Language and Identity in Hong Kong: “In-betweenness,” Its Complexity

Abstract

In the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (hereinafter “Hong Kong”) of the People’s Republic of China (hereinafter “China”), the relationship between language and identity is very complicated due to the sovereignty shift in 1997. Therefore, the real transition might be a matter of language and identity, not of sovereignty. Hong Kong people (Hong Kong residents speaking Cantonese as usual) continue to experience “in-betweenness.” In the colonial days, they used to be “in-between” Britain and Hong Kong. Nowadays, they are “in-between” mainland China and Hong Kong. Unlike other Asian countries, even in the postcolonial era, their experience is not “independence,” but just a “sovereignty shift.” Therefore, their identity is often not “fixed,” but “floating” (Tam 2005, 168). This paper explores, from a postcolonial perspective, Hong Kong’s complexity reflected in the people’s languages in their own unique way.