To Investigate The Development Of Putonghua In Hong Kong Before And After The Return Of Hong Kong To Mainland China

English has been used as the official language in Hong Kong since the beginning of British colonial rule. Chinese has been given the same status only from 1974 onwards. According to the Sino-British Joint Declaration signed in 1984, Hong Kong will return to mainland China in 1997. During this transitional period, the Hong Kong colonial government started to be aware of popularizing Putonghua, the official language used in mainland China, in Hong Kong. With the establishment of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region in 1997, the newly founded HKSAR government proposed the so-called "Biliteracy and Trilingualism" language policy in response to the local unique sociolinguistic situation. The development of Putonghua before and after the return of Hong Kong to mainland China could be divided into four different stages including the early-preparatory stage, the late-preparatory stage, the early-developing stage and the late-developing stage. In this dissertation, an attempt has been made to investigate Putonghua used in Hong Kong as a usual language, a language for advanced studies, a workplace language, and a broadcasting language in the stages concerned. The situation in Macao will also be considered and used to synchronically compare with that of Hong Kong. The last Chapter of this dissertation will be reserved to anticipate the future development of Putonghua in Hong Kong .