Language and the Media – Language Culture and Society in Hong Kong (and beyond)

A Comparative Discourse Analysis of Four News Texts on the Event of “831”

Posted on May 15, 2020 by Benedict J. L. ROWLETT

To most people, news text is commonly perceived as a source of information that reports events in neutral way. However, as the principle of critical discourse analysis indicates, there is always a meaning hidden behind or an ideology conveyed by the texts, depending on the personal opinion of the author and the institution behind him or her. Especially when the same topic is covered by different medias, through comparison, the ideological standpoints contained in various news texts can be productively explored.

In the year of 2019, the accumulated political conflict between Hong Kong and mainland China eventually erupted and caused the occurrence of abundant violent incidents. Among these conflicts, an event named by its date as “831” is massively reported by various news medias for its severity. In order to explore how opposite ideologies can be expressed in the different discourse, four news texts from the local medias of both Hong Kong and mainland China (two passages each) are selected as data of the research. In my research, a comparative analysis is drawn on the materials from three perspectives based on Fairclough’s 3-dimentional model of discourse, which are text, discourse practice and social practice.

Online Articles:
www.thestandnews.com/politics/民間記者會-8-31-晚義務急救員-有傷者現休克徵狀/
www.sohu.com/a/338190282_617731
www.ntdtv.com/b5/2019/09/11/a102662349.html
xw.qq.com/amphtml/20190901A06BFX00

Text:

To analyze text, a detailed research on the choices and patterns deliberately expressed in vocabulary is required. For instance, for wording, many definite adjectives and modal verbs are applied in the news “The Lost Victims Revealed”, such as “according to abundant evidences” “the citizens cannot accept the government’s words totally” and “the testimonies of all witnesses”. These affirmative words help the author to create a firm tone and make the reader feel that the report is based on enough evidences and valid facts. In the two news reports from mainland China, “Behind the Rumor” and “Announcement from HK Police”, the wording technique of calling others with derogatory name is frequently adopted. In “Behind the Rumor”, the protesters are referred as the “lawbreaker” and the “mob”. By giving derogatory names to the protesters, the author intends to depreciate the identity of the participants and link them with negative impression. As for metaphor, this technique is frequently used by the author of “Behind the Rumor”. A comparison is made to describe the relationship between Hong Kong and mainland China. According to the author, “The doctor is the one that hopes the patient to get better soon while mainland China is the one that hopes Hong Kong to get better soon.” In this sentence, the author demonstrates his trust on mainland China as the just stand in the political conflict.

Discourse Practice:

Discourse practice reveals the nature of text production, distribution and consumption in society. In the four reports, the technique of intertextuality is frequently used by authors to create a semblance of authenticity and facticity. For the people whose speeches are quoted, they represent the authority that the authors identify themselves with. For instance, in “Behind the Rumor” and “Announcement from HK Police”, the declaration of the Hong Kong police is quoted in both news texts of mainland China. Different from Chinese local reports, speeches of the police never appear in the news texts of Hong Kong media. To the authors whose support toward the protest, they consider the police as the opposite side and it is unreasonable for them to quote the police’s announcement. Instead, it is volunteer of the emergency service who is frequently interviewed. Through quoting evidence from the volunteers who witnessed the event, the authors attempt to reveal the truth of the incidence from the perspective of the protesters.

Social Discourse:

Social discourse demonstrates the power relations and ideologies that discourses produce and transform. To investigate the authors’ ideologies and the news reports’ social purposes, an analysis focused on the information covered in the texts is required. Although the topic discussed in the four news is the same, the aspects of the event that the authors choose to report are different. For “The Lost Victim Revealed”, most of the paragraphs talk about the timeline and the description of the event. The author’s attention on the details of the incident reflects his intention of using sufficient evidences to prove the protesters’ innocence. Through making abundant interviews with the witnesses and the participants, the author expresses his suspicion toward the casualty. Similar to “The Lost Victim Revealed”, the author of “The Volunteer’s Emergency Report” does not mention the protesters’ action at all. On the one hand, the author focuses on report about the casualty of the incident, especially the condition of the missing protester. On the other hand, the author blames the police for their refusing to help the injured.

