HONG KONG COMMUNITY COLLEGE

Subject Code : LCH2176

Subject Title : Language and Society

This assignment has a total of EIGHT pages (including this covering page).

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Page 1 of 8
Section A (80%) – Data Analysis Questions

Answer ALL questions in this section.

Question 1

Answer questions (a) – (d) based on your understanding of diglossia and the information in the
following table.

Polyglossia in Singapore

(a) Name the varieties used by Singaporeans in everyday conversations with friends and family
members. (1 mark)

(b) Which varieties have overt prestige? (1 mark)

(c) Which varieties have covert prestige? (1 mark)

(d) Which varieties are taught in school? (1 mark)

Question 2

Read the following excerpt:

In the past, there were several second-person pronouns including thee, thou, ye and you,
among which you was used as a polite form. The usual thing was for you to be used by
inferiors to superiors and thou to be used by superiors to inferiors. People would also use
thou when they wanted special intimacy, and thou was also normal when the lower classes
talked to each other. The upper classes used you to each other, as a rule, even when they
were closely related. The use of thee, thou and ye gradually declined while you, the form
prevailed among the upper classes and used with the upper classes, became part of
Standard English.

What does the excerpt tell you about the definition of a language feature as a standard feature?
How does the excerpt help you understand the notions of standard dialect and non-standard dialect
(i.e. vernacular dialect)? (3 marks)

Page 2 of 8
Question 3

Read the following table:

Cameroon Pidgin English English Translation

A bai bif I buy meat / beef.
A bi bai bif I bought meat / beef.
A go bai bif I will buy meat / beef.

Identify the role of Cameroon Vernacular Language and English in forming the above sentences in
Cameroon Pidgin English. (4 marks)

Question 4

Study the following graph and answer questions (a) and (b).

The Social Stratification of post-vocalic [r] in

New York City
90
percentage of speakers with all post-vocalic [r]

80

70

60

50

40

30

20

10

0
1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020
Year of Survey

Saks (serves primarily upper middle class customers)

Macy's (serves primarily lower middle class customers)
Klein/May’s/Filene’s (serves primarily working class customers)

(a) What kind of linguistic change is illustrated by the graph? Explain your answer with
reference to the graph. (4 marks)

(b) Discuss the current stage of diffusion of the post-vocalic [r] in New York City with reference
to the S-curve model. (4 marks)

Page 3 of 8
Question 5

With reference to what you learnt in the subject and the information provided in the following
graph, discuss the social class dialects in British English and American English. (4 marks)

Post-vocalic [r] in Reading and New York social groups or classes

Question 6

Study the speech excerpts below and answer questions (a) and (b).

Speaker 1: The federal government has gotten pretty bad at maintaining and improving our
nation’s transportation infrastructure. Today, the federal highway program is funded
by a gas tax of 18.4 cents on every gallon sold at the pump. That money is supposed
to be going into steel, concrete, and asphalt in the ground, but too much of it is
being wasted.

Speaker 2: You might ‘ave to wait a quarter of an hour before the bus comes. And so it's
gonna to take you ‘alf an hour. Whereas in the old days the, there was a constant
run of trams; there was ‘orse trams. And you just went along, there was no stops,
you just put your finger up and, uh, he stopped, well or if he didn't, uh, if you was
willin’ to jump on while he was runnin’, well, he just eased up a little bit and off
he went.

(a) Identify the English dialect spoken by speaker 1. Support your answer with evidence from the
data. (4 marks)

(b) Identify the English dialect spoken by speaker 2. Support your answer with evidence from the
data. (4 marks)

Page 4 of 8
Question 7

Categorise the following loanwords based on their borrowing methods. (6 marks)

dim sum Peking duck Mid-Autumn Festival

spring roll wok Ching Ming Festival

Question 8

The following dialogue involves an interview between a Chinese interviewer (named Q) and a
British born Chinese (named R) interviewee. The interviewee switched from English to
Cantonese three times in the excerpt below. Read the excerpt and answer question (a) – (d).

Q: Do you consider yourself as a Chinese?

R: Umm… When I was small if my parents said “呀你一定要學番中文先得㗎, 你係中國人,
係咪？” and you know, I don’t need to, and then I said, “我係英國人, 根本唔需要學呀 coz
I’ll be working here and stay.” But then that’s only to 駁嘴. In fact, I don’t really care.

