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The discourse and attitudes of English language teachers in Hong Kong
Author(s) -
Tsui Amy B. M.,
Bunton David
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
world englishes
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.6
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1467-971X
pISSN - 0883-2919
DOI - 10.1111/1467-971x.00180
Subject(s) - norm (philosophy) , grammar , linguistics , correctness , language transfer , world englishes , sociology , first language , pedagogy , media studies , psychology , political science , language education , computer science , comprehension approach , law , philosophy , programming language
This paper suggests that Hong Kong English, insofar as it varies from Standard English, has not achieved wide acceptance in the community. The paper approaches this by investigating the attitudes of Hong Kong's English language teachers. Over a thousand messages on language issues to a computer network for English teachers were analysed, in terms of their discourse and the sources of authority the teachers referred to in support of their views on correctness or acceptability.[Note 1. We would like to thank the teachers on TeleNex ...] The sources regarded as most authoritative were dictionaries and grammar or usage books from native speaking countries such as Britain. Hong Kong sources such as textbooks and the media were treated with more caution, and sometimes criticised. The model of English the teachers adopted was clearly exonormative. The term Hong Kong English did not occur anywhere in the 1,234 messages, and no deviations from a native speaker norm were referred to favourably. The paper concludes that these attitudes, similar to those in the business community, will constrain the use of Hong Kong English for formal communication.