Language migration to the South in the early 21stcentury

Abstract

Hong Kong Chinese and Mandarin are two different varieties of the Chinese

Language in terms of lexicology. For over three decades, new words from Hong

Kong Chinese have swarmed into Mandarin and related researches also

flourished. Yet the reverse is a trend somehow going about more or less unnoticed,

which is perhaps mostly due to the scantiness of amount of words involved as a

contrast. However, its importance has surfaced along with a growing number of

Putonghua words imported into Hong Kong Chinese in the early twenty-first

century, as a result of the increasing interaction between Mainland China and

Hong Kong. Therefore, the thesis sets to examine the phenomenon of language

migration to the South by investigating the use of Putonghua words in Hong Kong

written Chinese, so as to better observe the language exchange between Hong

Kong and Mainland China.

The main body of this paper comprises three parts. First it seeks to identify a

body of such Putonghua words entering Hong Kong in a vast corpus of formal

publications and web publications and look into the lexicological significance of

such words. A total number of 359 words have been collected and semantic

categories have been identified based on selected Hong Kong texts. Meanwhile,

the semantic meaning, pragmatic meaning and contexts of the words collected

have been analysed.

Second, this paper examines this body of borrowed Putonghua words from a

wide span of aspects in lexicology, including its syntactic and pragmatic features,

its different levels of being accepted in Hong Kong, its significance and migration

incentives. Meanwhile, The thesis also conducts a diachronic comparison study of

this body of loanwords centered on last decade.

Third, This paper carries out a synchronic comparison of borrowed words in

both directions (Hong Kong Chinese to Mandarin and Mandarin to Hong Kong

Chinese), to map out possible similarities and differences that reflect linguistic

exchange. It is found that the northward language migration prevails over its

southward counterparts regarding time, number, impact and other aspects.

Theories and research methods from social linguistics are widely employed in

this paper, in hopes of studying the language migration to the south in a scientific

and systematic way. It is found that southward migration of words into Hong

Kong will be a long-term and slow process, and that the bilateral language

exchange between Hong Kong and Mainland China will last continuously, thus

allowing Mandarin and Hong Kong Chinese share greater similarities while

preserving differences.