An emerging translanguaging practice of English in Hong Kong: localised features and language domains

English is used globally by people from various linguistic and cultural backgrounds. With the shift away from native-speakerism towards Global Englishes, it is essential to explore the expansion of English as a lingua franca in response to its increasing diversity and complexity. Many previous studies have focused on describing the linguistic characteristics of English varieties but have rarely addressed their social acceptance within local communities. This study (1) profiles the distinctive features of Kongish, an online stylised translanguaging practice, by compiling a 53,680-word corpus from the Facebook page Kongish Daily; and (2) triangulates survey-based data to investigate people’s preferences for using locally recognised English in Hong Kong across linguistic domains and its relationship with language attitudes. Findings show that Kongish functions as an authentic language choice online among students and indexes an identity-laden resource within their linguistic repertoires; alphabet-based input constraints and platform affordances foster creative translanguaging, playful orthography, and multimodal cueing in digital communication; and the locally used English gains wider acceptance in informal, digital, and peer-group domains than in formal ones, with acceptance positively correlating with certain actual use. The study contributes to linking the online translanguaging register with domain-specific usage and measured attitudes. © 2026 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.