantonese speakers, who had to answer some questions on their general beliefs about the two samples, of which they assumed it were two different speakers. Furthermore, in 2008 Wang & Lagdegaard158 suggested that Putonghua promotion

154 http://www.inmediahk.net/node/1007794. Accessed: October 25, 2015. 155 Sina Weibo is China’s biggest microblog platform today. It was founded in 2009 by Sina Corporation and counted roughly 300 million users by the end of 2013 (Sullivan, 2012: 778). 156 Liang, 2015: 8. 157 Kalmar et al. 1987: 500-501. 158 Wang & Ladegaard, 2008: 70-72. 41

is beginning to have effect and acquire importance, resulting in a stable diglossia were Putonghua and Cantonese serve different functions. Another more recent study conducted by Liang Sihua159 on language socialization in multidialectal households in Guangzhou presented some interesting results concerning language use in a family context: According to Liang’s research Guangzhou parents tend to emphasize the importance of speaking the mother-tongue at home, as Putonghua already got enough attention in the school context. In the same survey she also found evidence that children themselves regarded the native dialect as part of their own unique identity, and when asked why they preferred their mother-tongue above the national standard one of the answers was that “Putonghua was just to putong”160 (普通; common, here with the connotation of ordinary)”. All of these surveys confirm a clear and stable diglossic situation has developed in Guangdong, in which the highly instrumental evaluated Putonghua serves as “H”, whereas the highly integrative evaluated Cantonese serves as “L”. In the light of the above-described events one could however question if this situation is satisfactory for all parties involved.

2.3 Guangdong ‘critical diglossia’ summarized

When observing the current high-low language distribution between Putonghua and Cantonese as it is imposed from above a strong political dimension can be observed. Chinese policy makers since 1949 onwards have put tremendous efforts into standardizing, unifying and promoting Putonghua-SMC as the National Standard. Chinese language policy has contributed to the contemporary high-low distribution in quite some respects: first of all the implementation of the policy, although theoretically respecting the use and development of regional variants, meant the detriment of Cantonese to firmly all low registers of speech: The use of Putonghua is obligated in the educational system, in media of all sorts and in governmental and legal institutions. Furthermore, it is required to have at least some degree in Putonghua when one wants to pursue a job in these sectors and certain others. This has left Cantonese to be learned at home and used in what is regarded as low registers of speech, such as ordinary daily conversations with family and friends, buying things at the market or having a chat with the taxi driver. What is even more remarkable is that Chinese language planning also seems to have created a stronger sense of cultural identity as the Guangzhou television case and the

159 Liang, 2015: 93-103. 160 Liang, 2015: 100. 42

aforementioned surveys exemplify. Whereas the use of Putonghua in high registers of speech resulted in its association with a high instrumental value clearly most speakers of Cantonese still regard it as having a strong integrative value. Conclusively Baker161 argues that:

Language attitude appears to be important in language restoration, preservation, decay or death. In other words, a favorable attitude towards a dialect or language may serve to maintain its vitality, just as a positive attitude to healthy eating and exercise may increase life expectancy. A survey of attitudes indicates what current communities think, believe, prefer and desire, something that language policies cannot afford to ignore. To ensure its success, especially in the system of education, a language policy should take into account the attitudes of those likely to be affected.

In this respect we suggest that the Chinese government should keep in mind that when destabilizing the current diglossia, as they for example tended to do in the preamble of the 2010 Asian Games, this might actually have a reversed effect in the sense that local language activism increases.

161 Baker, 1992 cited from: Zhu, 2015: 226. 43

3 HKSAR critical diglossia: pragmatic trilingualism

3.1 Historical approach: victim of linguistic imperialism

The previous chapter described how a clear and relatively stable diglossic situation evolved in Guangdong province, the most outstanding characteristic of which is the tense interplay between state-sponsored Putonghua (“H”) and culturally associated Cantonese (“L”). Cantonese however also plays a part in another diglossic situation, which, as will be described in the next chapter, is perhaps far less characterized by this interplay. The following chapter will discuss how HKSAR current diglossic situation is generally imposed from above. HKSAR is situated between Guangdong province, the southeastern coast of China and the South China Sea. It is actually an amalgam of more than 230 islands (of which the most important are Hong Kong and Lantau) and a piece of the Chinese Mainland known as the Kowloon Peninsula.162 For more than a century the region has been part of the British Empire, in the capacity of which it developed itself into an international financial center. Today HKSAR is among the most successful economic regions in Asia, consequently its reunification with the PRC is generally seen as an important asset in the economic growth of the latter. However, recently it has been observed that the reunification also made Hong Kong increasingly reliant on the Mainland.163 Don Snow164 pictures contemporary Hong Kong as a multilingual society in at least two ways: First of all Hong Kong can be regarded as multilingual in the sense that, next to the 90% native speakers of Cantonese, ten percent of its population has another mother tongue such as Kejia, English, Hindi or Chaozhou. Secondly most speakers also have at least some knowledge of English, Cantonese and/or Putonghua, as these are integrated in the educational system and of particular interest for communication with people outside Hong Kong.

Confirming its complex multilingual society, the diglossic situation in Hong Kong today is also fairly complicated. According to Snow both English and Putonghua became to function as “H” whereas Cantonese invariable remains functioning as “L”. This complex diglossic situation is the result of a number of historical and political processes.

162 Bauer, 1984: 62. 163 Tsang, 2004: 268-273. Scholars have referred this as mainlandization (Lo, 2008: 39; Lai, 2012: 104). See following chapters (4.2). 164 Snow, 2004: 17. 44

3.1.1 English (“H”) during the British rule

Hong Kong was ceded to the British Empire after the First Opium War in 1841. Immediately after the transfer was ratified at the ‘Treaty of Nanjing’ (1842), the British trading community that previously had taken residence in Macao was transferred to the island. As soon as the British set foot on their newly annexed territory they established a government, legal system and free marketplace, all according to Western models. This western model brought many benefits, as was exhibited in the order, stability and prosperity that would characterize the years of British colonial rule.165 British language planning and the role English came to play in Hong Kong needs to be understood in the broader picture of British colonial language policy worldwide. In a number of historical studies this has been linked to an unconcealed linguistic imperialism which most important aim was to impose English as the language of the imperial power on colonized communities in Africa and Asia.166 However there are also scholars with a more nuanced point of view, arguing that the British colonial language policy needs to be seen from a pragmatic perspective in terms of strategies of divide and rule. Nevertheless, the legacy of these policies, either explicitly and overtly imposed by law or subtler through the establishment of systems of parallel languages in education and other public institutions, have, both in Hong Kong as well as in other post-colonial regions, extended to the present.167 This is why Hong Kong speakers have been pictured as victims of linguistic imperialism.168 The language policies of the British government actually were quite laissez-faire: From 1842 onwards English was the sole official language for all government and legal institutions; furthermore it served as the more prestigious medium for secondary and university education and its use in industry, trade, business, finance, and other formal communication was also widely accepted.169 Nevertheless, the British rulers did not implement an active language policy in the sense that no clear regulations or legal statements were put forward. Consequently, the linguistic situation in Hong Kong for more than a century evolved without much official support or intervention.170 The consequence for the diglossic situation was twofold: English gradually established itself as “H”, hereby overthrowing the ancient wenyan-

165 Munn, 2001: 71; Liang, 2015: 23. 166 Robert Phillipson (1992: 4) argues that “the dominance of English as an international language of world commodity and cornerstone of the global capitalist economy is asserted and maintained in the continuous creation of cultural inequalities between English and other languages, this not in the least by hogging an unfair share of teaching resources.” 167 Pennycook, 1998: 19. 168 Lai, 2012: 84. 169 Bolton, 2000, 270; Zhang & Yang, 2004: 145 170 Liang, 2015: 23. 45

colloquial high-low language distribution on the one hand; Cantonese was able to emerge as the dominant spoken language (“L”) on the other.171 The explanation for the latter is mainly demographic.

3.1.2 Cantonese (“L”) and Hong Kong cultural identity

Before becoming a British colony Hong Kong was merely an assemblage of fisher villages of which the indigenous people mostly were speakers of Punti (part of the Yue-group) and Kejia. The period of British sovereignty would however be accompanied by a remarkable population growth. Today roughly 8 million people live in Hong Kong, most of which are ethnic Chinese (93%) and not British.172 This ratio, of a vast majority of ethnic Chinese over a small minority of foreign infiltrators, has also been the case throughout Hong Kong’s colonial history. Mayers and King for example attested in 1862 a ratio of 121 904 Chinese over 1604 British-European and American inhabitants.173 This partially can be explained by the gradual immigration of Chinese Mainlanders into Hong Kong since 1842. Not surprisingly, the first immigrants moved to Hong Kong mainly for pragmatic reasons in search of a better standard of living.174 The transformation of a bunch of rural fisher villages into a thriving and well-organized trading community under the control of a few dozen British officials, after all, did not go unnoticed in the adjacent Chinese Mainland where two opium wars,175 imperial maladministration and the Taiping uprising176 had weakened the national moral.177 By the end of the 19th century, in the run-up to the Chinese Revolution,178 Hong Kong had further evolved in a safe haven for dissidents and political refugees from the Chinese Mainland to retreat after unsuccessful armed uprisings. . The coming and going of immigrants remained largely unchecked: “One was permitted to live an get on with their legitimate affairs as long as no local laws were broken and their presence was not injurious to the British interests.”179 During the Chinese Civil War both economic and political refugees, in particular entrepreneurs with individualistic and capitalistic interests, gradually kept arriving in Hong Kong. Eventually, with the victory of the CCP and the establishment of the PRC, the influx of refugees from the Mainland became acutely large.

