British National (Overseas) Hongkongers' Identity and the Role of Cantonese

“BN(O)香港移民：普通话华人和粤语社区之间的怀疑和孤立”（Lam, 2022）。这个新闻标题反映了最近持英国国民（海外）签证移民英国的香港人与其他华裔定居者之间的群体政治冲突。自2021年1月签证计划启动以来，已有144.5亿香港人移居英国（Lee, 2023）。具有强烈群体认同的BN(O)香港人不断增长的人口，预示着这类冲突会更多（e.g. Lam, 2022; Lu, 2021; Wintour, 2022）。本项目将探讨BN(O)香港人的身份建构，以及作为香港主要语言的广东话（政府统计处，2022）1如何在这一过程中发挥作用，特别是它如何动员讲广东话的香港人/讲普通话的内地人的政治二元。研究结果将有助从学术角度厘清BN(O)香港人的特点。该项目将有助于与英国一个突出的社会问题——民族内/民族间关系相关的奖学金和政策制定（例如Khan和Brown， 2022）。

'BN(O) Hong Kong immigrants: Suspicion and isolation between Mandarin-speaking Chinese and Cantonese community' (Lam, 2022). This news title captures the inter-group political conflict between Hongkongers who recently migrated to the UK with a British National (Overseas) visa and other ethnic Chinese settlers. 144,500 BN(O) Hongkongers have moved to the UK since the visa scheme launched in January 2021 (Lee, 2023). The growing population of BN(O) Hongkongers, who have a strong group identity, forecasts more conflicts like this (e.g. Lam, 2022; Lu, 2021; Wintour, 2022). This project will explore the identity construction of BN(O) Hongkongers and how Cantonese, a predominant language in Hong Kong (Census and Statistics Department, 2022)1, plays a role in the process, especially how it mobilises the politicised binary of Cantonese-speaking-Hongkongers/Mandarin-speaking-mainlanders. Findings will shed scholarly light on the characteristics of BN(O) Hongkongers. This project will contribute to the scholarship and policymaking related to intra/inter-ethnic relations, a prominent social issue in the UK (e.g. Khan and Brown, 2022).