HKE Unit2

Hong Kong English
Unit 2-1:
LEXICAL FEATURES
Dr. Tony T.N. Hung

Language Centre
Hong Kong Baptist University
tonyhung@hkbu.edu.hk
In Hong Kong English, besides the
standard inventory of English words,
there are a number of HKE words which
are either (i) new coinages or
borrowings in HKE, or (ii) used in a
different sense than elsewhere.
(c) 2004 Tony T.N. Hung, Waseda University Digital Campus Consortium
Sources of New Hong Kong
English Words
Borrowings from local languages
(Cantonese – e.g. dimsum, kwailo,
taipan, etc.)
English lexical items adapted or created
for the local situation (e.g. abode
seeker, Legco, etc.)
Some Common HKE Words
i) Borrowings from Cantonese:
Dimsum – tidbits, delicatessen
Chongsam – a long lady’s dress with slit sides
Mahjong – a game
Fengshui – geomancy (lit. ‘wind and water’)
Kwailo – foreigner (esp. Caucasian)
Laisee – a red envelope containing money (as a
gift, for good luck)
(ii) Standard English words with meanings or
collocations peculiar to Hong Kong English:
Astronaut -- a HK person who has emigrated overseas
with his/her family, but returns to work in HK,
and frequently flies between the two places.
Abode seeker – a person from mainland China with
family ties in HK seeking permanent residence
there.
To play computer – to use the computer for
recreational purposes (e.g. surfing the Net,
chatting via e-mail and ICQ, downloading music
and video, playing computer games, etc.)
(iii) Rare English words current in HK:
Shroff – a payment counter (eg in a car park)

Nullah – a monsoon drain
Lexical Similarities with
Chinese English
In addition to lexical items and
meanings unique to HKE, there are also
many similarities between HKE and
Chinese English, since Hong Kong and
China share (basically) the same culture
and language.
See ‘Chinese English’ (Prof. Wang
Yueping), Unit 3
Pragmatic Features
Many similarities also with Chinese
English
See especially ‘Chinese English’ (Prof.
Wang Yueping) Unit 8 on Pragmatics,
and Unit 5 on Socio-cultural differences.
Hong Kong English
Unit 2-2:
GRAMMAR (1):
NOUNS & SUBJECTS
Dr. Tony T.N. Hung

Language Centre
Grammatical Features of HKE
HKE speakers show a cline of
proficiency ranging from standard
English to sub-standard English
Most HKE speakers exhibit a number of
sub-standard features, which may be
considered ‘fossilised’ errors
HKE an ‘Interlanguage’?
HKE typically incorporates linguistic
features of the Target Language
(English) and the speaker’s First
Language (Cantonese)
Also incorporates features arising out of
language acquisition factors, including
over-generalisation, simplification, etc.
SOME COMMON GRAMMATICAL FEATURES
OF HONG KONG ENGLISH
(Examples taken from university students’ writings)
I. SUBJECT-RELATED FEATURES
(1) LACK OF SUBJECT-VERB AGREEMENT

1. It help produce mucous.
2. A super carrot have been produced by plant
breeders.
3. It also form the pigment of eyes.
4. The pigment of eyes which control the light..
5. One of the team members are going.
COMMENT:
(i) Lack of subject-verb agreement in the learner’s
mother tongue (Chinese).
(ii) Difficulty in identifying the head of a complex
NP subject in English, which controls agreement.
(NB. In Chinese the noun head always occurs at
the end of the NP and is easily identifiable, but not
in English. E.g.:
ENGLISH: ‘[The policeman who caught the robbers]
was commended’.
CHINESE: ‘[The caught the robbers policeman] was
commended.’
(2) MISSING SUBJECT
1. ^ felt angry with people
2. Moreover, ^ can help us to
communicate concisely.
3. Beside, ^ can enhance my English
standard.
4. As a junior marketing executive, ^
find speaking fluent English is
necessary.
COMMENT:
Chinese is a ‘Topic prominent’ language,