171 Liang, 2015: 23. 172 Liang, 2015: 25. 173 Mayers & King, 1867: 91. 174 Van Dycke, 2005: 161. 175 1839-1842 and 1856-1860. 176 1850-1864. 177 Tsang, 2004:75. 178 1911. 179 Tsang, 2004: 81. 46

Consequently, certain political measures were to be made in order to control the abundant number of Mainland refugees, and so in 1950 the boarder between Hong Kong and China was closed.180 None of these measures however seemed successful in stopping this influx: even today, although immigration policies are quite strict HKSAR population is still expanding rapidly.181 Hong Kong demographic situation, and the way it has changed over time, contribute to its current diglossic situation as follows: First of all one should always keep in mind when talking about Hong Kong linguistics that to a certain point linguistic diversity is enormous,182 as people from over all over China, whether a century ago or very recently, immigrated into the region. Nevertheless, because a vast majority of these immigrants originally came from the neighboring Guangdong province, and because a considerable part of Hong Kong indigenous population were native speakers of a language variety belonging to the Yue group, Cantonese, within this newly composite, multilingual society, became to serve as a lingua franca.183 Even today, it is commonly accepted among Mainland Chinese and foreigners that, if one wants to work, trade or exchange in HKSAR competence in Cantonese rather than in Putonghua is required.184 Because of its status as a lingua franca Cantonese throughout time also became an important symbol of Hong Kong cultural identity. The period after 1950 witnessed the emergence of what Baker185 called the ‘Hong Kong Man’: “both Westernized but Chinese, different from Hong Kong British people as well as from Mainland Chinese.”186 In particular the awareness of the increasing socioeconomic differences between the ‘free-market’ colony

180 Skeldon, 1990: 502; Bolton, 2000: 268. In 1951 Hong Kong government established a Frontier Closed Area to serve as a buffer zone between the Mainland and Hong Kong, concretely for entrance in the zone a Closed Area Permit was required. After this measurements appeared to be insufficient to hold back the influx of refugees in 1974 the government adopted the so-called Touch Base Policy, which allowed immigrants from the Mainland who reached the urban areas to register for a . In 1980 this was however abolished and every illegal immigrant who arrived on or after 24th of October 1980 was immediately repatriated back to the Chinese Mainland. It would last until 2006 for the border crossings between Hong Kong and PRC to be opened again 24 hours a day. 181 Bolton, 2000: 268. This has also certain consequences for the diglossic situation. See following chapters (4.4.1). 182 Pierson (1994: 46) described the ethnic diversity in Hong Kong at the end of the colonial period as consisting of: Cantonese, Kejia, Chaozhou, Fujian, the indigenous Tanka, , Northern Chinese, foreigners and overseas Chinese. 183 Postiglioni, 1988: 247; Baker, 1988: 471; Bauer, 1984: 59, 77. 184 Baker, 1988: 472. 185 Baker, 1983: 478. 186 Kaeding, 2011: 261. 47

and backward communist China stimulated a sense of cultural distance and superiority to the Mainland Chinese.187 At this point it can be observed that the Hong Kong diglossic situation during the British colonial rule was quite similar to the current situation in Guangdong: in both regions Cantonese serves as the low variant in combination with a high variant (English in Hong Kong and Putonghua in Guangdong). However, Hong Kong diglossia is more complicated than that in the sense that the old diglossic situation (wenyan-colloquial) was not abandoned, but overthrown. The result was that a high-low distribution between English and Chinese developed, in which Chinese further included a second high-low distribution between Wenyan and spoken Chinese (in the case of Hong Kong thus Cantonese). 188 Following figure schematizes this theory:

HKSAR diglossia

“H” “L”

English Chinese

“h” “l”

Wenyan Spoken Cantonese

Fig. 7: HKSAR language distribution according to Snow (2004, 2010).

3.1.3 1997: Questioning the high-low distribution

During the entire colonial period Putonghua thus never has played a role in the Hong Kong diglossic situation. The status of English as the official language and the role of Cantonese as a medium for ordinary conversation by no means explain this. The need for a national

187 Eoyang, 2000: 63. Also English became part of the Hong Kong identity: from the 60ies onwards Hong Kong people became increasingly proud of their ability to speak English. Accordingly, throughout time the British presence in the region became thought of as an ally against China rather than a colonial oppressor (Eoyang, 2000: 63). 188 Snow, 2010: 155-179. 48

standard simply did not exist, furthermore over time Putonghua became “the linguistic face of the backward Mainland.”189 In 1984 Deng Xiaoping and Margaret Thatcher agreed on the returning of Hong Kong to the PRC. Confirm the principle of ‘one country, two systems’ it was stated in the HKSAR Basic Law, signed that same year: “the previous capitalist system and lifestyle of Hong Kong will remain unchanged for 50 years after the handover.” 190 This subsequently allowed HKSAR government to develop and conduct its own language planning. However, in the preamble of the change of sovereignty there was a widespread concern that the post-colonial period would see the downgrading of English and the rise of Putonghua in all official domains.191 In the light of Thatcher and Deng’s agreement, language planning and specifically the underrated position of Cantonese came at the political agenda. The ‘Official Language Ordinance’ enacted in 1974 can be seen as a first official intent to create a more officially supported multilingual atmosphere. It declared that both English and Chinese are to be the official languages in Hong Kong for the purposes of communication between the government or any public officer and members of the public.192 Other examples of a positive attitude towards multilingualism in the late colonial period are British Governor Christopher Patten, who declared in his policy address of 1995 to promote the wider use of the Chinese language, and the establishment of a working group under the Civil Service. Article 9 of The Basic Law furthermore states that next to English also Chinese may be used as an official language. Quite remarkable is that in all the aforementioned statements the exact meaning of ‘Chinese’ remains equivocal, which indicates that British language policy more or less remained laissez- faire.193 The aforementioned reforms clearly are the cradle for the later Liangwu Sanyu policy (两文三语; biliteracy and trilingualism), but were however not very successful in

189 Eoyang, 2000: 63. 190 The Basic Law (Article 5): “The socialist system and policies shall not be practiced in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, and the previous capitalist system and way of life shall remain unchanged for 50 years.” All legal statements from The HKSAR Basic Law that will be used in this section are collected form the following source: http://www.basiclaw.gov.hk/en/basiclawtext/images/basiclaw_full_text_en.pdf. Accessed: May 21, 2016. 191 Bolton, 2011: 54; Zhang & Yang, 2004: 144. This urged several scholars (Bauer, 1984; Postiglione, 1992; Bruche-Schulz, 1995) to publish studies devoted to the subject of a potential language clash in post-colonial Hong Kong. Especially the further downgrading of Cantonese was feared. See previous chapter (1.1). 192 Bruche-Schulz, 1997: 297. 193 Bruche-Schulz, 1997: 297. The Basic Law (Article 9): “In addition to the Chinese language, English may also be used as an official language by the executive authorities, legislature and judiciary of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.” 49

promulgating the usage of Chinese-Cantonese at the time. As a result the status of English has remained unimpaired.194

3.2 Current language planning: pragmatic trilingualism

Despite the aforementioned skepticism concerning the status of Cantonese, except for some minor shifts, actually little has changed in Hong Kong language practices. In contrast to what many scholars thus expected Putonghua by no means jeopardized the status of English or the status of Cantonese. Nonetheless, after the handover HKSAR diglossia has underwent complications in two ways: First of all a third player has emerged in HKSAR diglossia, not - as would be expected- in the form of spoken Putonghua, but in its written version SMC. Secondly, language policies after the handover have also contributed to the appearance of Cantonese in some high functions, such as education and legal institutions, but also entertainment and advertisement industry. The following section will briefly outline language policies in HKSAR.

