Phonetic loan, graphic borrowing, and script-mixing: key to the vitality of written Cantonese in Hong Kong.

This study aims at investigating how loanwords from Japanese and Korean are used in informal written Cantonese media discourse, including print and social media. Data from these media were collected from designated websites for 15 min every other day over a two-week period. The results show that loanwords from Korean, being written in a phonographic script hangul (한글), are rendered into written Cantonese typically through phonetic adaptation using Chinese morpho-syllables, while their Chinese-specific morphographic meanings are ignored. By contrast, lexical items from Japanese written in kanji tend to be borrowed directly through graphic borrowing, paying no regard to their Japanese pronunciation. Japanese being written with mixed scripts, kanji and two kana syllabaries, graphic borrowing from hiragana or katakana is rare, with the Japanese grammatical particle の being a notable exception. We conclude that lexical items written in a phonographic script tend to be rendered into written Cantonese phonetically, while those written in character-based hànzì are borrowed directly through graphic borrowing but assigned Cantonese pronunciation. In informal interaction between Cantonese-dominant Hongkongers, colloquial written Cantonese relies on the affordance of script mixing for its vitality, in print as much as in internet-mediated social media discourse. 摘要: 前人研究香港境內之語言接觸，多數側重於英語對廣府話和港式中文書面語之影響，相反方向者亦有涉獵；而探索廣府話與日、韓等其他外語之接觸者，鮮矣。本研究旨在透過考察口語體粵文於坊間媒體話語中，使用日語及韓語借詞之慨況，以填補這片空白。搜集資料為期兩週，期間我們隔日花一刻鐘，於某些特定的社交媒體尋找語料。本文先簡單回顧英語借詞輸入港式中文背後之語言學理論，以及香港媒體話語中混雜日韓字詞之來由，然後講述分析及結果。本研究結果顯示，因為現代韓語一般以諺文書寫，這種表音文字與漢字之結構有相當差距，借入廣府話時皆透過音譯方式，所用漢字但求合音，字意不拘；而日語借詞則多以形借方式直接取用原有之日語漢字表達，儘管粵日發音差異不少。現代書寫日語之文字系統由漢字及兩套假名表所組成，直接形借平假名及片假名之例子不多，而虛詞「の」是一個罕見特例。本研究得出以下結論：原有以表音文字所書之詞語，多數以音譯方式進入廣府話，而原有以漢字所書者，借入後則直接以該等漢字呈現，並以廣府音讀出。然而，部分詞匯並非直接借入，有些日韓借詞首先以音借或形借形式向國語或臺灣 閩語、客語輸入，然後再以形借方式輾轉再輸出到港式中文中。香港人於非正規場合之主流交際語為廣府話，口語體粵文於紙媒及網絡上之社交媒體話語每每見之，而賴以維持其活力者，乃係夾雜多種文字之示能性。 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]