Checking Understandings: Comparing Textbooks and a Corpus of Spoken English in Hong Kong

2007 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 190-207 ◽  
Author(s):  
Winnie Cheng ◽  
Martin Warren
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Spoken English

Hong Kong Tertiary Students' Attitudes and Proficiency in Spoken English

RELC Journal ◽  
1996 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 70-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Littlewood ◽  
Ngar-Fun Liu ◽  
Christine Yu
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Spoken English ◽  
Students Attitudes

scholarly journals Thai hotel undergraduate interns’ awareness and attitudes towards English as a lingua franca

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 704-716
Author(s):  
Waraporn Suebwongsuawan ◽  
Singhanat Nomnian
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Positive Attitude ◽  
Job Training ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
English Teachers ◽  
Structured Interview ◽  
Lingua Franca ◽  
Spoken English ◽  
English Classes ◽  
Positive Attitudes

The study examines twenty-eight Thai undergraduate hotel interns’ attitudes towards the use of English as a lingua franca (ELF) in terms of its varieties of spoken English. Drawing upon the questionnaire, semi-structured interview, and verbal-guise test based on the eleven recorded voices whose accents obtained were from native and non-native speakers, the findings reveal that the students reflected the most positive attitudes towards American and Hong Kong accents while the Korean one was rated rather negatively. However, the students were well aware of the lingua franca status of their spoken English; and thus, the non-native accents were tentatively accepted. This study suggests that Thai leaners’ awareness and positive attitude towards varieties of English must be promoted in both English classes and on-the-job training. English teachers and trainers of hotel staff should also be aware of the significance of exposure to accents and introduce undergraduate interns to varieties of English in order to enhance mutual intelligibility for effective ELF communication at work.

//CAN i help you //

2005 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-107 ◽  
Author(s):  
Winnie Cheng ◽  
Martin Warren
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Spoken English ◽  
Discourse Type ◽  
And Control

This paper examines the use of two tones by speakers across a variety of discourse types in the Hong Kong Corpus of Spoken English (HKCSE). Specifically, it focuses on the use of the rise and rise-fall tones by speakers to assert dominance and control in different discourse types. Brazil (1997) argues that the use of the rise and the rise-fall tones is a means of exerting dominance and control at certain points in the discourse and that while conversational participants have the option to freely exchange this role throughout the discourse, in other kinds of discourse such behaviour would be seen to be usurping the role of the designated dominant speaker. The findings suggest that the choice of certain tones is determined by both the discourse type and the designated roles of the speakers, but is not confined to the native speakers or determined by gender.

You could say that: the generic second-person pronoun in modern English

English Today ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 29-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger Berry
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Court Case ◽  
Second Person ◽  
Spoken English ◽  
Person Pronoun ◽  
Answering Questions ◽  
Bold Type

ABSTRACTAn examination of a function of the second person pronoun frequently forgotten in pedagogical grammars of English.A lawyer friend told me the following story about a court case in Hong Kong that he had taken part in. His client was in the witness box and was answering questions in Cantonese while an interpreter relayed his words in English to a judge who was not Chinese. At one point the opposing counsel put a point that was detrimental to the client's case and asked if he agreed with it. The translation of the reply was ‘you could say that’, which was understood by the court as indicating agreement. Of course, what he actually meant was ‘you (the counsel) could say that’ (i.e. ‘not me’), but it was understood as ‘you (people in general) could say that’ (i.e. ‘it is acceptable to say that’). In standard spoken English stress (as shown by the bold type above) and weak forms would normally disambiguate, but it seems the interpreter (a native speaker of Cantonese) gave each word equal stress, thus allowing for the unintended interpretation. I am pleased to report that this misunderstanding had no bearing on the outcome of the case, which was won by my friend's client.

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