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1.0 Introduction 介绍
英语的使用可以反映民族认同的形成，但人们往往忽视民族认同也会影响人们的语言态度和语言使用（Gudykunst和Schmidt，1987）。基于此，帕特里和潘宁顿（1998）以香港印第安人为研究对象，研究他们的语言态度和语言使用情况。Patri和Pennington（1998）的研究为少数民族英语教育提供了宝贵的参考，为相关研究的发展提供了良好的研究框架。本文首先通过对香港人的语言态度和语言使用情况的理解，对帕特里和潘宁顿（1998）的研究进行了批判性的分析，指出了帕特里和潘宁顿（1998）的研究结论和所采用的研究方法的不足之处。
The use of English can reflect the formation of ethnic identity, but people tend to ignore that ethnic identity can also affect people’s language attitudes and language usage (Gudykunst and Schmidt, 1987). Based on this, Patri and Pennington (1998) took the Indian people in Hong Kong as the research objects to study their language attitudes and language usage. Patri and Pennington’s (1998) study provides a valuable reference for how to educate ethnic minorities in English education and provides a good research framework for the development of relevant research. In this study, it first critically analyzes Patri and Pennington’s (1998) research by understanding of the Indian people’s language attitudes and language usage in Hong Kong to point out the deficiencies in Patri and Pennington’s (1998) research conclusions and the research methods used.
2.0 Background information about the authors 作者背景信息 帕特里和彭宁顿是从事英语教育研究的专家。他们重视通过提高学生的内在学习动机来帮助学生提高成绩。例如，Pennington（1996）研究了教师如何改进教学方法以促进学生的学习。潘宁顿和Cheung（1995）研究了影响学生内在动机的因素，潘宁顿等人（1993）比较了香港和新加坡学生的内在动机的差异，然后指出了两个学生在英语写作中的差异。本文还从他们内在的学习动机的角度分析了香港印第安人的语言态度和语言使用的现状。
Patri and Pennington are experts engaged in English education research. They have attached importance to helping students to improve their performance by promoting students’ intrinsic learning motivation. For example, Pennington (1996) has studied how teachers can improve their teaching methods to promote students' learning. Pennington and Cheung (1995) studied the factors that influence the intrinsic motivation of students, Pennington and So (1993) compared the differences in the intrinsic motivation of students in Hong Kong and Singapore, and then pointed out the difference between the two students in English writing. In the thesis, they also analyzed the current situation of language attitudes and language usage of Indians in Hong Kong from the perspective of their intrinsic learning motivation.
3.0 Theoretical background
Patri and Pennington (1998) were from the perspective of social psychology of minority groups to analyze that the ethnic minorities in Hong Kong have the tendency of maintaining the distinctive identities of minority groups. Language is one of the important characteristics of a nation, so the Indian people in Hong Kong have their particularity in their language attitudes and language usage, then the author also introduced the history, culture of India, , and accordingly analyzed the special relationship between Indians and English. Patri and Pennington (1998) in the study referred to Pierson, Fu and Lee’s (1980) questionnaire to carry out the investigation, the questionnaire was widely used to investigate learners’ English learning attitude, learning behavior and other issues, Patri and Pennington (1998) revised the questionnaire to make it more in line with the needs of the study.
4.0 Research conclusion
Patri and Pennington’s (1998) research conclusions showed that the language attitudes and language usage of Indian secondary students in Hong Kong showed similar but more positive attitudes than their Chinese counterparts. They believed that this is due to the performance of the Hong Kong Indians’ cultural adaptation in this diverse environment in Hong Kong.
5.0 Deficiencies in the research
5.1 Deficiencies in the research methods
Patri and Pennington (1998) was mainly through quantitative research to understand the Hong Kong Indian students’ English learning and use enthusiasm, but they did not use qualitative research and interviews to directly understand and analyze why the Indian people have such a positive attitude towards English learning, but only according to relevant literatures to speculate their learning motivation.