3.2.1 Laissez-faire tactics

What is quit remarkable about HKSAR language planning is that, whereas language planning in the PRC is disseminated through public documents, reports and regulations, there are few (if any) documents in the HKSAR that set out an official language policy for all the major domains of society in a cohesive and principled manner. HKSAR language policy since 1997 can best be described as a number of diverse statements that have been issued by the government in the colonial as well as the post-colonial period. These were evidently influenced by circumstances, public opinion or other pragmatic reasons relating to the political pressures of the day.195 Besides the aforementioned Article 9 there is only one other article in the HKSAR Basic Law that provides some information about current language policies. Article 136 On the basis of the previous educational system, the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region shall, on its own, formulate policies on the development and improvement of education, including policies regarding the educational system and its administration, the language of instruction and, the allocation of funds, the examination system, the system of academic awards and the recognition of educational qualifications.

194 Zhang & Yang, 2004: 145. 195 Bolton, 2011: 55; Zhang & Yang, 2004: 144. 50

Other than these legal, though ambiguous provisions for the use of English and Chinese in The Basic Law the government in recent years made itself somewhat more clear in several other official statements in order to create a reasonable equilibrium between English, Putonghua and Cantonese.196 Among them the most significant in terms of impact and controversy are without a doubt the policies of Liangwen Sanyu (两文三语；biliteralism and trilingualism) and Mother Tongue Teaching.197 Liangwen Sanyu refers to English and SMC as the two legal writing systems, and the use of English, Putonghua and Cantonese as the official spoken languages. 198 Following statements of the Hong Kong Ministry of Education (1997) and the First Chief Executive and President of the Executive Council of HKSAR Dong Jianhua (董建华; Tung Chee-Hwa) (2000) exemplify Liangwen Sanyu: 199

政府的语 文教育政策, 以`两文三语' 为目标, 期望我们的学生, 可以中英 兼擅, 能书写通顺中、英文, 操流利的粤语、普通话和英语。

The language education policies of the government considers ‘biliteralism and trilingualism’ as its aim, of our students is expected they expert in both Chinese as English, they can write clear and coherent in Chinese and English and speak fluently in Cantonese, Putonghua and English.

我们香港是 推动一个`两文三语' 的语言政策, 香港的确是一个国际大都会, 是国际性的金融中心, 所以在英语方面, 我们是要做得很好才可。但是在 其它语言方面,我们一样要努力。在普通话方面, 一般的中文方面,所以我 们会加强推动`两文三语' 的语言政策。

We, Hong Kong, are to promote a language policy of ‘biliteralism and trilingualism’, after all Hong Kong is an international metropolis, and a financial center with an international character, that is why, as regards to English, we will approve very good abilities. However also as regards to other languages, we will be just as diligent. As regards to Putonghua, as well as to SMC, that is why we will strengthen the promotion of the language policy of ‘biliteralism and trilingualism’.

The policy actually already has its roots in the early 90s, with particular reference to the use of languages in the civil service sector mentioned above, however it was only after the handover the efforts and proclamations to promote multilingualism show any actualization.200

196 Bolton, 2011: 56. 197 Zhang & Yang, 2004: 144. 198 Xu Guanglie, 2005: 34. In this section, all translations from Chinese are mine. 199 Xu Guanglie, 2005: 34. 200 Bolton, 2011: 56. 51

As a reason for this particular time Zhang & Yang201 suggest it might have been the atmosphere of the Chinese rule, or, more likely, a growing vocational need, related to the narrowing economic ties between HKSAR and the Mainland. Actualization of Liangwen Sanyu mainly manifests itself in the emergence of Putonghua in school curricula, job requirements and other formal situations. Ideally Liangwen Sanyu means the equal share of both writing systems and all three languages in HKSAR society, however in practice the equilibrium between the languages is less well balanced. Such unequal distribution for instance becomes clear in the suggested minimum time allocation per week in primary schools, which states that up to 8 periods should be dedicated to the learning of English against only 3-4 periods for Putonghua. Mother Tongue Teaching refers to a policy of ‘firm guidance’ concerning the medium of instruction the HKSAR introduced in 1998. According to this policy around 75% of the secondary schools were required to teach through the native language, thus Cantonese, and only 25% were permitted to teach through English. The policy was introduced to help students to learn more effectively and partially was an answer to the accelerating voices of concern regarding the status of Cantonese. On the one hand this policy was a minimally disruptive transition, as actually already a great deal of primary school education happened in Cantonese, so it was only natural for secondary education to follow; on the other hand the use of Cantonese as the medium of instruction became in a way problematic as the written language that was used in all education was SMC, which is a representation of Putonghua and not Cantonese. Chinese spoken and written language in HKSAR thus gradually grew apart.202 Liangwen Sanyu and Mother Tongue Teaching, next to the gradual introduction of Putonghua-SMC in HKSAR society, thus also contributed to the upgrading of Cantonese, as it was officially accepted as a medium of instruction. Furthermore, it can be observed that Cantonese also found its way to governmental and legal institutions such as the Legislative Council203 and the Common Law system: Whereas English and Putonghua are rarely heard in the Legislative Council the vast majority of debates and discussion take place in Cantonese.

201 Zhang & Yang obtained the following information from the Curriculum Development Council, which is a free-standing advisory body appointed by the Chief Executive of the HKSAR to give advice to the Government on matters relating to curriculum development for the local school system. It was formerly known as the Curriculum Development Committee and was first established in 1972. http://cd1.edb.hkedcity.net/cd/cdc/en/page01.htm. Accessed: May 5, 2016. 202 Lai, 2012: 85. The policy moreover was not quit well received by both student parents and schools, as it was feared that students would lose “their competitive edge without exposure to English during their critical years of learning”. In 2010-2011 it was announced that the policy of Mother Tongue Teaching should fade out and schools should be allowed to choose which language they use as the medium of instruction, according to the needs and the abilities of their students. 203 The Legislative Council is responsible for discussing and approving the laws of Hong Kong. 52

However, almost all the Legislative Council’s written documents are currently drafted in English, and then translated into SMC. Consequently, English and SMC remain the default written language of the government, whereas Cantonese has replaced English for spoken communication.204 Simultanously, as regards the Common Law, both English and SMC serve as written languages, whereas English and Cantonese serve as spoken languages. Ng,205 who examined in great detail the use of English and Cantonese in Hong Kong courts observes a clear hierarchy in which English remains the dominant language in the higher courts and Cantonese in the lower.206

3.2.2 Active agents of pragmatic language choice

Right before the handover Don Snow207 observed HKSAR diglossic situation evolved in an in fact ‘triglossic’ situation. The ancient wenyan (“H”) and vernacular Cantonese (“L) distribution as it existed in Hong Kong just as in the rest of China was overthrown the moment the British arrived and established their own language, English, as the new “H”. The result was that a high-low distribution between English and Chinese developed, in which Chinese further included a second high-low distribution between Wenyan and spoken Cantonese. When one replaces wenyan with SMC it seems that the theory of Snow still proves relevant for todays situation, however a more comprehensive image is developed by Liang: 208 English both written and spoken, SMC and to a certain extent formal registers of spoken Cantonese, being the languages of formal and institutional functions, serve as “H”, whereas informal Cantonese and Written Cantonese serve as (“L”). Following figure schematizes Liang’s theory:

204 Bolton, 2011: 56. 205 Ng, 2009: 253. 206 Bolton, 2011: 57. 207 Snow, 2010: 155-179. 208 Liang, 2015: 24. 53

HKSAR diglossia

“H” “L”

Written English Spoken English Spoken Cantonese Written Cantonese

SMC Formal Spoken Cantonese

Fig. 8: HKSAR diglossia according to Liang (2015)

Liang’s picture of HKSAR diglossia is interesting in the sense that it distinguishes written from spoken languages. Observing this scheme two interesting remarks can be made: First of all it is noteworthy that spoken Putonghua in no way is present in HKSAR contemporary diglossic situation. Secondly, the position of Cantonese serving as “H” as well as “L” is not only equivocal; it furthermore suggests that the supposed high-low distribution English- Cantonese is becoming increasingly obscured. The reason for this has to be found in in the unregulated form in which language planning is conducted in the HKSAR. Other than the diglossic situation in the PRC, HKSAR diglossia was able to grow in a much more organic way: its development, maintenance and obscuring today is rather influenced by a composite and multilingual-minded population than by state- sponsored language planning and regulations.209 It is remarkable that despite a strong sense of cultural identity less language activism, such as exhibited in the 2010 Guangzhou television case, can be attested in HKSAR. Naturally, this can be linked to the positive attitude of policy makers towards Cantonese, which resulted in the broadening of its societal functions. This is why Li210 has argued, that “HKSAR people today are not victims of linguistic imperialism but active agents in their choices of language,” meaning that HKSAR diglossia is evolving from beneficial multilingualism rather than from state-sponsored language.

