Applied Linguistics at the Interface - British Association for Applied Linguistics
A Cantonese syllabary for English soccer
Applied Linguistics at the Interface - British Association for Applied Linguistics
Geoff Smith
University of Hong Kong
Description
Representing English names in oral and written Chinese is considered a challenge because of significant differences between the phonologies of the two languages. This is exemplified by problems faced by commentators in Hong Kong who need to find suitable names for teams and players in reporting the highly popular English Premier League soccer matches. Inspection of the names used shows that most are phonetic equivalents, although in a number of cases, translation of semantic elements is attempted.