Nonetheless, in the two news texts from Chinese media, the focus is changed from the action of the police to the action of the protesters. In “Behind the Rumor”, the author avoids depicting about the police’s violent action but uses many paragraphs to describe the protester’s aggression. Detailed description is provided when the author talks about the protester’s negative influence on public security while limited information is mentioned when the author talks about Hong Kong police’s violence. In “Announcement from HK Police”, the author chooses to focus on the protesters’ actions too. For the first half of the reports, he discusses the violent behavior of the protesters and the potential damage they may bring to the citizens. Through this method, the author can justify the police’s movement as the “last choice since there is no alternative”. The authors do not touch the protesters’ casualty and have no interest to seek the truth of the “831” event itself. The authors’ intentional neglect on specific topic reflects the fact that these information are detrimental to the political ideologies they support.

In conclusion, to explore the ideology that the author intends to convey is to analyze the text from the three factors of text, discourse practice and social practice. Although the four news are related to the same event, through the usages of various linguistic techniques, the authors make the texts speak and only speak for the opinions they agree with.

Reference:

南方都市报 “港警通报831非法游行，称香港‘经历了一场浩劫.’” 腾讯网, 1 Sept. 2019, xw.qq.com/amphtml/20190901A06BFX00.

立場報道 “【民間記者會】8.31 晚義務急救員：油麻地有傷者現休克徵狀: 立場報道: 立場新聞.” 立場新聞Stand News, 立場新聞 Stand News, 14 Sept. 2019, www.thestandnews.com/politics/民間記者會-8-31-晚義務急救員-有傷者現休克徵狀/.

“香港831冲突死人的谣言背后_警方.” _警方, 2 Sept. 2019, www.sohu.com/a/338190282_617731.

“「831太子站」無打死人？受襲失蹤者容貌曝光.” Www.ntdtv.com, 17 Sept. 2019, www.ntdtv.com/b5/2019/09/11/a102662349.html.

Teo, P. (2000) “Racism in the news: a critical discourse analysis of news reporting in two Australian newspapers,’Discourse and Society 11(1): 7-49

HOW NEWS REPORTS CONTRIBUTE TO PEOPLE’S PERCEPTION OF GENDER STEREOTYPES

Posted on May 9, 2020 by Benedict J. L. ROWLETT

By Cindera Guan

Nowadays, people are paying more attention on sex, gender and feminism than before. More and more feminists emerge, hoping to eliminate the gender stereotype, and win a higher social status for women. However, it is not easy to achieve gender equality with the influence of mass media and their reports, which contribute towards people’s perception of gender stereotypes.

According to Bullen (149), one person would be exposed to approximately 16000 ads and news reports a day, from which they tend to fit in the gender stereotype showing what men and women should be, without realizing themselves being affected by mass media.

Then, in what ways do the news reports people read daily show and express gender stereotypes? In news reports sentences, transitivity, referring to who does what to whom and how, usually express an attitude towards gender stuff.

Girl, 7, murdered while mom drank at the pub.

(Sun, 20 December 1986)

This headline expresses two things: girl murdered and mom drank. With the murderer, the murder action’s actor, completely omitted, this kind of words arrange implies that the mom is the one to blame, because she was in the pub where she should not have been to. The gender stereotype shown in this report is that the only right thing for women to do is care and nurture, rather than going to pub and having fun. Nurturing is women’s compulsory responsibility and women who do not nurture would get more blame than a murderer – that is the horrible gender stereotype disseminated from this kind of news reports.

Omitting the identity of abuser while reinforcing the characteristics of the victim turns public attention to the victim.

A scantily dressed young woman was raped at night.