209 Lai, 2012: 84. 210 Li, 2000 cited from: Lai, 2012: 84. 54

3.3 Hong Kong critical diglossia summarized

British colonial rule introduced English as the “H” language variant, by which it overarched the old diglossic situation of Wenyan and spoken Cantonese. The gradual demographic growth due to long-lasting and large-scale immigration of Chinese Mainlanders into the Hong Kong region contributed to the development of Cantonese as a lingua franca in a highly multilingual society. By the time of the handover Hong Kong diglossia thus had evolved in a triglossic situation between English (“H”), wenyan (“h”) and spoken Cantonese (“l”). Although it was predicted that Putonghua eventually would replace English as “H” and Cantonese consequently would remain “L”, the outcome of the diglossic situation after the handover proved to become far more complicated. In the light of the ‘One Country, Two Systems’ policy HKSAR language planning was able to develop relatively independent from the Mainland. Consequently, the much less rigorous and rather vague language policies had two important consequences as regards to the diglossic situation: First of all, as SMC became commonly used in HKSAR, the Chinese National Standard did in a way conquer its place in the diglossic situation. Secondly, Cantonese, which used to be an exclusively low variant, has moved its way up to certain high registers of speech. It can be observed that due to the lack of strong political intervention the diglossic situation in HKSAR developed in a rather organic way; after all Cantonese speakers in Hong Kong have become “active agents of language choice” instead of “victims of linguistic imperialism.”211 Conclusively, the question rises whether with the lack of a strong political dimension the current diglossic situation is very sustainable. When diglossia becomes the result of pragmatic language choices rather than political measurements ultimately also other actors become important, this however leads us to the notion of lifestyle diglossia, which will be described in the next chapter.

211 Lai, 2012: 84. 55

4 HKSAR and Guangdong: lifestyle diglossia

4.1 Changing lifestyles, changing language practices

Mukul Saxena212 suggested: “while diglossia is generally imposed from above, it can also develop from below.” Consequently, he proposed the introduction of a new notion, lifestyle diglossia, to include the relation between particular changes in a person’s individual lifestyle and changes in language practice. In his example of lifestyle diglossia in Brunei, the process of globalization has “presented people with alternative lifestyles facilitated by the unprecedented nature of flows of ideas, people, goods and language practices,” 213 this then has, despite the cultural-political language capital inherent to Malay as Brunei’s national language, resulted in a high-low language distribution of English-Malay in certain domains of speech such as eating, medical health and identity projection. What Saxena214 in particular pointed out was how the introduction of Western food, Western medical healthcare and a shift towards modern/western lifestyle in general resulted in the appearance of certain English terminology and the disappearance of traditional vocabulary in these domains. Besides globalization also other sociocultural processes can affect the way people live and subsequently influence their language use. In the following chapter some of these impellent dynamics for the high-low distribution of Putonghua-Cantonese and English-Putonghua- Cantonese will be described. Specifically the increasing economical and cultural ties between Guangdong and HKSAR will be investigated as a lifestyle-changing event for both regions. Subsequently their position as a single block in the broader framework of urbanization will be discussed. As no surveys were conducted by my own the most important aim of this chapter will be to picture a framework and pave the way for more profound research.

212 Saxena, 2014: 94. 213 Saxena, 2014: 94. 214 Saxena, 2014: 104-110. 56

4.2 Internationalization, localization and mainlandization in HKSAR

Mee-Ling Lai215 has been studying the language attitudes of Hong Kong secondary school students towards English, Cantonese and Putonghua from the instrumental–integrative perspective since the 1997 handover onwards. What is most striking in her surveys, conducted in 2001, 2005 and 2009, is that Putonghua both at the instrumental as well as the integrative level remains the lowest ranked of al three languages. English has the highest instrumental value, whereas Cantonese has the highest integrative value (although it also has to a certain extent instrumental value). In a comparison of her own surveys she noticed little change can be observed in terms of the overall attitudes of the students towards the instrumental- integrative value of the languages, however the most significant change can be attested in the increasing positive attitudes of students towards Putonghua, both at the integrative as well as at the instrumental level. In the previous chapter on the HKSAR diglossic situation as it is imposed from above the more or less organic development of current language distribution in HKSAR was already suggested. Whereas English as “H” and Cantontese “L” was promulgated during the British rule, this distribution endured -in an admittedly more complicated form- after the handover as a consequence of pragmatic choices of language use rather than state-sponsored language planning. In her latest survey Lai216 has explained these specific choices as due to an intensive interplay of three processes: internationalization, localization and mainlandization. Internationalization refers to the international advantage Hong Kong has over other cities in China and Asia. While Hong Kong evolved during the British rule in an international financial center, it is widely believed that it needs to uphold and improve this position today in order to remain prosperous and affluent. Within this respect English undeniably serves as the language of international business and finance; consequently it is associated with upward mobility.217 This is a reasonable explanation for the high instrumental value Hong Kong students tend to give English in Lai’s survey, however others have attested English also is evaluated as having integrative value.218 The particular consequence of internationalization for HKSAR diglossia is thus the reinforcement of English as a high-level variant. At this point it should be mentioned that whereas the aforementioned might give the impression English is as a high-level language is

215 Lai, 2001, 2005, 2011, 2012. 216 Lai, 2012: 107. 217 Lai, 2012: 102-103. 218 Kwok, 2004; Eoyang, 2006. 57

only in the interest of a particular part of society, and consequently is merely learned by those who pursue upward or outward mobility through economics, politics or education, as a matter of fact English has seeped into the everyday HKSAR lives of Hong Kong people. In his 1988 article on Written Cantonese Bauer for instance lists a number of examples in which English words are used in all sorts of written correspondences ranging from newspaper and magazine articles to ordinary letters.219 With localization Lai220 refers to the aforementioned tendency of defining a distinct Hong Kong cultural identity that emerged in the preamble of the handover, and has flourished ever since. Cantonese not only became to serve as a marker of the Hong Kong identity, it was moreover a political neutral language choice against both the old British colonial rule and potential new imposition of the PRC government. The term mainlandization, strongly reminiscent of the pejorative connoted term finlandization,221 applies to all efforts to make Hong Kong political and economical more reliant to the Mainland. Throughout time the term also became popular among common people to refer, in a quite negative way, to all practices and social phenomena related to the Mainland.222 As regards to the HKSAR diglossic situation the process of mainlandization cuts both ways: The economic success of the PRC and the increasing number of businessmen, professionals and tourists from the Mainland surely contributed to the rising instrumental and even integrative value of Putonghua, however the negative connotation of the term and the negative image it brings upon Putonghua and its speakers definitely is still alive today.223

4.3 Reversing theories: Hongkongization?

In their 1988 article Chui et al. indicated that, even before the handover, Hong Kong’s influence in Guangdong resulted in the rise of materialistic values above political ones. Whereas Hong Kong under British colonial rule became an important metropolis in Southeast Asia, Guangdong, during the Mao revolutionary area lagged far behind. Nonetheless, since the implementation of China’s famous ‘open-door-policy’ (1978), the province, and in

219 Bauer, 1988: 254, 256-257, 263-277. 220 Eoyang, 2000: 63; Lai, 2012: 99-101; Liang, 2015: 23-24 221 ‘Finlandization’ originally referred the influence of the Soviet Union on Finland’s policies during the Cold War, throughout time it became a common term to indicate the process by which one powerful country strongly influences the policies of a smaller neighboring country, while allowing it to keep its own political independence (Ching, 2011). 222 Lo, 2008: 39; Lai, 2012: 104. 223 Lai, 2012: 105; Ching, 2011. 58

particular its capital Guangzhou, became among the fastest-growing area’s of China, putting tremendous efforts into catching up with Hong Kong. Chiu et al. 224 explain Hong Kong’s influence in Guangdong as due to the lack of a well- defined cultural identity the rapid economic growth brought about:

Under Mao the lives of the Guangdong people were embedded in socialist values: collective interest prevailed over individual success and self-sacrifice was publicly encouraged, praised and honored. The economic reform of 1978 changed this social stratification system in the sense that instead of holding up the socialist ideal the Party all of a sudden acknowledged self-interest as the impellent force behind economic progress, hereby creating a personal space that was unknown to most Mainlanders. In the period immediately after 1978 new lifestyles, influenced by foreign culture, began to evolve quickly.

Because of proximity, kinship networks and shared culture it is generally assumed that Hong Kong was the most striking ‘foreign’ influence in Guangdong. Principle sources of this influence are business, tourism and mass media.

