In this section we will focus on the several chapters of Kingsley Bolton's book "Hong Kong English: Autonomy and Creativity" and the articles of "Hong Kong English, but not as we know it: Kongish and language in late modernity" written by Andrew Sewell and Jason Chan, and "The politics of language and identity: attitudes towards Hong Kong English pre and post the Umbrella Movement" written by Jette G. Hansen Edwards to discuss the relationship between Kongish and the establishment of local identity in light of historical and social contexts in Hong Kong. Bolton (2002) shed light on the historical and cultural development of Hong Kong English. From his perspective, we can notify the features of language environment in Hong Kong and the conditions for the presence of Kongish.
Origin of "Hong Kong English"
Bolton (2002) traced the origin of Hong Kong English back to the mid-seventeenth century when the Canton people had been communicating with the British for trade by using Chinese Pidgin English which was described as a kind of “broken English” or “mixed dialect” corrupting and degrading English at the time. Such description can be explained by the Standard English ideology which denies any other varieties of English as “non-standardized English” or "incorrect English" and echoes with the prejudice against the Asians and the Chinese among the Westerners at the time. Interestingly, the attitudes towards Chinese Pidgin English more than 250 years ago and Kongish now are similarly ignorant and negative to a certain extent.
Linguistic myths in Hong Kong
Following the development of Hong Kong society in the colonial and post-colonial eras after WWII, Bolton (2002) argued for the presence of “monolingual myth”, “invisibility myth” and “falling standards myth” in language development of Hong Kong. This part helps us understand how Hong Kong people perceive multilingualism and interactions of languages in Hong Kong.
“Monolingual myth” and “invisibility myth”
The presence of “monolingual myth” and “invisibility myth” refers to the emphasis of the dominance of Cantonese in Hong Kong society during the 1980s and the 1990s and the reluctance to admit the bilingual and even multilingual interactions and coexistence in Hong Kong (Bolton, 2002, p.41, 43, 44). Bolton (2002) then listed a number of factors leading to the rise of multilingualism in Hong Kong. The recognition of Chinese as the official language and the active promotion of the national language Putonghua after the handover especially being the teaching medium of some schools give rise to the multilingual context. Moreover, daily conversations among the younger generations are mainly in Cantonese and involves code-mixing usually (Bolton, 2002). Particularly, the rapid expansion of computer users especially among the younger generations has boosted the use of “a mixed form of written Chinese and English” with “a 'mixed' form of written English and Chinese, with Cantonese vocabulary items and conversational particles ‘romanized’ into a linguistic matrix of written Hong Kong English” (Bolton, 2002, p.43).
“Falling standards myth”
According to Bolton (2002), “Hong Kong had its own localized complaint tradition about ‘falling standards’ of both English and Chinese” since the early 1970s, which is an important contributing factor for negative views against multilingualism and language interactions in Hong Kong (p.298). Bolton (2002) suggested a possible reason that students may lose their motivation to learn English due to political change after transfer of sovereignty (p.300). However, Bolton (2002) argued that there was no concrete evidence proving the decline of the English standards among the best students, and it was largely due to the expansion of education especially after the adoption of free and compulsory education policy in the early 1970s.
Multilingualism in Hong Kong, Kongish and identity
Bolton (2002) argued that Hong Kong is also under the linguistic reality in which "linguistic homogeneity and ethnic purity hardly fit the daily experience of life in a community that has so relatively recently morphed from a wah kiu refugee community into a vibrant Asian metropolis" (p.41). Multilingualism in Hong Kong is also closely related to the presence of diversified ethnicity of people in Hong Kong.
Notions of autonomy and creativity
From Bolton (2002, p.295), notion of "autonomy" helps determine the "strength" of a variety as to the status of "language", that is, only autonomous variety or dialect can be claimed as a "language". A variety of English becomes "autonomous" when people in a TESL society no longer see standardized English as "the only or obvious target for the foreign learner" (p.296) but it becomes a recognized and legitimate "language" which people may feel "possessive" about. In Hong Kong, there had been persistent doubts and criticisms against the students' falling or declining English standards, but Bolton (2002, p.303) claimed that Hong Kong should not see English as "externally imposed" but turn to accept Hong Kong English as a legitimate English variety. This helps establish the sense of "language ownership" among the younger generations and abolish skepticism against creativity power of Hong Kong English.
The "creativity" of Hong Kong English is also an emphasis of Bolton. Bolton (2002) raised the point that while English creative writing in possible in Hong Kong, a Hong Kong English literature may not be possible. Creative writing is defined as "the active labor of imagination within specific forms and genres of written communication" with the feature of "provisional dynamics" subject to constant changes and formulation, while literature is defined as a "contributory reproduction in the horizon of literary traditions and expectations that help frame the larger discursive universe of a social culture" (Bolton, 2002, p.303). This is largely due to the context described as "disappearance" because of constant and rapid political, economic, social and cultural changes in Hong Kong which make cultural stability impossible (Bolton, 2002, p.303-304). There are constantly new elements of culture being introduced into Hong Kong society and this greatly reflects on language. One obvious example is the translanguaging process happening in Hong Kong which accounts for the rise of Kongish.
The context in which Kongish rises
Kongish rises in such multilingual context which has experienced long historical development. As reflected in linguistic myths above, negative attitudes are expressed against multilingualism and non-standard Chinese and English among some people in Hong Kong, probably because of the effect of persistence of standard language ideology and social categorization as discussed in the previous section, so it is understandable that users of Kongish may be prejudiced against, supported by statistics of a recent survey showing negative feeling against Kongish prevails (Edwards, 2016).
Recent change of picture
Recent articles about Kongish show a different picture about the attitudes towards Kongish and its importance in promotion of local identity. Indicated by Bolton (2002) above, the widespread popularity of the Internet and online socializing platforms has encouraged the development of a hybrid of Cantonese and English in written form. Sewell and Chan (2016) noticed the presence of a substantial group of Cantonese-English bilingual population who are using Kongish as a medium of online communication and an "insider function" to exclude outsiders' comprehension. This echoes with the point of in-group favoritism in the previous section and implies the use of Kongish as a marker of unique identity among those who have proficiency in both Cantonese and English (Edwards, 2016).
In a survey conducted by Edwards (2016) with a few hundreds of university students as the respondents, there are useful data reflecting certain changes of the picture about the use of Kongish. The slight but note-worthy shift towards acceptance of Kongish and multilingual context in Hong Kong can be reflected in the substantially increasing percentage of interviewees who recognize Kongish as a "legitimate" English variety by comparing statistics in 2015 with those in 2014 (before Umbrella Movement) (increase by more than 10%, from 30.61% to 40.8%) (Edwards, 2016). The increase of users of Kongish also substantially increased by more than 15% after a year (from 59.28% to 73.97%) (Edwards, 2016). Although negative view is still the dominant side, the respondents claiming that they did "not like Kongish" have decreased for around 10% (from 59.34% to 50%) (Edwards, 2016).
Edwards (2016) and Yau (2016) linked the increasing recognition and use of Kongish with the socio-political controversies and turmoil recent years which boosted the politically-active young generations to eagerly express their political opinions and establish their independent identity by using Kongish as a "language of protest". Among the younger generations, the widespread uses of online socializing platforms and instant-messaging software such as Facebook and WhatsApp to exchange and express opinions also promote a faster, more convenient and more culturally-unique language in Hong Kong, and they gradually establish a sense of language ownership through the process.