(Liaoning Evening, 2 August 2015)

Similar as the previous one, with the actor, the murderer being omitted and description being made of how improper the young woman wore, the news implied that the young woman is not blameless for her being raped. And it might scare the readers that if women wear scantily, she would be the one to blamed for whatever happened. Or even nothing happens, it is regarded as inappropriate. Therefore, the gender stereotype expressed in this news report is that , for women, dress conservatively means dress proper.

According to Simpson (80), much media language is constructed based on the concept of ‘essentialist’ of women. This is the notion that women tend to care and nurture but not to do something violent. If women do not conform to cultural stereotypes of motherhood, caring and monogamy, they would be treated especially harshly by the mass media. In this way, huge influences were made on people’s perceptions on gender stereotypes.

References:

Hannah, Goodall. “Media Asia.” Singapore, vol. 39, no. 3, 2012, pp. 160-163.

James, Potter. “Media Literacy.” Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, vol 32, no.5, 2001, pp. 35-36.

Julia, Wood. “Gendered lives communication, gender and culture.” Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2011.

Rebecca, Bullen, R. R. “The power and impact of gender specific media literacy.” Youth Media Reporter, vol. 4, no.2, 2009, pp. 149-152.

Simpson, Paul, et al. Language and power: A resource book for students. Routledge, 2018, pp. 73-80.

Talmadge, Guy. “Learning who we (and they) are: popular culture as pedagogy.” New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, vol. 115, no. 7, 2007, pp. 15-23.

How do the visuals of the Hong Kong Protest 2019 in online news articles tell you the story?

Posted on May 9, 2020 by Benedict J. L. ROWLETT

By Iris Po

The Hong Kong Protest has started since June 2019 and the movement has been continued for a few months. Medias have reported the movement at different angles, some of them described the protesters as ‘rioters’, while some of them highlighted the growing police brutality. It has been argued that some of the mainstream medias were biased when they reported related events of the movement. The language used in the news reports is certainly powerful in conveying the intended message to the audience, but what about the power of the pictures attached? Do you have a habit of reading ‘e-news’?

Approach: Multimodal Discourse Analysis

The focus of this analysis is how the visuals (e.g. images) interact with the text (e.g. choice of vocabulary) in the three chosen news articles.

Image 1

South China Morning Post, July 2019
**Title: Protesters and police fight pitched battles in late-night showdown after mass rally against Hong Kong extradition bill**

It was taken when a clash between the protesters and police officers in Mong Kok broke out. The photo was taken as if the photographer was one of the police officers as it showed the angle of them confronting the protestors. The police officers were raising batons and formed a cordon line to prevent the protesters from going any further. Meanwhile, the black-dressed protestors, who wear masks, were holding black umbrellas to avoid being dispersed by the police. They also showed that they were ready for the confrontation through their firm gaze at the police officers. The situation was described as ‘chaos’ and ‘running battles’ in the article. The vocabulary chosen echoes when looking at the photo alone, as it may give an impression that facing the uncontrollable crowd of demonstrators, the police used reasonable force to handle the chaos after the original peaceful demonstration.

Image 2

Bloomberg, October 2019
**Title:** **Hong Kong Protests Flare for 21st Weekend Amid Global Unrest**

It captured the moment when the protestors gathered during a protest in Tsim Sha Tsui. Though it was mainly a crowd of demonstrators waiting for their turn to move, an obvious big black flag that one of the protestors raised has brought to the spotlight. The Chinese words on the flag has the meaning of “liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our time”. The slogan was used by a candidate in an election campaign in 2016. It was reused in the Hong Kong protests 2019 as the main slogan and caught the world’s attention. The author did not mention the slogan or the content of the flag captured in the photo. Nonetheless, the photo provided the real scene of the protest that adds extra information to the article. The other feature of the protestors discovered in the photo was that they were mostly masked.