4.3.1 Increasing closer economic and cultural ties

In the light of the handover the economic ties between the two regions have become much narrower. Since the late 70ties Hong Kong has been an important player as trading partner, intermediary financier and investor in the Mainland economy, in particular for Guangdong (in the economic world better known as the ‘Pearl River Delta’).225 In the first ten years that followed the economic reforms foreign enterprises, in particular from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, have invested heavily in China. Due to a number of reasons, such as geographical proximity, cultural ties, common language and economic status, Guangdong is, from Hong Kong’s perspective, the most interesting investment region in the Mainland.226 Cheng & Peiyu 227 note: “from the early 80ties onwards the combination of Hong Kong capital, technology and entrepreneurship with cheap labor and land supply in Guangdong gave rise to

224 Chiu et al., 1998: 749-770. 225 The Pearl River Delta (hereafter: PRD) is an indispensable term in the discussion of Guangdong and Hong Kong’s successful economic cooperation. The region includes the cities Guangzhou, , Zhuhai, Foshan, Jiangmen, Zhongshan and Dongguan; the counties: Huiyang, Huidong and Boluo and parts of the cities: Zhaoqing, Gaoyao and Sihui, all situated in Guangdong province. Generally the region is regarded as one of the most outstanding examples of China’s miraculous economic development since the ‘Open Door Policy’ (Cheng & Zheng, 2001: 585; Naubahar & Tseng, 2011: 633-636). 226 Naubahar & Tseng, 2011: 633-636. 227 Cheng & Zheng, 2001: 584. 59

abundant business opportunities and the promotion of economic development in both places.”228 Political liberalization and economic prosperity in the Chinese Mainland also contributed to the growth of China’s outbound travel. In 1991 the Chinese government allowed Chinese to join tours organized by the China Travel Service to Hong Kong and neighboring countries such as Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand.229 Also the development of a single currency system 230 and the five-day workweek policy facilitated overseas travel. Because of the geographical proximity between Hong Kong and Guandong not surprisingly many Mainland tourists in Hong Kong are Guangdongren. However also the fact that Guangdong has one of the highest GDP’s in Mainland China makes its inhabitants more likely to be in the position to travel. Moreover, there is also a strong cultural and family link between the two regions, as mentioned in the previous chapters. 231 In their 1999 survey on the motivations of Guangdong people to travel to Hong Kong Zhang & Lam232 conclude that Hi-tech image, expenditure and accessibility are the most attractive factors that motivate to travel to Hong Kong: “the Mainland Chinese travelers are looking mostly for a unique, friendly and convenient place for holidays in Hong Kong.” The increasing number of Hong Kong tourists travelling to Guangdong and vice versa as well as the numerous business partnerships between the regions created opportunities for the Guangdong people to come into contact with Hong Kong, which provided a model for modern attitudes and ways of life.233

228 Economic partnership between HKSAR and the PRD can be traced back to the early 70ties when the first cooperation in manufacturing industries emerged (Cheng & Zheng, 2001: 585; Naubahar & Tseng, 2011: 633- 63). From that time onwards HKSAR investors gradually kept establishing their export processing industries in the Pearl River Delta. In the 90ties cooperation between HKSAR and PRD matured, as manufacturing operations were moved to the PRD on a massive scale: Cheng & Zheng (2001: 586-587) note that the cooperation in manufacturing industries paved the way for other investments in the primary and tertiary industries and by the end of the 90ties “HKSAR business community had invested in all sectors open to competition by the Chinese authorities.” They further observe that since the late 90ties HKSAR and PRD partnership has entered a new stage: in the light of globalization and information technology, the regions faced significant challenges and opportunities. Nowadays both regions have to take collaboration to the next level in order to adapt to the challenges of global integration and the new knowledge economy. 229 Zhang & Lam, 1999: 587-588. 230 Under the old dual-currency system no foreign goods or services could be purchased a Foreign Exchange Certificate to exchange Renminbi. The amount one could exchange moreover was limited. From 1995 onwards this system was replaced by a single currency system in which people are allowed to purchase as many goods and services as they like, this then also applies to ‘travelling services’ (Zhang, 1996: 387). 231 Zhang & Lam, 1999: 588. 232 Zhang & Lam, 1999: 592. 233 Chui et al., 1988: 753. 60

4.3.2 Is there something like hongkongization?

Following Saxena’s model the aforementioned is of particular interest for the diglossic situation in the sense that a more materialistic, consumerist lifestyle also influences language behavior. We want to suggest that because Hong Kong and Guangdong’s social integration developed more individualistic, materialistic and consumerist inhabitants, language choice in Guangdong also became more pragmatically determined. Consequently, the question raises what these pragmatic choices than may be: could it be that whereas Lee-Ming Lai has suggested that current Hong Kong language attitudes are the outcome of an intense interplay of three processes -localization, internationalization and mainlandization- Guangdong attitudes are regulated by the same interplay except that the term mainlandization needs to be replaced with something like hongkongization? Whereas localization in the case of Guangdong clearly can be related to the aforementioned sense of cultural identity that has been increasing since the rigorous promotion of Putonghua, internationalization refers to English and its importance for Guangdong to uphold and extend its current position in the world economy. With regards to this in a survey conducted in 2015 Zhu234 noticed -although attitudes towards both Putonghua and English are generally positive- English apparently is approached with a more positive attitude than Putonghua. The content of hongkongization somewhat leaves us in the open as regards to language use. In her article on “the Southern Dialects as Mediums of Reconciliation” Mary S. Erbaugh235 pointed out that “the power of a language depends less on the number of investors that speak it than on the percentage who are monolingual”, referring to the fact that many Hong Kong people barely speak Putonghua, giving them the advantage in Guangdong to be able to conduct business in their own mother tongue. “Hong Kong and Macao Cantonese compatriots, and Overseas Chinese, are going to have a tough time learning any Mandarin for the foreseeable future. The only way to communicate with them is for you to study Cantonese.” 236 Following this we may just assume that hongkongization means the increasing instrumental value of the already strongly integrative valued Cantonese. However, in the previously mentioned survey conducted by Zhu237 it is indicated that Guangdong students

234 Zhu, 2015: 223. 235 Erbaugh, 1995: 89. 236 Erbaugh, 1995: 89. 237 Zhu, 2015: 223. 61

regard English and Putonghua as having more instrumental value and Cantonese as having strictly integrative value. Liang also attests the same outcome in her survey of language behavior with Guangzhou youth.238 Clearly, other actors matter: On the one hand the strong political dimension Guangdong critical diglossia characterizes offers a reasonable explanation for this, on the other also other sociocultural processes can contribute to this.

4.4 Urbanization as a new research angle

Trying to maintain and further develop their place in the world economy HKSAR and Guangdong more then ever have to team up to face the globalizing and modernizing trends of these times. In the investigation of lifestyle diglossia also these trends need to be taken into account. In the following part we want to discuss one of these trends and its impact for current HKSAR and Guangdong diglossia. One of the world’s most recent sociocultural processes with a considerable impact on the linguistic situation is the process of urbanization. Watson239 observes “the tremendous growth in urban population that has been seen through the latter half of the 20th century is a consequence of both demographic changes, as well as substantial and continuing migration from rural to urban areas.” Large-scale urbanization can be traced back to the development of industrialization on the one hand and colonial expansion on the other. As stated by Gibert & Gugler: 240 “The impact of European expansion from the sixteenth century onwards transformed urban structures in the Third World.” This is also true for the South-China region as Guangzhou during the Ming dynasty established itself in a major trade bastion, while Hong Kong under British colonial rule transformed from an assemblage of fisher villages into an international financial center and metropolis of over 8 million inhabitants.241 As regards to the situation today Ouyang et al.242 notices: “the PRD is one of the most vigorous economic regions in China, and even in the world. Since economic reform and the opening up policy were instigated, Hong Kong and Guangdong have undergone a process of rapid urban expansion. Now, its urbanization level is ranked first in China.” Naturally, the challenges and consequences urbanization brings about are incalculable, however we will delimit ourselves to the particular consequences of urbanization for the linguistic situation. As was already indicated “urban growth is fuelled in two ways: demographic change and

238 Liang, 2015: 100-104. 239 Watson, 1993: 1. 240 Gilbert & Gugler, 1992: 16. 241 See previous chapters (3.1) and (4.1). 242 Ouyang et al., 2005: 49. 62

migration.”243 As regards to Hong Kong and Guangdong it is in particular the latter that has and currently is contributing to the rapid urbanization of the region. As we have seen in the previous chapters concerning Hong Kong’s demographic evolution, large-scale immigration brings about increasing linguistic diversity, as people from different areas with different mother tongues come together.244 Consequently, in the light of Mukul Saxena’s notion of lifestyle diglossia we suggest we might question what the impact of this increasing linguistic diversity will be for current language distributions. More specifically, we suggest the investigation of the instrumental-integrative language attitudes of these immigrants in HKSAR and Guangdong can shred new light at the current diglossic situations and the way they will develop over time. We believe this could be an interesting research angle, based on previous conducted surveys that -although they do not have this assumption as their focus -already presented some interesting material concerning this matter. Kalmar et al.245 for instance already took into account the multilingual character of Guangdong society in their previously mentioned survey. Apart from indicating a stable diglossic situation exists in Guangdong they furthermore notice that, when non-Cantonese speaking persons have to choose between Cantonese and Putonghua, they tend to regard Putonghua as having more integrative value then Cantonese; this in contrary to the Cantonese speaking subjects who unanimously depicted Cantonese as having more integrative value. The same conclusion is echoed in some of the interviews Liang Sihua246 conducted for her research: In one of these interviews she asked a group of children what the point was of using a regional dialect. Here one of the interviewees, a native-speaker of a dialect other than Cantonese, answered that there was no point in using regional dialects, as “Putonghua is commonly used, it doesn’t hurt if everyone speaks Putonghua.”247 The other participants in the discussion, a native speaker of Cantonese and a speaker of Kejia (which has a relative big speech community in Guangdong) regarded speaking regional dialects as “a function to enhance intimacy.”248 In other words, previous research, though not based on the assumption that urbanization contributes to the changes of language behavior, suggests that due to immigrants language attitudes current diglossia might be destabilized. Regarding Hong Kong, to my knowledge, no surveys were conducted concerning the language attitudes of recent immigrants from the Mainland. Nevertheless, it might be

243 Watson, 1993: 4. 244 See previous chapters (3.1.2). 245 Kalmar et al., 2000: 502-504. 246 Liang, 2015: 100-102. 247 Liang, 2015: 101. 248 Liang, 2015: 102. 63

interesting to investigate what their attitude towards the diglossic situation there is: Do they think it is required to learn Cantonese; what is their attitude towards Putonghua; is their overall instrumental-integrative evaluation of languages the same as native Hong Kong people or does it resemble those of other Mainlanders?

