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Language Shift and Maintenance:
The “Language Choice” of Individuals in a Hong Kong-Thai Family and Its Implications
Want a closer look of the Thai community in Hong Kong?
In 2012/13, students of the course LCOM3001 have created a website named Tie to Fab Thai which harbours 6 interviews of Thais in Hong Kong from all walks of life. This year, we will continue to look at their fascinating language and culture by interviewing a Thai-Hong Kong family: the mother who came from Thailand has married a Hong Kong man and moved to Hong Kong; she gave birth to two daughters in Macau and raised them in Hong Kong.
Interestingly, one of the second generation in this family, being half Thai in blood, only perceives Thai as her fifth or sixth language while Thai is the first language in the first generation. Through gauging the dynamics of their identity construction and language choice at home and in different social circles and settings, we will investigate the reasons behind such language shift within the family. Studying this Thai-Hong Kong family as a case in point, we also aim at exploring whether our society is supportive of the use of the mother tongues by minority groups so that they could enjoy such freedom and right just like their Cantonese-speaking counterparts in different domains including work, entertainment and education.
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WHO ARE WE?
We are a group of final year students majoring in Language & Communications in HKU. Class of 2017!
We started our research study with the 3 research questions below :
1. To what extent can the phenomenon of language shift/ language maintenance be observed on a familial scale across generations? What factors can account for such phenomenon?
2. How is the language use of the Ley's stratified according to linguistic-contextual domains? What implications may it have on the degree of support of the Hong Kong society for the use of mother tongues by minority groups in town?
3. To what extent and in what ways do language choices affect the construction of identity?
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