Pre-handover language attitudes in Hong Kong, Beijing, and Guangzhou

In May 1997, a matched guise test was conducted on 304 college students in Hong Kong, Beijing, and Guangzhou. The stimulus material was presented in 4 guises: Cantonese, English, Putonghua, and Putonghua with Cantonese accent. Major findings: (1) What distinguished Hong Kong subjects’ sociolinguistic identity was not Cantonese, English or Putonghua as found in previous studies, but Putonghua with Cantonese accent. In light of Brewer’s (1991) optimal distinctiveness theory, this would suggest parallel needs of “being Chinese” and “being Hongkongers.” (2) Guangzhou was closer to Beijing rather than to Hong Kong in language attitudes. The cutting boundary appeared between the mainland and Hong Kong, not between Cantonese-speaking and non-Cantonese-speaking communities.