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lexicon of one language, but these are not 'loans', and no "borrowing" is involved, since there is no requirement that they be returned to the 'lending' language. Also, the language from which the words originate does not actually lose the words, which still form part of its vocabulary. In the case of words of Chinese origin in English, what really happens is that the English language fashions a word out of its own phonetic material based on a model which exists in another language, in this case Chinese, and assigns a meaning to this new word similar to, or identical with, the meaning of the 'model'. The question then arises: When does a 'new' word become fully assimilated into the English vocabulary? What criteria could be used to determine whether a word is part of the language or whether it is still 'foreign'? An early attempt to deal with the issue is found in the Introduction to The Stanford Dictionary of Anglicized Words and Phrases. The compiler, C. A. M. Fennell uses a narrow set of criteria based on English as the language of Great Britain only. He dismisses as 'exotic' words which have been neither wholly nor partially naturalized; such as the names of foreign institutions, of articles which are unknown in Great Britain, or only seen in museums and collections, of foreign offices and dignities & c... .. And foreign words which are seldom or never used except by writers addicted to interlarding their pages with foreign words and phrases.'14
The idea of integration into English today is no longer one of 'Anglicization' because of the existence of English as a world language. We are concerned with English as used by English-speaking people all over the world, but especially with English used in Hong Kong. The problem of assimilation is not an either/or matter, but there are intermediate stages. In considering this question two complementary approaches may be adopted. Firstly, we take into account the native-speakers' reactions. Do they consider the word in question to be an English word, or is it a Chinese word which sometimes occurs in English discourse, in the same way as, for example, a French phrase or two may be thrown in for effect? We have found that a number of the words in our appendix are still felt to be 'foreign' by the respondents to our questionnaire, this despite their rather frequent occurrence in English publications. Although they are easily understood by English-speakers, the words are often