Researching Hong Kong's Multilingual Landscape
Document Type
Book Chapter
Publication Date
2025
Abstract
Hong Kong is both a Chinese metropolis and an international Asian city. Its sociolinguistic dynamics have been shaped by its unique history as a British colony in the years from 1842 until 1997. According to the official language policy (of biliteracy and trilingualism), the Hong Kong government recognizes three spoken languages, Cantonese, Putonghua, and English, and two written languages, that is, written Chinese and English. However, in addition to these “big three” languages, some 26 other languages have been recorded in recent censuses. These include minority Chinese languages such as Chiu Chau, Fukien, Hakka, and Shanghainese; other Asian languages such as Filipino, Hindi, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Nepali, Thai, Urdu, and Vietnamese; and European languages such as Dutch, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish. This chapter is based on original empirical research, including the analysis of census data enabling detailed language maps for the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, as well as research on all public signage in a particularly linguistically diverse district of the city.
Recommended Citation
Bacon-Shone, J., Bolton, K., & Lee, S-L. (2025). Researching Hong Kong's Multilingual Landscape. In Durk Gorter & Jasone Cenoz (Eds.). The Handbook of Linguistic Landscapes and Multilingualism. Wiley.
