Hello everyone! I’m Ping Hei Yeung, a 3rd year PhD student of Linguistics at Georgetown University. Before coming to Washington D.C., I graduated with my Bachelor’s degree from the University of Hong Kong majoring in linguistics.
I’m originally from Hong Kong, and my name in Cantonese is 楊秉羲 /jœ:ŋ˨˩ pɪŋ˧˥ heɪ˥/. 秉羲 Ping Hei is my first name and 楊 Yeung is my last name. I also have an English name, Felix, so you can call me by either Ping Hei or Felix.
I am a sociolinguist: I study the relation between language and society. Why do older and younger people speak differently from each other? Does this difference reflect changes in the society? I am particularly interested in language variation and change in former British colonies. Although the age of colonization is long gone, English remains a dominant language in many of these countries due to various political and economic reasons. Oftentimes, English not only serves as an official language, but also a medium of day-to-day communication among the locals. Inevitably, indigenization of English occurs, leading to the formation of distinct local varieties of like Singaporean English, Indian English, etc. Hong Kong being one of the former British colonies in Asia is no exception to this trend. In this city, you will encounter Hong Kong English, a product of centuries of contact between Cantonese and English. In my research, I seek to 1. analyze unique linguistic features of Hong Kong English, and 2. examine whether attitudes towards Hong Kong English influence English pronunciation among Hongkongers.
I also conduct research on articulatory phonetics. Currently, I am collaborating with Dr. Jonathan Havenhill from the University of Hong Kong to examine the articulation of Hong Kong Cantonese sibilants using ultrasound tongue imaging.
大家好！我是楊秉羲，語言學博士研究生，來自香港。我2020年在香港大學語言學系本科畢業，目前在美國華盛頓喬治城大學修讀語言學博士三年級。我的名字在廣東話的發音是 /jœ:ŋ˨˩ pɪŋ˧˥ heɪ˥/。你也可以叫我的英文名字 Felix。
我的研究範圍是社會語言學：語言和社會的關係。為甚麼不同年紀，不同背景的人說話時的口音總是有點不一樣？這種分別跟我們社會的變遷又是否相關？這些都是我希望解答的問題。其中，我對前英國殖民地的語言特別感興趣。儘管殖民地的時代早已過去，但因為各種政治經濟原因，英文在各前殖民地仍常佔有主導地位。英文不但依舊是這些地方的官方語言，在日常生活中當地居民也常常需要使用英文溝通。因此，英文無可避免地在這些地方開始「本土化」，形成當地獨特的語言變體 (English variety)，如坡式英文 (Singaporean English)、印式英文 (Indian English) 等。香港當然也不例外，在英文和廣東話的碰撞交融下形成了港式英語 (Hong Kong English)。在我的博士研究當中，我一方面分析港式英文在語言學上的特點，另一方面探討香港人對港式英文的態度會否影響他們的英文發音。
除此之外，我也對發音語音學 (articulatory phonetics) 有所研究。我目前正與香港大學的 Jonathan Havenhill 教授合作，用超聲波掃描 (ultrasound tongue imaging) 技術分析廣東話噝擦音的發音部位。
Ping Hei Yeung 楊秉羲 