This study aims at attesting and assessing the usage and functional shift of demonstratives in contemporary Hong Kong Cantonese. Preliminary results from a corpus-based comparison show that while demonstratives are still predominantly used for their deictic and anaphoric functions in face-to-face conversations, an obvious deviation is observed in public discussions and interpreted speeches, particularly for the distal demonstrative, which is used far more often in a way similar to pause fillers in linguistic planning and speech production. Potential factors underlying the phenomenon and implications on language teaching and interpreter training are discussed.
展开▼
