“Local-born” Chinese-heritage language learners in Hong Kong: Identity and positioning

This chapter explores the identity of "local-born" Chinese-heritage language (CHL) learners who were raised and educated in the international school system in Hong Kong. In the literature, "CHL learners" refers predominantly to students who grew up in countries where the majority language is not Chinese. Most research on CHL learners so far has focused on North American or West European contexts, yet little attention has been given to CHL learners in Hong Kong, where there has been an increasing number of Hong Kong-Chinese students studying in English-medium international schools. As one of the few highly urbanized and populated cities in Asia, Hong Kong is governed as a Special Administrative Region (SAR) under the People's Republic of China (PRC). The participants were recruited primarily from the university CFL courses between 2012 and 2013. Data were obtained from a larger study with 16 university CHL learners in Hong Kong between 2012 and 2015, and were based on narrative interviews. Copyright © 2018 Taylor & Francis.