Language and identity positioning of multilingual Southeast Asian sojourners in Hong Kong

Abstract

Modern transportation has given rise to and facilitated the movement and mobility of populations. While much critical attention has been drawn to the permanent migration of the mobile population, very few scholars in the field of sociolinguistics have stressed the temporary movement of the group of travelers who are subsumed under the appellation, “the sojourner”. In addition, previous research predominantly focused on non-English speakers sojourning to English-dominant countries (Haneda and Monobe, 2009; Lee, 2008; Own, 1999), thus largely neglecting the multilingual contexts in Asia. To fill this scholarly gap, small-scale research was conducted by employing two frameworks, Social Network Theory (Milroy, 1980) and Community of Practice (Wenger, 1998; Eckert & McConnell-Ginet, 1992), to examine linguistic practices and identity positioning of Southeast Asian (SEA) sojourners when they interact with Hongkongers and other sojourners. In particular, it tackles a more complex language contact situation in which two major lingua francas, namely English and Mandarin, are available. This study was conducted in a higher education dance school in Hong Kong and three SEA sojourn students were recruited. Multi-faceted identities and multiple communities of practices are found: (1) at Communal Level: Cantonese is the shared linguistic repertoire of this dance community and three SEA sojourn students form the weakest ties with local students; (2) at Group Level: both Mandarin and English are adopted and stronger ties are established with other overseas sojourn students; and (3) at Individual Level: Singapore English is the dominant code choice used among these three SEA sojourners and they are bound together by the strongest ties. Instances of trilingual code-mixing and code-switching are also found in the interaction among the sojourners and Hong Kong locals. The two theories, Social Network Theory and Community of Practice, are complementary in accounting for the social organization of multilingual communities. Ultimately, this study demonstrates the complexity of multilingual communities with the aforesaid language contact in Hong Kong as a case in point.