Image 3

Hong Kong Free Press, December 2019
**Title: In Pictures: Pepe frog and protest pig – Hongkongers bring internet memes to life at protest**

Various images of demonstrators wearing different kinds of over-sized animal masks have been showed. The photo chosen showed that most of the people wore the oversized ‘Pepe the Frog’ masks and showed the gesture of “five demands, not one less” with their right hands. The ‘Pepe the Frog’, originated in a comic and later used as a hate symbol in the US, was used in the Hong Kong protests as a symbol of liberty and resistance. The author suggested that it was used as a disrespectful symbol of their dissatisfaction with the Beijing’s rule, explaining the reason why the protesters wore the oversized ‘Pepe the Frog’ masks or carried the frog dolls when joining the rallies. One of the interviewees pointed out that the frog symbolizes humour, confidence and positive thinking for the ongoing movement. The photos attached with the news add lively protest scenes and revealed the fact that the symbol was widely used for the protest.

Sources:
1. https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-and-crime/article/3017627/protesters-and-police-fight-pitched-battles-late-night

2. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-25/hong-kong-protests-set-for-21st-weekend-as-unrest-circles-globe

3. https://hongkongfp.com/2019/12/09/pictures-pepe-frog-protest-pig-hongkongers-bring-internet-memes-life-protest/

How is Princess Jasmine from the Animation (1992) Empowered in the Live Action Movie, Aladdin (2019)?

Posted on May 7, 2020 by Benedict J. L. ROWLETT

By Charlene Lee

The culture of Disney princesses has been globally pervasive for years and it shapes how people see the world. Promoting unrealistic fairy tales, the films are often criticized as reinforcing gender stereotypes. The power imbalance between princesses and male characters is obvious in terms of the ideology of gender performances. Other stereotypical linguistic features are also observable in Disney movies. For examples, the princesses use tag questions frequently, they discuss feelings a lot, and they tend to be submissive in the interactions with men.

The animated Princess Jasmine has been intelligent and witty in Aladdin (1992). Nevertheless, it is still considered to be an underdeveloped and passive role. When it comes to the live-action remake, it is surprisingly to see how the character evolves. Princess Jasmine becomes much aspired and stronger. To examine how Princess Jasmine from the animation is empowered in the 2019 Aladdin, selected lyrics of the new solo “Speechless” are analyzed with a critical discourse analysis. Furthermore, the linguistics features of Princess Jasmines in the two movies are compared, both quantitatively and qualitatively.

Analysis on “Speechless”

The lyrics in the second verse and chorus of the song are analyzed descriptively, interpretatively and explanatively.

YouTube link (0:00 – 0:17 & 0:32 – 1:04):

1. Grammatical Structures (Descriptive analysis) & Interpersonal Meanings (Interpretative analysis)

a. A shift from passive voice to active voice

The second verse talks about the rules “being written” for centuries and unbendingly. The use of passive directs the attention to the agent who performs the action. The desperation of Princess Jasmine being powerless to change the law to marry a prince and not to be the sultan is expressed. Her destiny is dictated.

In the chorus, Princess Jasmine says that she won’t “be silenced” and won’t “tremble” and “go speechless”. The shift from passive voice to active voice indicates the reinforcement to herself and her determination to have a voice and to speak up.

b. Direct quotes

“Stay in your place” and “Better seen and not heard” is directly quoted from the character Jafar who is the oppressor to Princess Jasmine. The quoting reveals her anger and dissatisfactions to be condescended.

c. Pronouns

The pronouns “I” and “you” are used to refer to Princess Jasmine herself and the men, such as Jafar and the Sultan. The use of pronouns is indicated as a command of Princess Jasmine to the men to treat her ideals to be worth the consideration. She withholds the permission from them to keep her silenced.

d. Repetition

The word “speechless” and the clause “I know that I won’t go speechless” are repeated in the chorus. The thesis of the speaker Princess Jasmine is stressed on. She reaffirms herself not to stay alive without a voice, and she is confident to speak up for herself, for examples who to marry to, and for the country, that she can be a good leader.

e. Metaphor

The obstacles to get Princess Jasmine’s voice being heard is implied as “storm”. However, the speaker states “no” to refuse being alive as unspoken.

