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Language shifts in both immigrant and non-immigrant communities have been extensively studied by linguists recently due to an increasing interest in the maintenance of minority languages and a growing awareness of the fact that minority languages are close to extinction even in their own traditionally indigenous regions due to the wide spread of various world languages (Fishman, 1995).

A greater recognition of the value of multilingual resources has also contributed to the popular researches in minority languages (Clyne, 2005). However, the great majority of such researches have been restricted to the American, European and Australian contexts.

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A lot of the models, reasons and conclusions for language shifts that were drawn in these researches might not necessarily be applicable to what we would like to examine in Hong Kong. Most communities are characterized by some internal variation in the social and linguistic experiences of their members; hence the situation can be a lot more complex than it seems in theories.



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