where there is no obligatory Subject (as in
English). The topic can be omitted if it is
understood, resulting in what looks like
‘subjectless’ sentences.
(2) MISSING SUBJECT
1. ^ felt angry with people
2. Moreover, ^ can help us to
communicate concisely.
3. Beside, ^ can enhance my English
standard.
4. As a junior marketing executive, ^
find speaking fluent English is
necessary.
(3) ‘PSEUDO-PASSIVE’
CONSTRUCTIONS
1. And it can find in carrots.
2. It cannot produce by the body.
3. So freedom should grant to the
citizens.
4. The Housing and Development Board
has set up in order to provide ...
COMMENT:
In Chinese, there is no true ‘passive’ construction, and

the same verb form can be used in both ‘active’ and
‘passive’ senses. This gives rise to two kinds of
problems: (i) At the surface level, errors in the
morphology of the passive verb (e.g. find instead of be
found); (ii) at a deeper level, as a consequence of the
topic-prominent nature of Chinese, sentences with a
topic (e.g. ‘it’) followed by a comment consisting of a
subjectless clause (e.g. ‘[one] can find in carrots’).
II. THE NOUN PHRASE
(1) ARTICLE OMISSION
1. The majority of ^ respondents agreed
that executives should have...
2. Most of ^ plants were giant plants.
3. This drug can inhibit ^ development
of cancer.
4. It is used by ^ human body.
5. His father took ^ bath twice a day.
COMMENT:
(i) Lack of articles in Chinese;

(ii) Inability to recognise contexts in
which a particular article
(definite/indefinite) is required.
(2) REDUNDANT ARTICLES
1. Half of them agree that the writing
ability is also important.
2. Super Carrot can inhibit the cancer.
3. Finally, the coal was formed.
4. So we should save the energy to save
the coal.
(3) RELATIVE CLAUSES
1. The early symptom of people ^ lack of
vitamin A is…
2. One of the plant ^ contains carotenes
is called...
3. The heat ^ came from the earth
would make the mud become rock.
COMMENT:
In Chinese, relative clauses have no relative
pronouns (like who, which, etc. in English),
and they precede the noun head. E.g.:
ENGLISH: [The student who won the
scholarship] was overjoyed.
CHINESE: [The won the scholarship student]
was overjoyed.
HKE: ‘The student ^ won the scholarship]
was overjoyed.
Hong Kong English
Unit 2-3:
GRAMMAR (2): VERBS
Dr. Tony T.N. Hung

Language Centre
VERBS & VERB PHRASES
IN HONG KONG ENGLISH
The Verb is the most important part of
the sentence
It gives rise to many errors because of
its complexity – Tense, Aspect, Modality,
Voice, Transitivity, etc.
(1) FINITE vs. NON-FINITE
1. About 16 percent of them being
neutral with that
2. I went to the park and see her playing
football.
3. Would Kevin stopped seeing his
friends?
4. More than 50% did not agreed that...
COMMENT:
In Chinese, the finite/non-finite distinction does

not exist. In HKE, the distinction is often not
properly observed, resulting in main verbs
either not being marked for tense, or else
redundantly marked (as in sentences (3-4)).
(2) AUXILIARIES
1. We were asked 30 chief executives
about what is the necessary...
2. I am agree with you.
3. I am strongly recommend this book to
all of you.
4. Why they go to the center of the
earth?
5. She thinks she not know.
COMMENT:
There are no primary auxiliaries (like be and
do) in Chinese.
(i) In examples (4-5), auxiliaries are not
required in negative and interrogative
sentences (exactly as in Chinese).
(ii) In sentences (2-3), auxiliaries can
apparently take on an ‘emphatic’ function,
similar to the English do (‘I am agree with
you’ = ‘I do agree with you’).
(3) PRESENT/PAST PARTICIPLES
1. It was useful to cause the remained
part of the plants to...
2. A survey conducting among 30 chief
executives reveal that…
3. A million years ago, there were many
giant plants grown on the Earth.
COMMENT:
It was mentioned in Unit 2-2 that HKE lacks
an active/passive distinction. As modifiers,
the difference between present participles
(eg ‘the boring lecture’ = ‘the lecture bores
people’) and past participles (eg ‘the bored
students’ = ‘the students are bored’) is
essentially one of active (with the modified
noun as the subject) vs. passive verb (with
the modified noun as the original object).
This distinction is apparently lacking in
these examples from HKE.
(4) TRANSITIVE/INTRANSITIVE
1. The figure raises.
2. The financial crisis deteriorated the
economy of Hong Kong.
COMMENT:
Though there is a transitive vs.
intransitive distinction in Chinese,
certain verbs are marked transitive or
intransitive in a way different from
standard English. This is more a lexical
problem than a systematic grammatical
problem.
(5) PHRASAL VERBS
1. Questionnaires dealing ^ the
importance of the qualities for...
2. It can provide us ^ enough vitamin A
3. …children that suffer ^ permanent
blindness.
4. They are concerned ^ each other.
5. They argue ^ each other.
COMMENT:
The lexicon of many HKE speakers obviously