2. Ideology Shift (Explanatory analysis)

The core value of Princess Jasmine endeavouring to fight for true love is shifted into the striving to be a female leader of a kingdom. In Aladdin (1992), Princess Jasmine rebels mostly for marrying a Prince, such as she states, “If I do marry, I want it to be for love”. It complies with traditional gender stereotypes – that female tends to speak about relationships and feelings. While in the live action remake (2019), Princess Jasmine instead criticizes on the forced condescendence by men though “Speechless”. She demonstrates her political ambitions and protests on the forbiddance of females becoming a sultan, the leader of her kingdom. There is a shift of goals and subject matter in her speeches. The traditional gender performance is as well broken down. The song has been the power reclamation of Princess Jasmine. In the 1992 movie, she does not rebut when Jafar describes her as “speechless”. Notwithstanding, the power imbalance between men and women in the context of Agrabah is challenged in her solo.

Analysis on linguistics features

The linguistics features of Princess Jasmine’s speech are categorized into four groups according to the three-wave movement of feminism, from the Deficit group (e.g. talkativeness, weakness), the D/D group (e.g. tag questions, empty adjective, hedges), the Difference group (e.g. sharing problems, offering to help) to the New group (e.g. interruption, imperative forms, disagree). The degree of power is of ascending order from the Deficit group to the New group. The numbers of the linguistics features demonstrated in the two versions of movies are measured and compared.

In Aladdin (1992), the dominant group of characteristics identified is the D/D group. Princess Jasmine uses the forms of questions, empty adjectives and rising intonation turning an utterance into a question most frequently in her speeches (43%). On the contrary, the New group becomes dominant in the 2019 live action remake (51%). The usage of interruption and disagreeing increases for a great proportion.

On the other hand, there are other distinctive features identified in Princess Jasmine’s speeches in Aladdin (2019), they are as follows:

1. Usage of Direct, Face-to-face Insults/ Irony

In the animation, Princess Jasmine insults the princes, the candidates to be her husband, by indirect and satirical commenting in front of her father. Moreover, she uses the tactic shouting to express her anger.

Contrastively, she confronts the princes directly with insults in the live action movie, such as “We have that same title yet are never described the same way”, which are less likely to be ignored. This places her in a more favorable position in rejecting the prince. She also insults Prince Ali with question like “Are you suggesting I am for sale?” This works to devalue the morality of the other speakers and thus weaken the power of theme in the negotiation.

YouTube links:

Indirect insults (0:26 – 0:38):

Shouting (1:58 – 2:06):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p48EKzHNGqo

Direct insults to Prince Andres (0:47 – 1:11):

Direct insults Prince Ali (0:48 – 1:16):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gr8J9NNB17c

2. Challenge on Institutional Status

In Aladdin (1992), Jasmine refuses to listen to Jafar’s command when he turns into a sultan by shouting and disagreeing – “We will never bow to you!” While in the 2019 movie, she reacts with the challenge on the Institutional Status in the lengthy monologue. She doubts the surface meaning and dependence of the institutional status of the Sultan, “Our greatest challenge isn’t speaking up against our enemies, but defying those whose approval we seek the most”. The presumed power gradient according to the institutional status is challenged. And that to “defy” unreasonable order and controls is emphasized. This is seemingly a stronger way to resist to power and defend her rights.

YouTube link (0:14 – 1:42):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXMLtJ9InS8&t=28s

All in all, Princess Jasmine is highly empowered in the live action remake of Aladdin with the new solo “Speechless” and strengthened speeches. Not only does she reclaim the power to be heard, she also speaks up to be a leader.

