Colonial governance and state incorporation of Chinese language: the case of the first Chinese language movement in Hong Kong
Social Transformations in Chinese Societies
ISSN: 1871-2673
Article publication date: 10 February 2021
Issue publication date: 4 April 2022
Abstract
Purpose
Despite the importance of the first Chinese language movement in the early 1970s that elevated the status of Chinese as an official language in British Hong Kong, the movement and the colonial state’s response remained under-explored. Drawing insights primarily from Bourdieu and Phillipson, this study aims to revisit the rationale and process of the colonial state’s incorporation of the Chinese language amid the 1970s.
Design/methodology/approach
This is a historical case study based on published news and declassified governmental documents.
Findings
The central tenet is that the colonial state’s cultural incorporation was the tactics that aimed to undermine the nationalistic appeal in Hong Kong society meanwhile contain the Chinese language movement from turning into political unrest. Incorporating the Chinese language into the official language regime, however, did not alter the pro-English linguistic hierarchy. Symbolic domination still prevailed as English was still considered as the more economically rewarding language comparing with Chinese, yet official recognition of Chinese language created a common linguistic ground amongst the Hong Kong Chinese and fostered a sense of local identity that based upon the use of the mother tongue, Cantonese. From the case of Hong Kong, it suggests that Bourdieu’s conceptualisation of state formation paid insufficient attention to the international context and the non-symbolic process of state-making itself could also shape the degree of the state’s symbolic power.
Originality/value
Extant studies on the Chinese language movement are overwhelmingly movement centred, this paper instead brings the colonial state back in so to re-examine the role of the state in the incorporative process of the Chinese language in Hong Kong.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 21st Annual Conference of the Hong Kong Sociological Association sponsored by the School of Humanities and Social Science at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. I would like to express my gratitude to Ben Li, the guest editor, for his invitation. I would also like to express my gratitude to the anonymous reviewers as their critical and constructive comments helped improve the quality of this article. Last but not least, sincere gratitude goes to Professor Lui Tai-lok for his encouragement and support. Of course, the author alone takes full responsibility for the errors in this article.
Citation
Fung, C.K.C. (2022), "Colonial governance and state incorporation of Chinese language: the case of the first Chinese language movement in Hong Kong", Social Transformations in Chinese Societies, Vol. 18 No. 1, pp. 59-74. https://doi.org/10.1108/STICS-05-2020-0017
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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