4.5 Redefining diglossia in the light of sociocultural processes

It becomes clear that the above-described processes–localization, internationalization, mainlandization and hongkongzation- as well as broader sociocultural developments such as for instance urbanization, are just as important in the development of diglossia as political measures are. Regarding Hong Kong apparently its recent reunification with the Mainland has put into motion several lifestyle-changing processes that might destabilize the current language distribution. Especially the process of mainlandization, which -for the time being- is cutting both ways, deserves attention. As Lai249 already suggested in her latest surveys on language attitudes, what is currently changing most significantly is the positive attitude of HKSAR speakers towards Putonghua both at the instrumental as well as at the integrative level. The increasing political, economic and cultural ties between HKSAR and Guangdong furthermore only seem to reinforce this in the sense that increasing economic contact and booming tourism from the Mainland contribute to a positive rather than a negative attitude towards China’s National Standard.250 However, most of these economic-cultural contacts seem to happen with neighboring province Guangdong that on his turn could mean a rise in instrumental and integrative appreciation for Cantonese rather than Putonghua. This brings us to the case of Guangdong where economic prosperity and the influence of Hong Kong business as well as Hong Kong lifestyle has created more individualistic oriented citizens.251 Although the diglossic situation in Guangdong is solidly underpinned by political regulations this newly individualistic attitude could alter the current distribution in the sense that, like in Hong Kong, speakers become more active agents in their choices of language use rather than politically determined. This then is likely to result in a situation in which the instrumental value of Cantonese rises, however the latest surveys conducted show otherwise. Apparently both English and Putonghua are regarded as highly instrumental whereas Cantonese remains associated with intimacy.

249 Lai, 2001, 2005, 2012. 250 Chiu et al., 1998: 749-770. 251 Chiu et al., 1998: 749-770. 64

Conclusively, also other sociocultural processes need to be taken into account, and urbanization constitutes one of these important processes. Given the tremendous urbanization of Guangdong and Hong Kong today one can assume also the linguistic ecology is becoming increasingly complex as immigrants bring in new languages. Consequently, the attitude of these new immigrants towards the current high-low distribution is quite interesting and investigating them might give us a glance at the perspectives of current diglossia in HKSAR and Guangdong. Unfortunately only a very limited amount of research has focused on this.

65

5 Discussion and conclusion

5.1 HKSAR and Guangdong diglossia compared

Much can be learned from a comparative analysis of Guangdong and HKSAR diglossia, the way they developed over time and how they are maintained today. Whereas in Guangdong province the diglossic situation has been strongly determined by political measures this has far less been the case in HKSAR. The elaborate status-corpus- acquisition planning of the PRC government safeguards the use of the National Standard, Putonghua-SMC, in almost all registers except for ordinary conversations. The use of Putonghua in education, governmental and legal institutions, civil services, business and media of all kind is strictly regulated in The Language Law, which furthermore is accompanied with rapports concerning current language use in China, manuals and other devices that offer suggestions how this policies should be implemented at both the regional, provincial as well as at the national level. Additionally, strategies in order to improve or accelerate the use of Putonghua at al levels of society were developed. The implementation of The Language Law in Guangdong province has contributed to the establishment of a simple and relatively stable diglossic situation between Putonghua (“H”) and Cantonese (“L”). On the one hand strict language policies meant the detriment of Cantonese to the ordinary registers of speech and the promotion of Putonghua in all high registers; on the other hand Cantonese speaker’s sense of cultural identity and affections towards their native language only seems to have increased in recent years. On the contrary, HKSAR diglossia today is neither simple nor stable. From the ceding of the archipelago to the British Crown until its reunification with the Chinese Mainland, Hong Kong’s diglossic situation has been fairly complex. Furthermore, HKSAR policymakers today apparently do not regard the strict regulation of language use as a priority, as -except for two articles in The Basic Law- virtually no legal documents are conducted with actual statements concerning language use. Instead, HKSAR language planning rather consists of several official and unofficial statements that mainly promote the idea of multilingualism in order to create a sustainable equilibrium between English, Cantonese and Putonghua. The laissez-faire politics in HKSAR in contrast to the strictly status-corpus-acquisition elaborated language planning of the PRC in Guangdong province probably is the main factor that has caused HKSAR diglossia to become far more complicated than the situation in Guangdong. In particular it contributed to the fact that Cantonese was able to acquire some of

66

the high functions of English and consequently partially has claimed the status of “H” in the current diglossic situation. Because of the lack of political intervention the HKSAR diglossic situation developed more or less organic as the result of pragmatic language use rather than a state-sponsored language distribution. According to Lee-Ming Lai the pragmatic language choices that are currently determining diglossia in HKSAR can be described as the intense interplay of the three processes of internationalization, localization and mainlandization. Assuming that this is a solid theory it can be observed that the changing of this interplay also will affect the current language distribution. In this respect the HKSAR language situation can be regarded as unstable. Following the notion of lifestyle diglossia it was also suggested that the increasing influence of Hong Kong in Guangdong would lead to more pragmatic language choices, which on his turn leads us to suggest that the aforementioned interplay of internationalization, localization and (in the case of Guangdong) hongkongization also proves to be relevant for Guangdong diglossia and the way it may develop over time. Following this we speculated that this potentially would lead to the revival of Cantonese as a highly instrumental evaluated language. However, previous conducted surveys on Guangdong language attitudes did not seem to support this assumption, which leads us to conclude that apparently a strong political intervention is conditional for the maintenance of stable diglossia.

5.2 Analyzing perspectives of the current language distributions

Recent developments have put into motion several processes that might destabilize the current high-low language distributions. On the one hand these processes have resulted in the appearance of new actors in current diglossia: In the light of economic reforms internationalization caused the emergence of English in Guangdong and, whereas English since long has been part of HKSAR language, the process of mainlandization introduced Putonghua as a new potential “H”. Although the role of these new actors is still insignificant, their appearance at least indicates that typically stable diglossic situations might be overthrown. On the other hand these processes might also contribute to the shift of current language distributions: Whereas in both regions the process of localization has reinforced the integrative value of Cantonese, the process of what we called hongkongization also might

67

furthermore contribute to revival of its the instrumental value in Guangdong (provided that political intervention becomes less strong). Next to being subject to these regional sociocultural processes HKSAR and Guangdong also are influenced by common processes inherent to the times. One of these processes is urbanization, a trend that can be observed worldwide. In the case of Guangdong and HKSAR urbanization is largely caused by an unstoppable influx of immigrants from rural areas all over the country. These immigrants not only bring in ‘new’ lifestyles, they also contribute to increasing linguistic diversity, as a lot of them have another Sinitic variety, apart from Cantonese, as their mother tongue. In the chapter of Hong Kong’s demographic evolution we mentioned how Cantonese became to serve as a lingua franca as more and more immigrants with different backgrounds moved into the region. The question rises if this is still the case for immigrants moving into Hong Kong today? As far as we know, no surveys were conducted investigating the language attitudes of these particular groups in HKSAR. However, with regards to Guangdong previously conducted surveys actually have exhibited some interesting results. What is most striking about these surveys is that they indicate the attitude of non- Cantonese speakers in Guangdong may alter the current high-low language distribution in the sense that these people tend to give a greater integrative value to Putonghua than to Cantonese.

5.3 Limitations of the research

“The more you learn the less you know.” As we closely have studied HKSAR and Guangdong language situations through the framework of diglossia we have come to realize the limitations of both this framework as well as this thesis. First of all, diglossia describes a sociolinguistic phenomenon at the level of society; describing the status and the perspectives of a single language that is spoken by individuals at all levels of this particular society is, to a certain extent, artificial. The previously conducted surveys we used to support our argumentation furthermore can also be criticized in this respect as most of them focus on the same social groups (relatively high educated people). As no sociolinguistic surveys were conducted for this thesis the scope has merely aimed at offering a well-argued assumption concerning the status and perspectives of Cantonese as a genuine regional standard. In this respect the thesis and the suggestions that are made want to pave the way for new profound sociolinguistic research to be conducted in the future.

