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Task - This example is a short essay written by a first year HKU student which has been jumbled up by. Use the select and cut and paste methods you have read about to re-order the essay into its original order. Once you have done this follow the link at the bottom of this page to compare with the original.

“Code Switching” in Hong Kong

On the other hand, it can help us to express ourselves clearly for we are poor in both languages available to us. No matter whether code-switching is ultimately judged to be constructive or destructive, I believe that it will continue to be used in Hong Kong for a certain period, as is our usual practice.

We cannot, however, neglect the possibility that some people are indeed showing off because English speakers are highly praised. The general population still think that those who speak English well can obtain higher status in society.

In addition, we always hear that in order to improve our English, we should read more, listen more and, most important, speak more. However it is difficult to find an environment where we can communicate entirely in English. To this point, some learners may try to squeeze every possible moment to ‘use’ English. Thus using single words instead of complete sentences is the first step. Actually, it is a wrong direction, because once they get used to this style, they will gradually forget the right words to be used in the other language.

Moreover, since the instructing media is English, some specific concepts and terms are learned in English for which we don’t know the exact wording in Chinese, so we are forced to use English during our normal Cantonese speech.

Code mixing does have both good and bad effects. For the bad side, to a certain degree, it prevents us from learning and fully developing the ability to use both the mother tongue and English better. Sometimes it is a barrier to communication with other groups of different classes.

Being a British colony, in Hong Kong, English is apparently superior to Chinese. In the present situation, the official language is obviously English. All the contracts and constitutional documents, therefore, are still written in English. English is the medium of instruction of all the territories tertiary institutions and most of the secondary schools. This shows how important English is.

Hong Kong is one of the chief economic and financial cities around the world. Therefore, there are umpteen large overseas firms which require staff possessing a good command of English. Thus, in order to survive in this Westernised town, English is highly valued.

You may well have heard of people switching their languages between Chinese and English. It seems that it is a common practice among the HK population, especially those who have acquired higher qualifications. Some single English words such as ‘cheap’, ‘fever’, ‘lecture’, ‘tutorial’, ‘hi-fi’, ‘cassette’, ‘view’, ‘all’ and ‘shopping’ are frequently used, while ‘good’, ‘yes’ and ‘no’ are the most commonly used by the majority of students.

Now you can read and compare against the original