5.2 Deficiencies in the research design
Patri and Pennington’s (1998) were through the comparison of their study with Pierson, Fu and Lee’s (1980) study to conclude that in Hong Kong, Indian students have higher enthusiasm in English learning than the Hong Kong students, they came to this conclusion just because the scores of the Indian students’ were higher than that of the Hong Kong students’. The question lies in that whether the two study research objects are comparable is worth of suspecting. The conclusion they reached may be due to differences in education backgrounds, academic levels, family income, and parents' expectations between the two groups, making the research conclusion lack broad representativeness.
5.3 Deficiencies in data statistics
Patri and Pennington (1998) only provided a descriptive statistics, the data evaluation criteria they set was not rigorous. To verify whether the difference between the two sets of data is statistically significant, T test should be used. Only when P<0.5, could it illustrate that the scores of the Indian students’ was higher than the Hong Kong students’, if P> 0.05, then results might show that the higher scores of the Indian students than the Hong Kong students may be due to sampling errors and it could not represent that the enthusiasm of the Indian students was higher than that of the Hong Kong students (Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, 2007).
6.0 Advantages of the research
The advantages of Patri and Pennington’s (1998) research are mainly reflected in the following aspects, first, there is less research on English language education for minorities in the past, which mostly studied how the use of English reflects the formation of ethnic identity, and this research expounded and confirmed that ethnic identity can also affect their language attitudes and language usage. Therefore, the research is positive to fill the gaps in the relevant researches. Second, the problem of English education for ethnic minorities is not only concerned about the aspects of educational skills, methods, learning techniques and methods, but also involves culture, tradition, cultural adaptation and many other aspects, Patri and Pennington’s (1998) research broke through English education research content and methods for the mainstream people, by introduction of cultural adaptation and other variables to study the situation of the Indian people in English teaching, learning and use, which has broaden the research on English education for ethnic minorities, their research methods can not only be applied to the problems of Hong Kong Indians’ English teaching, they can also be widely used in English teaching research towards other minority groups.
7.0 Improvements
The author believes that Patri and Pennington’s (1998) research can be improved from the following three aspects, first of all, by adopting the combination of quantitative and qualitative research methods, using questionnaire to collect quantitative data, using semi-structured interview to collect qualitative data. Second, they can make use of empirical research method by collecting the relevant data and information of Hong Kong Indian students and Hong Kong students in person, in selecting the research objects, they should pay attention to ensuring the 2 groups were not statistically significant in education backgrounds, academic levels, family economic income, etc, so that the research conclusions would be more accurate. Finally, the data of the two groups of students should be calculated by T-test method. When p<0.5, showing that there were statistical differences between the research results of the 2 groups of students, Patri and Pennington’s (1998) research conclusion was established. When p>0.5, it shows that there was no statistical difference between the two groups of students, their research conclusion was not established.
8.0 Conclusion
Patri and Pennington’s (1998) study mainly focused on the English language usage, language attitudes of Hong Kong Indians. The research has some flaws in statistical methods and research design, but the research has scientific research value and practical significance for filling the gaps in English education for ethnic minorities.
References
Das, R. N. (1990). A nationality issue: ethnic Indians in Hong Kong. Hong Kong : The Chinese University Press, 147 – 157.
Gudykunst, W. B., and Schmidt, K. L. (1987). Language and ethnic identity: an overview an d prologue . Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 6, 157- 170.
Patri, M. and Pennington, M. C. (1998). Acculturation to English by an ethnic minority: the language attitudes of Indian adolescents in a Hong Kong International School. Hong Kong University Press.
Pennington, M. C. and Cheung, M. (1995). Factors shaping the introduction of process writing in Hong Kong secondary schools. Language Culture & Curriculum, 8 (1), 15-34.#p#分页标题#e#
Pennington, M. C. and So, S. (1993). Comparing writing process and product across two languages: a study of 6 Singaporean university student writers. Journal of Second Language Writing, 2 (1), 41-63.
Pennington, M. C. (1996). The “cognitive-affective filter” in teacher development: Transmission-based and interpretation-based schemas for change. System, 24 (3), 337-350.
Pierson, H. D., Fu, G. S., and Lee, S. Y. (1980). An analysis o f the relationship between the language attitudes and English attainment of secondary school students in Hong Kong. Language Learning, 30, 289-316.
Saunders, M., Lewis, P. and Thornhill, A. (2007). Research methods for business students. Essex, Pearson Education Limited.
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