does not incorporate many phrasal verbs. Unlike
the more regular uses of prepositions, the
prepositions used in phrasal verbs are largely
unpredictable, and have to be learnt on their own.
This is basically a lexical rather than syntactic
problem.
Hong Kong English
Unit 2-4:
GRAMMAR (3):
SENTENCE STRUCTURE
Dr. Tony T.N. Hung

Language Centre
CLAUSE & SENTENCE
STRUCTURE IN HKE
Clause and sentence structure differs
markedly in Chinese and English
The notions of Coordination and
Subordination are realised quite
differently in the two languages.
(1) COORDINATION
1. Vitamin A is also called retinol, ^ occurs naturally
in plants.
2. The lower part was the vegetation, ^ this
vegetation was up to 5kms.
3. Coal is the most important fuel in our daily life, ^ it
has been used for a long time.
4. His father was very clean, ^ do not need to have a
bath.
5. However, giant plants died many years later, thus
the plants decomposed gradually.
COMMENT:
In Chinese, the concept of the ‘sentence’ is rather

loose, and independent clauses can occur in
juxtaposition without any conjunctions.
(2) PREDICATORS
1. They concerned about each other.
2. Gavin afraid to say that.
3. The respondents disagreed educating
abroad and attractive appearance
important.
4. Most of them agreed that capable of
working in a team is important.
COMMENT:
In Chinese, both verbs and adjectives can
function as the predicator (head of the
predicate), but in English, only verbs
can.
(3) SUBORDINATORS
1. There are different opinions about ^
leadership ability, writing ability and selling
ability important or not.
2. More than 50% of sample disagree ^
attractive appearance is necessary for...
3. Africa countries adapt super carrot and find
^ the super carrot can inhibit…
COMMENT:
As in the case of missing relative
pronouns, Chinese also lacks
subordinators (like whether, that, etc.)
for subordinate clauses.
(4) EXISTENTIAL CONSTRUCTIONS
(i) There is/are…
There are over 80% of them agreed with
that.
There are about 23 percent of them
disagreed with the importance of leadership
ability.
There are students study in the library.
There were more and more competitors
entered the market.
COMMENT:
In Chinese, the existential construction is
formed simply by adding the existential
marker you (literally ‘have’) to the
beginning of a regular sentence with an
indefinite subject – exactly as in the HKE
sentences (1-4), e.g.
[There are] + [over 80% of them agreed
with that].
(ii) EXISTENTIAL VERB (have)
1. Normally, it had about 30 metres high.
2. It includes some giant plants that
have 30 meter high.
3. There had some environmental
changes.
COMMENT:
In Chinese, the existential marker you literally

means ‘have’.
Recommended Reading for
Units 2-2 to 2-4
Hung, T.T.N. ‘Interlanguage analysis and
remedial grammar teaching’. Papers
in Applied Language Studies, Vol.5,
pp.155-168. Hong Kong Baptist
University, 2000.

HKE Unit2

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Hong Kong English

Dr. Tony T.N. Hung

Shroff – a payment counter (eg in a car park)

Dr. Tony T.N. Hung

(1) LACK OF SUBJECT-VERB AGREEMENT

Chinese is a ‘Topic prominent’ language,

In Chinese, there is no true ‘passive’ construction, and

(i) Lack of articles in Chinese;

Dr. Tony T.N. Hung

In Chinese, the finite/non-finite distinction does

The lexicon of many HKE speakers obviously

Dr. Tony T.N. Hung

In Chinese, the concept of the ‘sentence’ is rather

In Chinese, the existential marker you literally

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