“Standard language” status is a relative construct defined by a variety of attributes rather than by any single criteria. This paper uses the taxonomy of standard language attributes presented in Downes 1998 as a framework for examining the degree to which written Cantonese, particularly in Hong Kong, has developed attributes of a standard language. In particular, it is argued that written Cantonese has gained a degree of autonomy from Standard Written Chinese, that the Cantonese speech community has clear usage norms regarding how spoken Cantonese words should be represented in writing, that written Cantonese is functionally elaborated in the sense that users have little difficulty with lack of vocabulary for technical or academic concepts, that written Cantonese plays a growing social role in Hong Kong, and that its level of prestige is increasing. The paper concludes that while written Cantonese does not have all the attributes associated with standard languages, it has developed a significant number of these attributes to a significant degree, and that the growing role of written Cantonese is an important indicator of the degree to which Cantonese is taking on a regional standard role in China.
2023. Are Cantonese (Yue) and Hokkien (Southern Min) contested languages? Language planning and language attitudes in China and Malaysia. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development► pp. 1 ff.
Groves, Julie M.
2011. ‘Linguistic schizophrenia’ in Hong Kong. English Today 27:4 ► pp. 33 ff.
Groves, Julie May
2010. Language or dialect, topolect or regiolect? A comparative study of language attitudes towards the status of Cantonese in Hong Kong. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 31:6 ► pp. 531 ff.
Han, Yanmei & Guowen Shang
2024. Valorizing Cantonese in the Linguistic Landscape: Mobility, Complexity and Unpredictability. In The Linguistic Landscape in China, ► pp. 125 ff.
Hok-Shing, Chan, Brian,
2015. A local voice of Macau: Traditional Characters, code-switching and Written Cantonese in an internet forum. Global Chinese 1:2 ► pp. 281 ff.
Lau, Chaak-ming
2019. Building Cantonese Dictionaries Using Crowdsourcing Strategies: The words.hk Project. In Digital Humanities and New Ways of Teaching [Digital Culture and Humanities, 1], ► pp. 89 ff.
Lee, Carmen
2023. ‘English is our 2nd language, konglish is our mother tongue’: Recolonizing English Through Translingual Activism in a Social Movement. Applied Linguistics 44:5 ► pp. 900 ff.
Li, David C. S.
2017. Challenges in Acquiring Standard Written Chinese and Putonghua. In Multilingual Hong Kong: Languages, Literacies and Identities [Multilingual Education, 19], ► pp. 71 ff.
Li, David C. S.
2017. Towards ‘Biliteracy and Trilingualism’ in Hong Kong (SAR): Problems, Dilemmas, and Stakeholders’ Views. In Multilingual Hong Kong: Languages, Literacies and Identities [Multilingual Education, 19], ► pp. 179 ff.
Li, David C. S.
2017. Language Contact: Sociolinguistic Context and Linguistic Outcomes. In Multilingual Hong Kong: Languages, Literacies and Identities [Multilingual Education, 19], ► pp. 21 ff.
Liang, Sihua
2015. The Politics and Sociolinguistics of Chinese Dialects. In Language Attitudes and Identities in Multilingual China, ► pp. 11 ff.
Morin, Olivier
2023. The puzzle of ideography. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 46
Snow, Don
2013. Towards a theory of vernacularisation: insights from written Chinese vernaculars. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 34:6 ► pp. 597 ff.
Snow, Don, Zhou Xiayun & Shen Senyao
2018. A short history of written Wu, Part I. Global Chinese 4:1 ► pp. 143 ff.
Tam, Hugo Wing-Yu & Samuel C. S. Tsang
2023. Towards a reconceptualisation of the Cantonese lexicon in contemporary Hong Kong: classificatory possibilities and their implications for the local Chinese-as-an-additional-language curriculum. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 26:4 ► pp. 428 ff.
2024. Standardizing norms for 1286 colored pictures in Cantonese. Behavior Research Methods
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