Durham E-Theses Language attitudes of the rst post-colonial generation in Hong Kong secondary schools : issues in gender, medium of instruction, social class and cultural identity Lai, Mee-Ling How to cite: Lai, Mee-Ling (2002) Language attitudes of the rst post-colonial generation in Hong Kong secondary schools : issues in gender, medium of instruction, social class and cultural identity, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/1010/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk 2 Language Attitudes of the First Post-colonial Generation in Hong Kong Secondary Schools: Issues in Gender, Medium of instruction, Social class and Cultural identity LAI, Mee-ling The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published without his prior written consent and information derived from it should be acknowledged. Thesis submitted to the University of Durham in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctorate in Education Ti 1, 27 JA, ?00, -, ýN ýi. August 2002 Abstract Discussion of languageattitudes has a long history, but the seemingly old topic has never failed to catch the attention of scholars over the past decades. Language attitudes are ever changing with time and socio-political environment, and it is this fluid nature of language attitudes that gives new significance to the topic when Hong Kong enters a new post-colonial era. Since the change of sovereignty in 1997 from Britain to China, Hong Kong has undergone great political, socio-economic and educational changes.The new post-colonial context might have great impacts on students, including their attitudes towards Cantonese,English and Putonghua,which are the three main spoken varieties advocatedby the new government in its 'Biliterate and Trilingual' policy declaredshortly after the political handover. Among all students, a unique group was that who began their secondary education in 1998 since they were brought up amidst all the changes that had taken place after the change of sovereignty. Apart from an overview of the language attitudes of this group of students,this study also attempts to discriminate different attitudes according to Gender, Medium of instruction, Social class, Cultural identity, and to reveal the relationship between these four variables and language attitudes. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were used for this research. 1048 F.3 students from 28 secondary schools participated in a questionnairesurvey and a sample of 40 students in focus-group interviews. The results showed that the first post- colonial secondary-school generation feel the most affectively inclined to vernacular Cantonese and perceive English as the language of the highest instrumental values and social statuswhile Putonghuais rated the lowest both in the affective and cognitive perspectives.Among the four variables, Cultural identity is the one which relates the most closely with the variation of students' language attitudes while the others induce divergence only on the affective inclination towards English. Unlike what has been predicted by scholars, Putonghua has not yet taken the place of English as the languageof power at the time of this research. However, signs were found showing a subtle transition towards a more accommodating attitude towards Chinese identity and Putonghua, mainly engineeredthrough a growing demandof the languagefor economic purposes. Hong Kong may have completed its political transition, yet its cultural and linguistic transitions are still underway. Acknowledgments I am grateful to everyonewho has assistedme in the completion of this thesis. Among them, I wish to acknowledge particularly my supervisor Professor Michael Byrarn for his guidance and unfailing support. He has been extraordinarily enlightening and helpful to me over the past years. It is both my privilege and pleasurehaving the chanceto team from him. Apart from my esteemedsupervisor, I have to thank ProfessorPeter Tymms too for his expert advice on statistics and my colleagues at Hong Kong Institute of Education who have helped me in the preparation of research instruments and data processing. I would also like to express my heartfelt gratitude to all teachers who have administered the survey on my behalf and their students who have helped in answering the questionnaires.Special thanks have to go to Mr. Daniel Wong, Mr. Samuel Kwok, Mr. K. Y. Mak and Ms. Sandy