Putonghua

2000 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-133 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dan Lu ◽  
Yin yee Au-Yeung
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Statistical Analysis ◽  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Chinese Language ◽  
Mainland China ◽  
Psychological Support ◽  
Learning Motivation ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Twin Research ◽  
Research Questions

Putonghua, the official Chinese language of mainland China, has become an intriguing topic for language researchers and teachers in Hong Kong. This study involved 275 Form VI (Grade 12) students in Hong Kong. The twin research questions are to investigate the subjects’ general attitudes toward the use of Putonghua in Hong Kong contexts as well as the learning of the language. The research is qualitative in nature and discusses the data through statistical analysis. The major findings are: (1) on the whole the subjects are instrumentally motivated to learn Putonghua; (2) subjects’ learning motivation is related to their political and cultural identity; (3) subjects still give more preference to English over Putonghua; (4) currently it is premature to greatly expand the use of Putonghua in education and other social domains such as government affairs. Based on these findings, the paper poses critical comments on Pierson’s study (1991, 1998). It seems clear that the spread of Putonghua in Hong Kong lacks a social and psychological support currently. The spread can occur only on a logical and incremental basis in tandem with a titanic effort to produce qualified, competent local teachers in order to teach this target language.

scholarly journals Cultural Differences in the Hedonic Rewards of Recalling Kindness: Priming Cultural Identity with Language

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 80-90
Author(s):  
Lilian J. Shin ◽  
Seth M. Margolis ◽  
Lisa C. Walsh ◽  
Sylvia Y. C. L. Kwok ◽  
Xiaodong Yue ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Emotional Experience ◽  
Chinese Language ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Cultural Identities ◽  
Weak Ties ◽  
Recent Theory ◽  
Emotional Experiences ◽  
The Usa

AbstractRecent theory suggests that members of interdependent (collectivist) cultures prioritize in-group happiness, whereas members of independent (individualist) cultures prioritize personal happiness (Uchida et al. Journal of Happiness Studies, 5(3), 223–239 Uchida et al., 2004). Thus, the well-being of friends and family may contribute more to the emotional experience of individuals with collectivist rather than individualist identities. We tested this hypothesis by asking participants to recall a kind act they had done to benefit either close others (e.g., family members) or distant others (e.g., strangers). Study 1 primed collectivist and individualist cultural identities by asking bicultural undergraduates (N = 357) from Hong Kong to recall kindnesses towards close versus distant others in both English and Chinese, while Study 2 compared university students in the USA (n = 106) and Hong Kong (n = 93). In Study 1, after being primed with the Chinese language (but not after being primed with English), participants reported significantly improved affect valence after recalling kind acts towards friends and family than after recalling kind acts towards strangers. Extending this result, in Study 2, respondents from Hong Kong (but not the USA) who recalled kind acts towards friends and family showed higher positive affect than those who recalled kind acts towards strangers. These findings suggest that people with collectivist cultural identities may have relatively more positive and less negative emotional experiences when they focus on prosocial interactions with close rather than weak ties.

scholarly journals A Call for Consistency in the Official Naming of the Disease Caused by Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 in Non-English Languages

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. e25-e26
Author(s):  
Lu Dong ◽  
Zhe Li ◽  
Isaac Chun Hai Fung
Keyword(s):  
Saudi Arabia ◽  
Hong Kong ◽  
Chinese Language ◽  
Mainland China ◽  
World Health ◽  
Official Language ◽  
Native Languages ◽  
Literal Translation ◽  
Health Authorities ◽  
Health Organization

ABSTRACTWe investigated the adoption of World Health Organization (WHO) naming of COVID-19 into the respective languages among the Group of Twenty (G20) countries, and the variation of COVID-19 naming in the Chinese language across different health authorities. On May 7, 2020, we identified the websites of the national health authorities of the G20 countries to identify naming of COVID-19 in their respective languages, and the websites of the health authorities in mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan and Singapore and identify their Chinese name for COVID-19. Among the G20 nations, Argentina, China, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Saudi Arabia and Turkey do not use the literal translation of COVID-19 in their official language(s) to refer to COVID-19, as they retain “novel” in the naming of this disease. China is the only G20 nation that names COVID-19 a pneumonia. Among Chinese-speaking jurisdictions, Hong Kong and Singapore governments follow the WHO’s recommendation and adopt the literal translation of COVID-19 in Chinese. In contrast, mainland China, Macau, and Taiwan refer to COVID-19 as a type of pneumonia in Chinese. We urge health authorities worldwide to adopt naming in their native languages that are consistent with WHO’s naming of COVID-19.

Language Attitudes at the Handover

1997 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-210 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ken Hyland
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Language Attitudes ◽  
Mainland China ◽  
Language And Identity ◽  
The Political ◽  
High Status ◽  
Official Language ◽  
Considerable Impact

Britain's 150 year colonial administration of Hong Kong came to an end in June 1997 when the territory reverted to Chinese sovereignty. Because the fate of languages is closely related to the power of different groups in a society, this constitutional transition raises important issues of language and identity. At present English continues to play an important role in business and administration while Cantonese is the lingua franca of a highly cohesive and independent community. However, the extent to which the colonial language is a component of the Territory's identity, and the prospect of it retaining an influential role, remains to be seen. Reunification is likely to have a considerable impact on language attitudes and use with Putonghua, the official language of mainland China, emerging to challenge English and Cantonese as a high status language in public domains. This paper builds on previous studies by Pierson et al. (1980) and Pennington & Yue (1994) to examine the changing language attitudes brought about by the handover. A questionnaire was administered to 900 Hong Kong undergraduates to discover students' perspectives on language and cultural identity, social, affective and instrumental attitudes and general predictions for language use with a view towards the political transition.

Trade Ties between Hong Kong and Mainland China

Asian Survey ◽  
1970 ◽  
Vol 10 (9) ◽  
pp. 820-839
Author(s):  
Patrick Yeung
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Mainland China

scholarly journals Stigma, Discrimination, and Hate Crimes in Chinese-Speaking World amid Covid-19 Pandemic

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jianhua Xu ◽  
Guyu Sun ◽  
Wei Cao ◽  
Wenyuan Fan ◽  
Zhihao Pan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Data Mining ◽  
Hong Kong ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
Chinese Population ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Chinese Language ◽  
Hate Crimes ◽  
Overseas Chinese ◽  
Mainland Chinese ◽  
Media Reports

AbstractThe Covid-19 pandemic has given rise to stigma, discrimination, and even hate crimes against various populations in the Chinese language–speaking world. Using interview data with victims, online observation, and the data mining of media reports, this paper investigated the changing targets of stigma from the outbreak of Covid-19 to early April 2020 when China had largely contained the first wave of Covid-19 within its border. We found that at the early stage of the pandemic, stigma was inflicted by some non-Hubei Chinese population onto Wuhan and Hubei residents, by some Hong Kong and Taiwan residents onto mainland Chinese, and by some Westerners towards overseas Chinese. With the number of cases outside China surpassing that in China, stigmatization was imposed by some Chinese onto Africans in China. We further explore how various factors, such as the fear of infection, food and mask culture, political ideology, and racism, affected the stigmatization of different victim groups. This study not only improved our understanding of how stigmatization happened in the Chinese-speaking world amid Covid-19 but also contributes to the literature of how sociopolitical factors may affect the production of hate crimes.

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