Hong Kong

1. HONG KONG

2. Geographical extension

3. Time-line
Around 500 BC: Ancient Chinese writing developed.
221 BC: People from Mainland China came to Hong Kong.
220: Coins of Han period were used in Hong Kong.
1555: A Portuguese named Jorge
Álvares was first to reach Hong Kong.
1839:First opium war began1839.

4. 1841:Hong Kong was given to the British and became a dependent
territory of United Kingdom.
August 1841: ·Sir Henry Pottinger became Hong Kong's first
governor.
·Chinese made two governments sign the Treaty of
Nanjing, causing the first opium war to come to an
end.
1888: Peak Tram on Hong Kong Island started
operating.
1900s: Hong Kong was a refuge for exiles from China.

5. December 8th, 1941: Empire of Japan invaded Hong Kong.
August 1945: Britain reclaimed its territory after Japan's surrender.
1983: Hong Kong Dollars fixed its currency to the USA.
June 2002: JTung Chee Wa is elected as Chief
Executive.
2003: ·Citizens wanted a more democratic and republican system
·The epidemic of SARS began.
March 10th, 2005: Tung Chee Wa retired as
chief executive because of health problems.
March 2012: Leung Chun Ying was elected as
Chief Executive.

6. Linguistic characteristics
1 ·She/her used for inanimate referents
She was built in
Joneses-Slip ·He/him used for inanimate referents
2 Myself/meself instead of I in coordinate subjects My/me husband
and myself
were late.
3 Plural forms of interrogative pronouns: using additional elements
Who-all did you say was gonna be there?
4 Ain’t as the negated form of be/have They re all in there, ain t they?ʼ ʼ
I ain t had a look atʼ
them yet.
5 Presence of subject in imperatives Go you there!
6 Use of postpositions morning part ‘in the morning’, night time ‘at night’
7 Would in if-clauses If I d be you…ʼ

7. Loanwords into English
The means by which Chinese loanwords find their way into English are:
·Transliteration is a word which is changed into corresponding character of
another alphabet or language.
There are many words of this kind, for example, fengshui, taichi,feng huang,
cha, guanxi, etc.
·Loan translation is a special type of borrowing, in which “each morpheme
or word is translated in the equivalent morpheme or word in another
language” (Hu, 2001, p102).This is also called calque, which may be a word,
a phrase, or even a short sentence.
For this kind of loan to English, there are: spring rolls, bean curd, dragon
boat, Chinese herbal medicine, Red Guards, running dog, the Great Leap
·Loanblending is a process in which part of the form is native and part is
borrowed, but the meaning is fully native.
The first part of the word Chinatown is from Chinese, but the second part is
of the English origin.
Words belonging to this kind are: Maoism, Peking duck, Lantian man, Sino-
Japanese, Sinologist, etc.

8. Video links
·Linguistic chraracteristic
·Hong Kong travel guide

9. For more information
Hong Kong English
Hong Kong: simple information

10. For more information
Hong Kong English
Hong Kong: simple information