Chau for arranging the group interviews for me. Without the generoushelp of these very important persons,this thesis would not have been completed. ii Table of Contents Abstract Acknowledgments List of Contents List of Tables vi List of Appendices vii List of Abbreviations viii Chapter One: Introduction 1.1 Scopeof the Study 1 1.2 The New Post-colonial Context of Hong Kong after 1997 2 1.2.1 The political change 2 1.2.2 The impact of national identity 2 1.2.3 The socio-economicchanges after 1997 3 1.2.4 Socio-linguistic changesafter 1997 4 1.2.5 The changein languageeducation 6 1.3 Impacts of the New Post-colonial Context on Students 7 1.4 Purposeof this Study 8 1.4.1 New significance of languageattitude studiesin the post- 8 colonial context 1.4.2 Different groupings of students 10 1.4.3 Summary II Chapter Two: Review of Related Literature 2.1 Theory of LanguageAttitude 13 2.2 Review of the Empirical Studieson LanguageAttitudes in 14 Hong Kong 2.2.1 Studies before the 1990s 14 2.2.2 Studies in the 1990s 17 2.2.3 Summary of the limitations of the above studieson 20 languageattitudes 2.2.4 Studies after the changeof sovereignty 21 2.3 Effects of the Previous Researchon the PresentStudy 22 2.4 Factors Relatedto LanguageAttitudes 24 2.4.1 Gender and languageattitudes 24 2.4.2 Medium of instruction and languageattitudes 26 2.4.3 Social class and languageattitudes 28 2.4.4 Cultural identity and languageattitudes 32 2.4.5 Hypothesesof the study 34 iii Chapter Three: Research Methodology 3.1 ResearchQuestions 35 3.2 ResearchDesign 36 3.2.1 Researchinstruments 36 3.2.2 Validity and reliability 39 3.2.3 Researchethics 42 3.3 Data Collection andAnalysis 43 3.3.1 The quantitativemethods: questionnaire survey and 43 matched-guisetest 3.3.2 The qualitativemethod: focus group interviews 63 Chapter Four: Statistical Findings 4.1 Profiles of the Informants 66 4.1.1 Composition of groups 66 4.1.2 Birthplace and home language 68 4.2 Findings of the QuestionnaireSurvey 69 4.2.1 An overview of languageattitudes 70 4.2.2 Significant differencesbetween groups of students 81 4.2.3 Interaction between independentvariables 96 4.2.4 Significance of variables relating to languageattitudes 96 4.3 Findings of the Matched-guiseTest 99 4.3.1 The overall rating 101 4.3.2 Ratings in four categories 102 4.5 Chapter summary 104 Chapter Five: A Qualitative Overview of Students' Attitudes Towards Cantonese, English and Putonghua 5.1 Background 107 5.2 Affective Attitudes towards Cantonese,English and 109 Putonghua 5.2.1 Affection for Cantonese 109 5.2.2 Affection for English III 5.2.3 Affection for Putonghua 114 5.2.4 Summary 117 5.3 Cognitive perceptionsof Cantonese,English and Putonghua 118 5.3.1 Instrumental values and statusof English 118 5.3.2 Cognitive evaluation of Cantoneseand Putonghua 121 5.3.3 Summary 124 5.4 Chapter Summary 125 Chapter Six: Language Attitudes and Four Variables 6.1 Introduction 127 6.2 Cultural Identities and LanguageAttitudes 128 6.2.1 Hong Kong linguistic identity 129 6.2.2 Chinese linguistic identity 144 6.2.3 Relationship between cultural identity and language 153 attitudes 6.3 Gender and LanguageAttitudes 153 iv 6.3.1 Integrative inclination of girls towards English 154 6.3.2 Hypothesesunsupported 156 6.4 Medium of Instruction and LanguageAttitudes 157 6.4.1 Factors contributing to the difference between CMI and 158 EMI students 6.4.2 Medium of instruction and linguistic identity 160 6.4.3 Summary 162 6.5 Social Class and LanguageAttitudes 163 6.5.1 Social distancebetween the middle-classgroup and English 163 speakers 6.5.2 Nature of social distancein Hong Kong context 167 6.5.3 Social distancebetween the working-class group and 168 Putonghua,speakers 6.6 Chapter Summary 171 Chapter Seven: Conclusions and Implications 7.1 Introduction 173 7.2 Summary of Findings 174 7.3 Sociolinguistic Significance of the Findings 184 7.3.1 Post-coloniality and languageattitudes 185 7.3.2 Cultural transition through linguistic economy 188 7.3.3 Linguistic vitality of the three languagevarieties in post- 189 colonial Hong Kong 7.4 Educational Implications of the Study 192 7.4.1 Gap betweenattitude and achievementin English 192 7.4.2 Promotion of Putonghuaeducation 195 7.5 Limitations of the Study 196 7.5.1 Researchmethods 196 7.5.2 Findings 197 7.6 Conclusion 200 References 202 Appendices 214 V List of Tables Table 1 Number of informants in groups Table 2 Birthplace