Language choice and code-switching are commonplaces for peer interaction among bilingual children from various language backgrounds in Hong Kong. However, few studies concern these linguistic practices of immigrant children proficient in Mandarin and English. This study adopted a qualitative research approach to investigate three Mandarin-English preschoolers’ language choice and code-switching by analyzing their conversations in interaction with a Cantonese–English bilingual peer under the framework of translanguaging. The findings reveal that these Mandarin-English preschoolers’ priority language for interaction is English, indicating that choosing a shared language is an essential communicative strategy for integrating with their Cantonese–English peers. The factors for those language choices include social environment, interlocutor’s ability, and sense of identity and belonging. Both inter-sentential and intra-sentential code-switching are adopted in verbal interaction. However, intra-sentential code-switching occurs more frequently and with greater diversity in Mandarin-based sentences, where nouns are the most easily switched component, followed by verbs and adjectives. This study enriches the study of bilingual children in Hong Kong, extends the application of translanguaging to peer interaction outside the classroom in multilingual contexts, and provides pedagogic implications. Copyright © 2024 Informa  UK  Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Against the backdrop of internationalisation and growing attention to intercultural experiences in tertiary education, this mixed-methods study examined, in part I, language learning benefits reaped by active participants in intercultural activities. As English is widely used for communication among multilinguals, part II of the study focused specifically on English. We set out to investigate the relationship between individuals' language background (actual and self-perceived English proficiency) and intercultural participation, as well as their views of the formal English language education they received prior to entering universities. The participants (n = 518) recruited from two universities in Hong Kong responded to a questionnaire and 11 of them also attended individual semi-structured interviews. Overall, five categories of benefits emerged from the interview findings, namely psychological benefits, proficiency enhancement, identification of problems, communicative strategies for accommodation, and communicative strategies for expression. A weak positive correlation was found between self-rated English speaking proficiency and participation. The interviewees also commented on the formal English education they received from curricular and environmental perspectives. Copyright ©2023 Routledge.

After the handover back to Mainland China in 1997, the Hong Kong government adopted a 'biliterate and trilingual' policy to help Hongkongers develop an ability to read and write Chinese and English, and to speak and understand Cantonese, English and Putonghua. However, there are no clear government guidelines on how and when the three languages should be introduced and taught in primary schools. Based on a survey of 155 Hong Kong primary schools, it was found that individual schools have adopted their own medium of instruction (MoI) policies, but these policies are decided by the school policymakers, without much consultation with the students and their parents. In this study, questionnaire surveys and interviews on students' and parents' perceptions of trilingual education were conducted in three case-study primary schools. The research findings suggest that students' and parents' views towards the use of different MoIs vary, which will be discussed in the paper in detail. Schools need to take these factors into consideration when developing MoI policies. Copyright © 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Based on qualitative data obtained from 15 South Asian (SA) B.Ed. (EL) (Bachelor of Education in English Language) students, this study reports on SA students' difficulty in mastering Mandarin-based written Chinese and the vernacular Cantonese in Hong Kong. For convenience, SA here also refers to students whose homeland is the Philippines. Since Britain's return of sovereignty to China on 1 July 1997, the language policy of post-colonial Hong Kong is characterised by biliteracy and trilingualism (兩文三語): the ability to read and write Chinese and English and to speak Cantonese, English and Putonghua/Mandarin. Unlike during the colonial era, much greater significance is now accorded to Chinese literacy, but SA students' poor performance in written Chinese and Cantonese defies such social expectations. A lack of Chinese literacy is a major stumbling block towards gaining access to educational and career opportunities. This raises two ethical issues: social inequality resulting from a lack of a level-playing field and denial of opportunities for social mobility through education. Implications of our empirical findings will be briefly discussed in light of Cummins' interdependency hypothesis on the development of basic interpersonal communicative skills and cognitive academic language proficiency in Chinese.
[Copyright © 2015 Taylor & Francis.]

This article explores the motivation to learn German for learners already proficient in English as a second language. Discussed are parts of the findings of an empirical study investigating the motivation of 12 Chinese students to study German as a major at a university in Hong Kong. The data collected for the duration of two academic semesters through interviews and diary entries indicated that language learning was seen as a practice through which students attempted to attain a certain kind of individuality. By drawing on Foucault's concept of ethical self-formation, an alternative theoretical framework was designed to analyse the students' reason for learning German, which were investigated under the four themes characteristic of Foucault's ethical self-formation: (a) what parts of the learners' selves are concerned with learning German? (b) what ethical values and beliefs do learners attach to their learning German? (c) how do learners apply German in their daily life? and (d) what are the learners' goals for learning German? Given the significance, the learning of an additional language was ascribed to the development of the students' selves, the article recommends a pedagogy that stronger integrates aspects of self-formation into language teaching.
[Copyright of International Journal of Multilingualism is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14790718.2010.503897]

This paper reports the findings of a study that investigates the attitudes of 555 boys and 493 girls towards the three official spoken languages used in postcolonial Hong Kong (i.e. Cantonese, English and Putonghua). The respondents started their secondary school education one year after the city was returned to the sovereignty of China from Britain. They were in their fourth year of studies at the time of this research. A questionnaire survey was conducted to find out how differently the two gender groups perceived the three target languages when they were repositioning themselves in the new sociopolitical context of Hong Kong. Informed by the quantitative results, group interviews were conducted to explore the reasons underlying the main attitudinal differences between the two genders. Similar to the research conducted in other parts of the world, female respondents were found to be consistently more positive than their male counterparts in their attitudes towards the non-native languages while male students were more positively inclined to the vernacular. Given the more accommodating attitudes of females to other languages, it is more likely that they will be the group who pushes Hong Kong forward towards a higher degree of multilingualism.
[Copyright of International Journal of Multilingualism is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.2167/ijm068.0]

This paper looks at the acquisition of articles and related nominal functional properties (the status of classifier, the singular-plural distinction) in English and French by native speakers of Hong Kong Cantonese. Two experimental studies are reported. In the generative SLA literature, there is disagreement as to which properties of the grammar will transfer from the first language (L1) at early stages of L2 acquisition and what the path of subsequent development might look like. We present L1 Cantonese-L2 English as well as L1 Cantonese-L2 English-L3 French data collected from learners of different proficiency levels on a variety of experimental tasks to shed light on these debates. Our findings largely support Full Transfer Full Access, a position that posits strong transfer and no impairment in SLA.
[Copyright of International Journal of Multilingualism is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.2167/ijm041.0]