1. notion - One must be careful to distinquish between language employed as a tool and language employed as a medium. Language employed as a tool to obtain, transfer, and disseminate pieces of information is likely to exhibit diminishing marginal utility and returns. Language employed as a medium through which the members of a group insure their social cohesion, hierarchy, and identity is likely to yield increasing returns. In a society such as Hong Kong, where the primary medium of social intercourse is Cantonese, the postive externalities (or synergistic effects) associated with a linguistic medium are likely to be absent. See discussion paper (new window) under Separation of Language and Culture for a more detailed discussion about the difference between language as tool and language as medium.
2. promise - In 1999 Fanny Law [ lô(4)-fan(6) dziu(1) fan(1) ], the current Permanent Secretary for Education and Manpower and former Director of Education for the HKSAR, stated before the International Congress for School Effectiveness and Improvement that the goal of the Hong Kong government is "to educate [its] young people to be biliterate and trilingual" (LAW 1999, p.8 - opens to new window).
   
   Under the current system Hong Kong public schools have been divided into two groups: those in which the medium of instruction is English (EMI) and those in which the medium of instruction is Chinese (CMI). As one might expect, children are apparently better able to learn other subjects (subjects like mathematics and history in which the subject matter is not directly related to the language of instruction) in their mother tongue than in English. Although this two-mode system of education makes good sense, it is difficult to understand, why students who attend the CMI schools are compelled to study English, anyway. Whereas the EMI schools are likely to provide high-level language competence to the Hong Kong economy, the CMI schools are likely to exacerbate the problem of simultaneous over- and under-supply of high-level language competence. See Annex 1 (Mother-tongue teaching) to the document entitled Study on enrichment of language learning environment (EMB 2001 - opens to new window)