Code-switching in Hong Kong

Code-switching In Hong Kong

Code-switching, or the practice of using more than one language in conversation, is very common in Hong Kong. It usually involves a mix of Cantonese and English as a result of the bilingualism in Hong Kong. For example, people in Hong Kong may say "聽日一唔一齊去食lunch呀？" (or "lun柱") ("Let's have lunch tomorrow?") when inviting someone for a meal.

Having been under British rule for over 150 years, Hong Kong's spoken Cantonese (and sometimes written Chinese) is still heavily influenced by English, particularly the lexicon which contains numerous English words. Code-switching has become a sociolinguistics phenomenon that is deeply rooted in the everyday lives of Hong Kong people.

Code-switching in Hong Kong is mostly intra-sentential - switching within a sentence or clause. The syntax of the sentence follows Chinese grammatical rules, but substitutes English words and phrases for their Chinese equivalents. For example, being an analytic language, Chinese uses particles instead of verb inflection.