68

5.4 Conclusion

The theoretical framework of diglossia helps us to understand the position of languages in multilingual speech communities. Following this framework we conclude that currently the status of Cantonese as a genuine regional standard is put to the test. This observation is based on the fact that both in Guangdong as well as in HKSAR the diglossic situation, in which Cantonese nowadays serves as “L”, proves to be relatively unstable. In Guangdong the diglossic situation seems to be quite balanced because of a strong political intervention, however recent conducted surveys indicated that other sociocultural processes are lurking in its potential destabilization. On the contrary in HKSAR the current diglossic situation has already been shifting in the favor of Cantonese, which partially came to function as “H”. We suggested that the unstable diglossia in HKSAR mainly is due to the lack of strong political intervention and this has lead us to question whether Cantonese will uphold, reinforce or lose its current status in the future. This then will depend on the same sociocultural processes that are determining Guangdong diglossia on the one hand and on the process of mainlandization on the other.

69

70

References

Baker, Colin. “Language and Attitudes.” Clevedon, Philadelphia, Adelaide: Multilingual Matters LTD, 1992.

Baker, Hugh D. R. “Life in the Cities: the Emergence of the Hong Kong Man.” The China Quarterly 95 (1998): 469-479.

Bauer, Rober S. “The Hong Kong Cantonese Speech Community.” Cahiers de Linguistique- Asie Orientale 13.1 (1984): 57-90.

Bauer, Robert S. “Written Cantonese of Hong Kong.” Cahiers de linguistique-Asie Orientale 17.2 (1988): 245-293.

Bauer, Robert S., Paul K. Benedict. “Modern ." New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 1997.

Bolton, Kingsley. “The Sociolinguistics of Hong Kong and the Space for Hong Kong English”, World Englishes, 19.3 (2000): 265-285.

Bolton, Kingsley. “Language Policy and Planning in Hong Kong: Colonial and post-colonial perspectives.” Applied Linguistic Review 2 (2011): 51-74.

Bruche-Schulz, Gisela. “Fuzzy Chinese: The Status of Cantonese in Hong Kong.” Journal of Pragmatics 27 (1997): 295-314.

Chen, Ping. “Modern Written Chinese in Development.” Language in Society 22.4 (1993): 505-537.

Chen, Ping. Modern Chinese: History and Sociolinguistics. London: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Cheng, Joseph Y.S., Peiyu Zheng. “Hi-tech Industries in Hong Kong and the Pearl River Delta.” Asian Survey 41.4 (2001): 584-610.

Ching, Cheong. “Hong Kong Fears Mainlandization.” The China Post, September 9, 2011. Accessed May 5, 2016. http://www.chinapost.com.tw/commentary/china-post/special- /2011/09/09/316092/Hong-Kong.htm

Ching, Frank. “From Mao to Now: Three Tumultuous Decades.” In: China’s Great Leap: The Beijing Games and Olympic Human Rights Challenges, edited by Minky Worden, 39-59, New York, London, Melbourne, Toronto: Seven Stories Press, 2008.

Chiu et al. “A comparison of Occupational Values between Capitalist Hong Kong and Socialist Guangzhou.” Economic Development and Cultural Change 46.4 (July 1998): 749- 770.

71

Cooper, Robert L. Language Planning and Social Change. London: Cambridge University Press, 1989.

Eoyang, Eugene C. “From the imperial to the Empirial: Teaching English in Hong Kong.” Profession, ofession (2000): 62-74.

Erbaugh, Mary S. “Southern Dialects as a Medium for Reconciliation within greater China.” Language in Society 24.1 (1995): 79-94.

Evans, Simon, Charles Green. “Language in post-colonial Hong Kong: The roles of English and Chinese in the public and private sectors.” English World-Wide 22.1 (2001): 247–268.

Fairbank, John K., Merle Goldman. “China a New History.” London: Harvard University Press, 2006.

Ferguson, Charles A. “Diglossia.” Word 15.2 (1959): 325-340, Accessed March 28, 2016. DOI: 10.1080/00437956.1959.11659702.

Fishman, Joshua A. “Bilingualism with and without Diglossia; Diglossia with and without Bilingualism.” Journal of Social Issues 23.2 (1967): 29-38.

Fishman et al. “Language Problems of Developing Nations.” New York: Wiley, 1968.

Gilbert, Alan, Josef Gulger. “Cities, Poverty and Development: Urbanization in the Third World.” Oxford University Press, 1992.

Goddard, Cliff. “The Languages of East and Southeast Asia.” New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.

Handel, Zev. “The Classification of Chinese: Sinitic (The Chinese Language Family).” In: The Oxford Handbook of Chinese Linguistics, edited by William S-Y Wang and Chaofen Sun, New York: Oxford University Press, 34-45, 2015.

Hashimito, Oi-Kan Yue. “Phonology of Cantonese.” London: Cambridge University Press, 1972.

Ho, Dah-An. “Chinese Dialects.” In: The Oxford Handbook of Chinese Linguistics, edited by William S-Y Wang and Chaofen Sun, New York: Oxford University Press, 173-189, 2015.

Hornberger Nancy. “Framework and Models in Language Policy and Planning.” In: An Introduction to Language Policy: Theory and Method, edited by Thomas Ricento. Malden, Oxford, Victoria: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 24-41, 2006.

Hsia, Tao-tai. “The Language Revolution in Communist China.” Far Eastern Survey 25.10 (1956): 145-154.

Kaeding, Malte P., “Identity Formation in Taiwan and Hong Kong-How Much Difference, How Many Similarities?” In: Taiwanese Identity in the 21st Century: Domestic, Regional and Global Perspectives, edited by Gunter Schubert and Jens Damm, Routledge: London, 258- 279, 2011.

72

Kalmar, Ivan, Zhong Yong and Xiao Hong. “Language Attitudes in Guangzhou, China.” Language in society 16.4 (1987): 499-508

Kwok, Ho-Chung.“Comparison of tasks employed in Mandarin Chinese proficiency tests for natives conducted in China and that in Hong Kong: One Country Two Systems.” Paper presented at the conference “International Conference on the Language Proficiency Testing in the Less Commonly Taught Languages,” Bangkok, 2012.

Kwok, Kar-yan. “Language attitudes in Hong Kong: the Status of Putonghua and English in the 21st Century.” Ph.D. dissertation. University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, Hong Kong, 2004.

Lai, Mee-Ling. “Hong Kong Students’ Attitudes Towards Cantonese, Putonghua and English After the Change of Sovereignty.” Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 22.2 (2001): 112-133.

Lai, Mee-Ling. “Language Attitudes of the First Postcolonial Generation in Hong Kong Secondary Schools.” Language in Society 34.3 (2005): 363-388.

Lai, Mee-Ling. “Cultural Identity and Language Attitudes- into the Second Decade of Postcolonial Hong Kong.” Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 32.3 (2011): 249-264.

Lai, Mee-Ling. “Tracking Language Attitudes in Post-Colonial Hong Kong: An interplay of localization, mainlandization, and internazionalization.” Multilingual 31.1 (2012): 83-111.

Li, David. “Hong Kong Parents' preference for English-medium education: Passive victims of imperialism or active agents of pragmatism?” Papper presented at the conference “Fifth English in Southeast Asia Conference,” University of Curtin, Perth, Australia, December 6-8, 2000.

Li, Yuming; Wei Li (Eds.) “The Language Situation in China: Volume I.” Beijing: Mouton de Gruyter, 2008.

Liang, Sihua. “Language Attitudes and identities in Multilingual China: A Linguistic Ethnography.” Switzerland: Springer International Publisher, 2015.

Littlewood, W., N-F. Liu & C. Yu. “Hong Kong tertiary students’ attitudes and proficiency in spoken English.” RELC Journal 27.1 (1996): 70-88.

Lo, Sonny S. H. “The dynamics of Beijing-Hong Kong Relations: A Model for Taiwan.” Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2008.

Mair, Viktor H. “Foreword”. In: The History of Language Planning and Reform in China People’s Republic of China: Theory and practice since 1949, edited by Zhou Minglai & Hongkai Sun, London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, xvii-xviii, 2004.

Matthews, Stephen, Virginia Yip. “Cantonese: a Comprehensive Grammar (2nd edition).” London & New York: Routledge, 1994.

73

Mayers, William, Charles King. “The Treaty Ports of China and Japan: A Complete to the Open Ports of these Countries, Together with Yedo, Peking, Hong Kong and Macao.” London: Trübner & Co, 1867.

