Perspectives on the Use of English as a Business Lingua Franca in Hong Kong

Abstract

This article presents the findings of a large-scale, multifaceted investigation into the use of English as a business lingua franca in Hong Kong’s key service industries. The findings were derived from four sources: semistructured interviews with 28 Chinese professionals; four “week-in-the-life” case studies, which include an all-day office observation; analyses of telephone conference recordings and email chains; and a questionnaire survey involving more than 2,000 respondents. The evidence suggests that English, particularly its written form, plays a crucial role in business communication, although the nature and extent of its use vary according to an array of institutional and individual factors, such as a company’s ownership and a professional’s duties. The qualitative data illustrate the interplay between the two written (English, Chinese) and three spoken codes (English, Cantonese, Putonghua) in workplace communication, and particularly the symbiotic relationship between written English and Cantonese.

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