彭文朗 | michelle man-long pang

JYUTPING paang4 man4 long5 | IPA / pʰaːŋ˨˩.mɐn˨˩.lɔːŋ˩˧ /

the 'linguist' in me: language, identity & belonging / polyculturalism, multilingualism & identity construction / linguistic spaces & language rights / language contact & sociocultural implications / ethnography / digital humanities / collaborative workthe 'artist' in me: freelance graphic designer & digital illustrator / videography & editing / a chorister with a deep fear of baroque & medieval pieces

Hong Kong Cantonese • English • Mandarin •
a tiny sprinkle of french and japanese

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| Current research interests

Here's a preamble to what has shaped my research interests without flooding it with references, since you're on a personal website and not Google Scholar:Having grown up in Hong Kong, a trilingual-biliterate space by statute, it strikes me that the most common phrases I have heard as a student were "that is wrong", "your Chinese syntax is Anglicized (or vice versa your English is very non-native-like)", "you better work on your pronunciation (read: accent)". We have grown accustomed to rushing to cram schools after school to "native-ize" our language skills (there's a lot to unpack when it comes to this - I said I wouldn't be cramming this space with references, but I'd like to point you all to Blommaert & Backus (2011) for some related discussions), and be unforgivingly judgmental towards accented speech.As the plethora research efforts in bilingualism would tell us, having no language contact transfer/confluence in our inherently bi/pluralingual minds is not a realistic expectation. Code-mixing is the basic norm for most of the younger generation (I'd point you to Kongish Daily for a hilarious satirical take on this), and we as a linguistic community have developed unofficial romanizations of Cantonese in instant-messaging, which we call the "Martian Code" (火星文)."Okay, so why should we care?" you might ask. Studying these langauge phenomena provides insights into what products arise from languages being in contact, on both an individual and the broader societal level. More notably perhaps, is that these efforts are active forms of meaning-making, and overt performances of our (sociolinguistic) identity (see Goffman 1974 on 'talk' as social performance).We are asked in formal/institutional spaces to use "proper" language (often a clear cut between English and written Chinese, on paper) (Evans 2013; Li 2017; Jenks & Lee 2016). We are, in these spaces, "proper students" or "professionals". Outside of these spaces and in our daily lives, we adopt other linguistic resrouces in our repertoire (e.g. code-mixing, Kongish, Martian Code) and more - we become someone else. There is a clear display of when language is highly interconnected wth our identities, and when these spaces afford us with the conditions to be express our polycentric, fluid, and dynamic identities.If I feel that my identity has been greatly shaped (and at times even constrained) by linguistic spaces as the ethnic & linguistic majority, where I still have access to almost all linguistic and cultrual resources; then one could tell how much more compounded these issues become for someone with less resource privilege.This little ramble isn't much, but hopefully it gives everyone a peek into what has prompted my research interests - or, in modern cultural slang, "what keeps me up at night".

My research interests primarily lie in how language evolves under contact scenarios both structurally and socio-culturally (especially in cyber spaces and participatory multimodal creative media and arts), and what these traces tell us about belongingness, identity, visibility and representation of the speaker community.My methodological approach, research ethos and research vision is strongly rooted in the concept of community co-creation: research is not about 'give and take' power dynamics between the 'academia' and the 'lay public' — through co-creation, 'researchers' and 'researchees' can enter into a reciprocal partnership to navigate more nuanced and intimate aspects of a given subject matter and negotiate desired research outcomes.

“This approach [i.e. Co-Creation] seeks to balance the inherent power dynamics that are present in social relationships [and binaries such as “academic” vs. “non-academic”. Co-Creation involves political listening and complex negotiations to address [and properly acknowledge] hierarchies, tensions and disagreements during the Co-Creative process […] If successfully executed, this approach creates an environment of mutual trust in which participants can both listen to each other and negotiate outcomes through the more subtle, embodied ways of collective creative practice.” (Horvath & Carpenter, 2020: 8)

While my past works had generally revolved around the theme of Hong Kong as a space for language contact, I am planning to explore in particular the traces of contact variation in sound systems and their sociocultural implications, including issues such as:

My goal is to one day incorporate insights from these domains into community-collaborative research that bridge understanding and co-creation between academia and local communities, especially in facilitating linguistic spaces and accessibility in language rights.

| Other publications & projects

> YouTube A Myriad of Voices: Linguistic Diversity and Vitality in Malaysia (2020)

| Art, designs & illustrations

Showcasing: digital portrait art & cartoon illustrations, logo designs, event posters/leaflets/banners, publication covers, promotional photoshoots, product label/packaging/flyers

| Video editing & cinematography

| Musings, Writing & music

The reflective nature of 'musings' to me can be encapsulated in two forms. In writings - the logos, the condensation of ideations, the pursuit for clarity; and in music - the pathos, the expansive exploration of ambience, the introspection into our very own emotions.I have been trying to get myself back into writing my musings lately after hyper-focusing on academic writing over the past few years. I don't have much in stock, but please do check out my blog entries that are scattered across the 'NEXUS Blog' section of the NEXUS project website.I mainly compose non-vocal pieces that convey ambiences, taking inspiration from different genres such as Castlevania video game music, light orchestral pieces, and general lo-fi music. I'll link my SoundCloud here once it's been set up!

| Current & past positions

| Qualifications & skillsets

Thanks for stopping by! Take care.
- Michelle 2022.06.21

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