English in Hong Kong

I am in the middle of something, but I am still able to, among piles of books and articles in my workstation in the office, read a paper on this topic. One of those is Andy Kirkpatrick, Daivd Deterding and Jennie Wong's "The International Intelligibility of Hong Kong English," World Englishes, Vol. 27, No. 3/4, 2008, pp. 359-377. Subjects are three female and three male final (fourth) year English majors at the Hong Kong Institute of Education, who are going to teach the English language in primary/secondary schools in Hong Kong and this study aims to examine their English intelligibility to native-speakers.

Here are some excerpts: "by comparing these results with those of the earlier Singaporean intelligibility research. The Hong Kong speakers appear to be more intelligible than their Singaporean counterparts...the Hong Kong listeners found Singaporean speakers harder to understand than the Singaporean listeners found the Hong Kong speakers." (p. 365)

"This is an interesting indication for two reasons. First, Singaporean English has more status as an independent variety than Hong Kong English, and has also been the subject many scholarly descriptions...This may mean that Singaporean speakers are more comfortable with their variety and feel less need to align it with an external standard..." (p. 365)

"It should, however, also be pointed out that the relatively heterogeneous and cosmopolitan nature of Singapore and Australia when compared with Hong Kong may mean that Singaporeans and Australians are more familiar with a range of varieties of English and their associated accents." (p. 365)

The last point in particular drew my attention and needs more in-depth explanation. This phenomenon aptly reveals that Hongkongers, and the culture of Hong Kong as a whole, lack diversity and exposure to a variety of accents of not only English but Cantonese and Mandarin. Hongkongers look up to authority, authenticity, and origin. British English accent is always preferable. London the better, Oxford the best. Mid-England accent? Are you speaking English? If you are not convinced, watch Little Britain's fat fighter against Indian accent English. If you still can't get it, look at how Hong Kong and Macao political leaders have been being sneered at their poor and entertaining Mandarin by Hongkongers who are no native Mandarin speakers will get my point. Let alone how Hongkongers denigrate Mainlanders' amusing Cantonese. It derives from the same logic. Hongkongers are homogenous and closed-minded.

BTW, would it be more interesting to compare this study with the English major students in University of Hong Kong and/or Chinese University of Hong Kong?