26 years have passed since Hong Kong sovereignty was transferred from the United Kingdom to the People’s Republic of China in 1997. In the meanwhile, the former colonial tension between the dominant language (English) and the dominated one (Cantonese) is on the move by various factors including an influx of Putonghua from the mainland. Their status and roles began to be de-constructed and seek a new relationship. This essay explores the socio-linguistic shift from pre-1997 to post-1997 of Hong Kong in line with Joshua Fishman’s classical article. It seems that some of his perspectives on ‘diglossia’ are still applicable, but that some are not suitable, for describing the current phenomenon of language and society in Hong Kong. In the process, it is argued not only from the functional point of view but through the power relation viewpoint. As a result, the exploration has clarified the singularity of Hong Kong in a post-colonial era.

In Germany, with the passing of the Immigration Act in 2005, German integration courses for migrants (Integrationskurs) were implemented as a national policy under the jurisdiction of the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees. Since then, the integration courses have been reformed several times, but by the first half of 2022 they had reached approximately 2.9 million participants. In addition, since 2016, German courses for professional purposes (Berufssprachkurs) have in principle been offered to graduates of integration courses. The commitment to sending migrants with sufficient German language skills to the labour market has remained consistent throughout this period. This philosophy is evident in the syllabus and content of the textbooks for both courses. On the other hand, there are a number of challenges, such as the fact that few graduates of the course for illiterate people, which is the second most popular of the integrated courses, reach B1 level, and the long waiting time for courses due to a shortage of teachers. Although the circumstances surrounding immigration are different in Japan and Germany, suggestions can be made for Japanese language education for immigrants.

To investigate the utilization of multilingualism within the young Korean-Chinese community, we examined the use of Yanbian-Korean (a variant of Korean mostly used in the Yanbian region), Chinese, and Korean in their internal situations. Our findings revealed that the young Korean-Chinese primarily engaged in two forms of language selection: 1) habitualized language choice and 2) adjusted language choice. In the former, there was a prevalence of using functional language, influenced primarily by the language hierarchy attitudes of the young Korean-Chinese community. In terms of functional language selection, there was a strong inclination to use the official language, Chinese. On the other hand, the latter is often accompanied by clear language management in specific situations Notably, the young Korean-Chinese tended to avoid using Yanbian-Korean in self-disclosure and self-presentation. Korean, serving as a ‘common language’ in internal situations, has been confirmed as the favored language for the young Korean-Chinese community.