(a) Identify two types of code-switching in the dialogue. (2 marks)

(b) What motivated the interviewee R to switch his code from English to Cantonese in the first
two instances of code-switching? (3 marks)

(c) Analyse the third instance of code-switching “But then that’s only to 駁嘴.” with reference to
the Matrix Language Frame (MLF) model. (4 marks)

(d) What is your attitude to code-switching or code-mixing? Do you consider code-switching or

code-mixing a result of a speaker’s incompetence or lack of careful planning, or do you find
code-switching or code-mixing acceptable among bilinguals or multilinguals? Explain your
attitude based on your sociolinguistic knowledge. (4 marks)

Question 9

The following table shows the code choice of Hakka community in Hong Kong. H stands for
Hakka and C stands for Cantonese:

Speaker Age of To grand- To parents To friends or To To grand- To doctor or

speaker parents workmates children children government
officials
A 70 H H H H H H
B 65 H H H H H/C H/C
C 56 H H H H/C C C
D 48 H H H/C H/C C
E 42 H H H/C C C
F 33 H H/C C C C
G 28 H C C C C

What linguistic phenomenon is reflected in the table? Explain the occurrence of such phenomenon.
(3 marks)

Page 5 of 8
Question 10

Study the texts below and answer questions (a) - (c).

Text 1: Hey Jo, can u come to my home at 6pm tmr?

Text 2: In every summons issued to any person under subsection (i) there shall be stated the name
of that person and the time when and the place where he is required to attend and the
particular documents (if any) he is required to produce, and the summons shall be served
on him either by delivering to him a copy thereof or by leaving a copy thereof at his usual
or last known place of abode in Hong Kong.

(a) State TWO primary functions of Text 1. (2 marks)

(b) In what context is Text 1 likely to be found? Support your answer with evidence from the
data. (2 marks)

(c) What is the register reflected in Text 2? Support your answer with evidence from the data.
(3 marks)

Question 11

Answer questions (a) - (c) based on the dialogue below.

Pauline: Angie, thanks for preparing the proposal and I can see you must have spent a lot of time
on it. The first three parts have been well written. However, I would like you to make
some amendments to the last part. Can you please refer to my comments and hand it in
tomorrow?
Angela: Mrs Chan, could I hand it in to you the day after because I am off tomorrow?

(a) What linguistic information does the dialogue provide about the relationship between Pauline
and Angela? Which social dimension accounts for the use of such linguistic form? (4 marks)

(b) Identify and explain the politeness strategies used by Pauline when she talked to Angela.
Illustrate each politeness strategy with reference to ONE language feature in her speech.
(8 marks)

(c) With reference to the accommodation theory, give an account of the type of accommodation
adopted by Angela. (2 marks)

Page 6 of 8
Question 12

Read the following conversation between two speakers.

Speaker A: Well, all right, North Carolina. That’s up there by Kentucky, isn’t it?
Speaker B: Kentucky?
Speaker A: Uh-huh.
Speaker B: Uh, North Carolina is all the way on the east coast.
Speaker A: Okay.
Speaker B: It’s further west than Georgia, it’s, uh, right below Virginia.
Speaker A: Okay. Well, Kentucky’s next to Virginia, I’m pretty sure. Well, I’m from Kentucky,
I should know but,
Speaker B: ...
Speaker A: I don’t, I’m sorry. [...]
Speaker B: Yeah. Well, one thing I miss is, uh, is the people from Texas, are, are, you know, I
miss their morals, their values and everything. It’s, uh,
Speaker A: Yeah, we’re down here at the Bible belt, aren’t we? Uh, I wasn’t saved until I got
down here, and people down here are just, there’s so many Christians, and it’s so
different from Kentucky but,
Speaker B: Uh-huh. [...]
Speaker A: But I enjoy it. I talked to people from, well, C-, what, Carolina now –
Speaker B: Uh-huh.
Speaker A: – up in, uh, Boston, and New York, well Boston is New York, isn’t it?

Discuss (i) the women’s language features and (ii) the functions of these language features in the
conversation. (6 marks)

Page 7 of 8
Section B (20%) – Mini-essays

Answer ALL questions in this section. Each question carries 10 marks.

Question 1

(a) Provide a list of metaphorical expressions which show how English and Chinese speakers
perceive knowledge. For instance, in the sentence ‘Children absorb knowledge from their
surroundings’, knowledge is conceptualized as food which can be absorbed.

(b) Do the metaphorical expressions influence the English and Chinese speakers perceive
knowledge? Evaluate the relationship among language, thought and culture.

Question 2

Illustrate how Chinese OR English is considered as a sexist language.

Page 8 of 8