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Oleh:

Butler, Susan

Jenis: Article from Journal - ilmiah internasional
Dalam koleksi: World Englishes (Full Text) vol. 31 no. 4 (Dec. 2012), page 549-561.
Fulltext: p. 549-561.pdf (518.9KB)

Isi artikel

Any collection of Hong Kong English (HKE) words that has as its starting point that it “hopes to make a modest contribution to the recognition of that variety as a legitimate and independent variety of English” has all my support (p. xvii). As the authors point out, part of the slipperiness of HKE is that there are no serious reference books, and certainly no comprehensive accounts, that make it visible to the language community, or to any of us outsiders who have an interest in it. This book is a welcome addition and update on what is known about the variety. The Macquarie Dictionary, even in an edition intended for the Asian market, has only a fraction of the several hundred items recorded in this volume. Words like amah for a maid, ayah for a domestic helper, shroff for a kiosk are well documented, but there are many more recent additions, like jetso for a bargain, caput school for a school receiving a government grant per student, and tong lau for older residential buildings with stairs rather than lifts, all of which are very welcome. That said, the dictionary’s claim to be the first of its kind is a little strong. There have been other such accounts of Hong Kong-isms and now, of course, the internet provides a number of such variety-specific word lists of various size and quality to instruct and entertain just as this one does.

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