McLane, Daisann. “My Manhattan; Chinatown: Eat, Drink and Speak Cantonese.” The New York Times, July 25, 2003. Accessed May 5, 2016. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/25/arts/my-manhattan-chinatown-eat-drink-and-speak- cantonese.html?pagewanted=all

Mesthrie, Rajend, Joan Swann, Andrea Deumert &William L. Leap. “Introducing sociolinguistics.” Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2000.

Milton, J. Esman. “The State and Language Policy.” International Political Science Review 13.4 (1992): 381-396.

Munn, Christopher. “Anglo-China: Chinese People and British Rule in Hong Kong, 1841- 188.” Surrey: Curzon Press, 2001.

Naubahar, Sharif, Tseng M. Mitchell. “The Role of Hong Kong in Mainland China’s Manufactoring.” Asian Survey 51.4 (2011): 633-658.

Ng, Kwai Hang. “The common law in two voices: Language, law, and the postcolonial dilemma in Hong Kong.” Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009.

Norman, Jerry. “Chinese.” London: Cambridge University Press, 1988.

Ouyang, Jueya 欧阳觉亚. “Putonghua and Guangzhouhua de bijiao yu xuexi” 普通话广州 话的比较与学习 (Comparing and Studying Putonghua and Cantonese). Beijing: Zhongguo Shehui Kexue Chubanshe 中国社会科学出版社, 1993.

Pennington Martha C., Francis Yue. “English and Chinese in Hong Kong: pre-1997 language attitudes.” World Englishes 13.1 (1994): 1-20

Pennycook, Alastair. “English and the Discours of Colonialism.” London: Routlegde, 1998.

Phillipson, Robert. “Linguistic Imperialism.” Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992.

Pierson, Paul. “Dismanteling the Welfare State? Reagan, Thatcher and the policies of retrenchment.” Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

Postiglione, G.A. “Education and Society in Hong Kong: toward One Country and Two Systems.” New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1992.

Ramsey, Robert S. “The .” New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1987.

Rao, Bingcai, 饒秉才 Jueya Ouyang 觉亚欧阳. “Guangzhouhua fangyan cidian”广州话方言 词典. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Commercial Press, 1981.

74

Ricento, Thomas. “Language policy: Theory and practice: An introduction.” in An introduction to language policy: Theory and method, editied by Ricento, Thomas, 10-23, Malden: Wiley, 2006.

Rohsenow, John S. “Fifty years of script and written language reform in the PRC”. In: The History of Language Planning and Reform in China People’s Republic of China: Theory and practice since 1949, edited by Zhou, Minglai & Hongkai Sun, 21-41, London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2004.

Sagart, Laurent. “Chinese and Austronesian: evidence for a genetic relationship.” Journal of Chinese Linguistics 21.1 (1993): 1–62.

Saillard, Claire. “On the Promotion of Putonghua in China: How a Standard Language Becomes a Vernacular.” In: The History of Language Planning and Reform in China People’s Republic of China: Theory and practice since 1949, edited by Zhou, Minglai & Hongkai Sun, 163-175, London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2004.

Saxena, Mukul. “Critical diglossia” and “lifestyle diglossia”: development and the interaction between multilingualism, cultural diversityand English.” International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 225 (2014): 91–112.

Skeldon, Ronald. “Emigration and the future of Hong Kong.” Pacific Affairs 63.4 (1990): 500-523.

Snow, Don. “Cantonese as a Written Language: the Growth of a Written Chinese vernacular.” Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2004.

Snow, Don. “Hong Kong and Modern Diglossia.” International Journal of the Sociology of Language 206 (2010): 155-179.

So, Simon S. “A Glossary of Common Cantonese Expressions.” Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 2002.

Spolsky, Bernard, & Lambert, Richard D. “Models of Language Planning and Policy.” In: Encyclopedia of Languages and Linguistics, edited by Keith Brown, 561-575, Oxford: Elsevier, 2006.

Sullivan, J. “A Tale of Two Microblogs in China”. Media, Culture and Society, Vol. 34.6 (2012): 773-783.

Sun, Chaofen. “Chinese: A Linguistic Introduction.” London: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

Tsang, Steve. “A Modern History of Hong Kong.” London: I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd, 2004.

Valentini, Isabella. “Cantonese and Putonghua in Hong Kong: trends, challenges and perspectives of coexistence.” M.A. Thesis, Berlin: University of Berlin, 2014.

Van Driem, George. “Sino-Bodic.” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 6.3 (1997): 455-488.

75

Van Dyke, Paul A. “The Canton Trade – Life and Enterprise on the China Coast, 1700– 1845.” Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2005.

Wan, Defu. “The History of Language Planning and Reform in China: A Critical Perspective.” Working Papers in Educational Linguistics 29.2 (2014): 65-79.

Wang, L., Ladegaard, H.J. “Language Attitudes and Gender Perceptions and Reported Use of Puntonghua and Cantonese in the South Province of Guangdong.” Language Awareness 17.1 (2008): 57-77.

Wang Hui, Zhongrui Yuan. “The Promotion of Putonghua (Mandarin Chinese): An Overview.” In: The Language Situation in China: Volume I, edited by Li, Yuming, Wei Li, 27-39, Beijing: Mouton de Gruyter, 2008.

Wang, William S-Y, Chaofen Sun. “The Oxford Handbook of Chinese linguistic.” New York: Oxford University Press, 2015.

Watson, Christopher. “Trends in World Urbanisation.” Paper presented at the conference “the First International Conference on Urban Pests,” St College, Cambridge University, Cambridge, England, June 30-July 3, 1993.

Wiley, T.G. “Language Planning and Language Policy”, in: Sociolinguistics and Language teaching, edited by McKay Sandra L. and Nancy Hornberger, 103-147, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.

Xu Guanglie 许光烈. “Xianggang yuyan zhengce ji sikao” 香港语言政策及思考 (Thoughts on Hong Kong Language Policies). Guangzhou daxue xuebao 广州大学学报，4.7 (2005): 34-37.

Zhan, Bohui 詹伯慧 . “Putonghua ‘nan-xia’ yu Yue fangyan ‘bei-shang” 普通話 '南下' 與粤 方言的 '北上 (Putonghua ‘going South’ and Cantonese ‘going North’).Yuwen jianshe tongxun 语文建设通讯 39 (1993): 51-56.

Zhang, Bennan, Robin R. Yang. “Putonghua Education and Language Policy in Post-Colonial Hong Kong.” In: The History of Language Planning and Reform in China People’s Republic of China: Theory and practice since 1949, edited by Zhou, Minglai & Hongkai Sun, 143-161, London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2004.

Zhang, Qiu Hanqin, Terry Lam. “An analysis of Mainland Chinese visitors’ motivations to visit Hong Kong.” Tourism Management 20 (1999): 587-594.

Zhang, Q. H. “The trends of China outbound travel to Hong Kong and its implications.” Journal of Vacation Marketing 2.4 (1996): 373-381.

Zhou, Minglai & Hongkai Sun. “Language policy in the 79 The History of Language Planning and Reform in China People’s Republic of China: Theory and practice since 1949.” London, UK: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2004.

76

Zhou, Zumo 周祖谟. “Yanjiu xiandai hanyu fangyande zhongyao yiyi” 研究现代汉语方言的 重要意义 (Study of the Importance of Modern Chinese Dialects). Hubei Renmin Chubanshe 湖北人民出版社, 1981.

Zhou Qingsheng, Dan Wei, Junying Xie. “Language Policies and Regulations in China: An Overview.” The Language Situation in China: Volume I, edited by Li, Yuming, Wei Li, 11- 25, Beijing: Mouton de Gruyter, 2008.

Zhu, Qiyun. “Language Attitudes of Secondary School Students in Guangdong.” In: Trilingualism in Education in China, edited by Feng, Anwei & Bob Adamson, 223-241, Dortrecht: Springer, 2015.

Online sources (in order of appearance): The Language Law: http://old.moe.gov.cn/publicfiles/business/htmlfiles/moe/moe_619/200409/3131.html, Accessed on 2016-05-01

Slogans National Publicity Week for Putonghua Promotion: http://www.moe.edu.cn/jyb_xwfb/xw_zt/moe_357/jyzt_2015nztzl/2015_zt08/15zt08_wqhg/2 01509/t20150902_205094.html, Accessed: April 19, 2016.

The 2010 Guangzhou Television Case http://chinamusictech.blogspot.be/2010/08/is-cantonese-in-danger-of-extinction.html; Accessed: October 25, 2015. http://www.inmediahk.net/node/1007794. Accessed: October 25, 2015.

The Basic Law: http://www.basiclaw.gov.hk/en/basiclawtext/images/basiclaw_full_text_en.pdf. Accessed: May 21, 2016. HKSAR Curriculum Development Council: http://cd1.edb.hkedcity.net/cd/cdc/en/page01.htm. Accessed: May 5, 2016.

77

78

Top View