How the power of a politician is established in media discourse

Posted on May 4, 2020 by Benedict J. L. ROWLETT

(Comparing how the two Hong Kong ideologically opposed newspapers –Tai Kung Pao and The Apple’s Daily report the same incident by different linguistic strategies)

by Queenie Tsang

Nowadays, media discourse has become one of the most influential instrument for politicians to execute power and impose mind control over the audience. In order to understand the relation between media discourse and power construction, this article aims at comparing how the two Hong Kong ideologically opposed newspapers –Tai Kung Pao and The Apple’s Daily report the same incident (the conflict between Hong Kong police and student protestors on Hong Kong Chinese University Campus)^[1] by means of different discourse structures and linguistic strategies, including the global structure (headline), the microstructures (lexical choices and transitivity) as well as the inclusion of quotations. As a matter of fact, a newspaper is always affiliated to a particular political party, so different newspapers have different political biases. In this paper, Tai Kung Pao and The Apple’s Daily represent the two different political parties and ideologies. The former represents the Pro-Beijing Camp whereas the latter represents the Pro-Democracy Camp. Since Tai Kung Pao and The Apple’s Daily are the mainstream newspapers which have gained a foothold in Hong Kong news media and a high popularity amongst the readers of different ages, they are always the best choices for analysis, and more importantly, they can reflect the political reality in Hong Kong. A mini critical discourse analysis (CDA) is conducted to investigate how different discourse structures and linguistic strategies are employed in the two newspapers.

^[1] To read the online article from Tai Kung Pao, you can click the link below. (http://www.takungpao.com.hk/news/232109/2019/1113/373492.html)

To read the online article from The Apple’s Daily, you can click the link below.

https://hk.appledaily.com/local/20191113/ENYII43TF42JPDVRJAF72KV7KY/

A mini critical discourse analysis (CDA) is conducted to investigate how different discourse structures and linguistic strategies are employed in the two newspapers.

The analysis showed the following two major results.

In general, the first result indicated that although, theoretically speaking, a paper’s affiliation to a particular political party should not affect how a news story is reported, but, in reality, the newspaper text is strictly biased. In detail, the second result showed that by using different linguistic strategies, Tai Kung Pao and The Apple’s Daily have shown a totally different political standpoint and constructed a different political reality in readers’ mind. Tai Kung Pao upholds the beliefs of social stability and support the Hong Kong police’s acts upon the protestors, whereas The Apple’s Daily advocates the beliefs of democracy, freedom and support the student protestors’ acts.

Concerning the linguistic strategies, in terms of the global structure (headline), the two newspapers use different terms to describe the same incident. In particular, the roles and behaviors of the participants in the headlines are different. Tai Kung Pao identified mainland students and Hong Kong police as victim and student protestors as aggressor. In contrast, The Apple’s Daily identified student protestors as victim and Hong Kong police as aggressor. As for the microstructures, both Tai Kung Pao and The Apple’s Daily have highlighted the uses of metaphors, action verbs and numbers to shape the readers’ perception towards the participants involved in the incident and the incident as a whole. Apparently, they use the aforementioned three strategies (metaphors, action verbs and numbers) to highlight the offensive behaviors of the agent and arouse sympathy towards the patient from the readers. It is noted that the behaviors of the agent are always negative and aggressive. Besides these, transitivity is employed in the two texts. Concerning the role, Tai Kung Pao highlighted the student protestors as agent and the police as patient. On the contrary, the role reverse in The Apple’s Daily. Lastly, quotations are also used in the two texts to affect the readers’ interpretation of the same incident. Tai Kung Pao uses more primary sources and direct quotations to make the information appear to be more reliable. All these linguistic strategies are worked together to manipulate the readers’ thought and reinforce their political bias.

To conclude, it is realized that a newspaper is affiliated with a particular political party. So, the same incident reported by the two newspapers can be totally different. At the same time, it is interesting to note that political party often employs different linguistic strategies to affect readers’ perception of what happened to whom in the event. In the analysis, it is observed that the political standpoint and ideology are widely presented to readers through media discourse. Once the readers accept the political ideology, they will follow it and disseminate it to others. When a political party succeeds to establish its power and reinforce its ideologies in readers’ mind, such intangible power will lead to conflict and separatism between groups in society. For example, in Hong Kong, there are two different political groups which are ‘blue ribbon’ and ‘yellow ribbon’. The former represents the Pro-Beijing Camp whereas the latter represents the Pro-Democracy Camp. They not only represent different political parties, but also strengthen a particular political belief in society.

