Presentation Schedule
Representation of Hong Kong’s Languages in 21st-Century Hollywood Films (91566)
Session Chair: Barbara Dobretsberger
Thursday, 15 May 2025 12:50
Session: Session 3
Room: Room 703 (7F)
Presentation Type: Oral Presentation
The presentation will explore the language environment of Hong Kong as depicted in 21st-century Hollywood films, examining how these representations both reflect and shape global perceptions of the city. These cinematic portrayals construct and imagine the city's unique linguistic landscape and thereby contribute to the films' engagement with the notions of globality and the global imaginary. Despite Hong Kong's "biliterate and trilingual" language policy and its complex language reality, Hollywood's depiction of the city's languages is often simplistic, inconsistent and unpredictable. This inconsistency works in tandem with the flexible approaches these films take to construct Hong Kong's physical spaces, revealing patterns in how Hollywood uses the city as a setting for global audiences. Drawing on concepts from World/Global Englishes, this paper will explore the notion of English as a global lingua franca in the chosen films and how these films navigate the balance between English, Cantonese and Mandarin, as well as traditional and simplified Chinese characters. The paper will use examples from contemporary Hollywood films including Rush Hour 2 (2001), Push (2009), Contagion (2011), Pacific Rim (2013), Blackhat (2015), Snowden (2016), Ghost in the Shell (2017), and Skyscraper (2018). By exploring how this flexible linguistic representation reflects and shapes global perceptions of Hong Kong on screen, this paper aims to examine how non-Asian but globally-consumed films imagine and construct an Asian city's linguistic reality, while considering the implications for cultural representation and authenticity in Hollywood cinema.
Authors:
Chun-Lung Ma, Hong Kong Metropolitan University, Hong Kong
About the Presenter(s)
Mr Chun-Lung Ma is a University Postdoctoral Fellow or Instructor at Hong Kong Metropolitan University in Hong Kong
See this presentation on the full schedule – Thursday Schedule
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