A tale of two Special Administrative Regions : the state of multilingualism in Hong Kong and Macao

Abstract

This chapter gives an overview of language diversity in Hong Kong and Macao. Both places enjoy a high level of sociopolitical autonomy, including the continued use of the former colonial languages—English and Portuguese, respectively—as co-official languages alongside Chinese, which is understood to refer to spoken Cantonese and Mandarin-based Standard Written Chinese (SWC). The language policies in both places aim at achieving biliteracy and trilingualism: the ability to read and write Chinese and English, and to speak and understand Cantonese, English, and Mandarin. Unlike elsewhere in the sinophone world, Cantonese as a regional Sinitic variety continues to be used as the medium of instruction (MoI) from kindergarten to secondary-level schools. Language contact phenomena, such as lexical borrowing from English and code-switching, are commonplace. With cross-border visits to and from mainland China becoming more and more frequent, the use of Mandarin is increasingly frequent in both communities.