Tam Jai accent: The Representative of Mandarin Accent Cantonese

Posted on November 15, 2019 by Benedict J. L. ROWLETT

by Alice Ng

Do you know what is “TamJai accent”? If you are a good Cantonese speaker and have visited TamJai, you must understand what that is. But if you don’t, this article will answer the question.

“Tam Jai”, one of Hong Kong’s most popular restaurant chains, serves Yunnanese rice noodles with a wide range of options from base to condiments to spiciness level. It grasped popularity and expanded to more than 100 stores in recent years. Interestingly, most of the waiters and waitresses of the restaurant are new migrants from mainland China, as a result, their workers usually speak Cantonese with a Mandarin accent and it is considered as the “Tam Jai accent”. The accent often makes changes in meaning and is seen as a joke, for example, mak yun(墨丸) which mean cuttlefish ball, become mat yin(勿演) meaning don’t act; juk sing(竹笙) meaning bamboo fungus originally, become chuk sing(畜牲)and give a new meaning: beast.

Although it started to be a discriminatory joke which made fun of the distortion of meaning, it turned out to be a popular characteristic of the store and gained its popularity. It is popular for Hong Kong youtuber to take video clips to imitate the accent and share their experience in the shop. The accent was not only filmed in soap opera and tv commercial, but also characterized into an animation character in the Chinese version of a Japanese game Food Fantasy(食之契约 / フードファンタジー) as Hong Kong feature food.

Local actor using TamJai accent in the TV commercial

The sound actress performing TamJai accent

However, some voices argue that the accent is inappropriate and would affect the use of proper Cantonese. When the abovementioned game released, many local players argue the appropriacy of using such accent to represent Hong Kong. Hong Kong people generally hold negative attitude towards Mandarin and Mandarin accent. There are views that new immigrants, often associated with Mandarin accent, strain Hong Kong’s resources in welfare, education, and land level without much contribution to the society and economy or even attempting to adapt to the local community. It is common for people to think that mainland immigrants are under-educated and not culturally civilized. The stereotyping affects mainland accent users in workplace, school and even community. News media, especially those with a democratic stand, would even report negative news like frauds and injury cases with an emphasis of the accent of the suspect.

It is often to hear that language reflect one’s identity. In the case of Hong Kong, proper Cantonese represents the difference in family background. As illustrated by a legislation council member, Ho Kai-ming, in the following video, Hong Kong is actually a city that full of immigrants. He makes use of TamJai accent as an example of inaccuracy of Cantonese pronunciation to highlight the relationship between immigration policy and Cantonese. The Cantonese used in Hong Kong nowadays is highly influenced by immigrants back in the 18^thand 19^th century. As a result, the language used by the majority native Cantonese speakers in Hong Kong largely differ from Cantonese used in Guangdong province which is considered as the standardized version of Cantonese. Furthermore, the concept of new immigrants did not emerge until the handover to China in 1997, and hence, I can say that the standard language in Hong Kong is actually a “Hong Kong accent Cantonese” and whether you are able to speck in Cantonese without a heavy Mandarin accent do not necessarily reflect you are Cantonese-native or not, but how long you have moved into Hong Kong.

If you can speak both languages, you must understand that although Cantonese is regarded as a dialect by many Mandarin speakers, it greatly differs from Mandarin in terms of pronunciation, intonation, grammatical structure, romanization system and expression which make the two not mutually intelligible. It is appreciativethat those workers at least try to use Cantonese to communicate with costumers and each others even though it is difficult to learn it and every locals in Hong Kong are supposed to know Mandarin. It is important for us to understand that the accent isn’t a symbol of alienation, but a process of assimilation for them to culturally accommodate into the society. To judge a person simply by how well he/she use a language is never a smart thing to do.

See for reference

Hong Kong’s popular Tam Chai Yunnan Noodle to be bought by Japanese group