DISCUSSION
In this online chat room, a mixed-code variety of English is adopted and developed among Yu Ching, Tsu
Ying, and their friends to construct their relationships as bilingual speakers of English and Cantonese. It
draws on the linguistic and discursive conventions of the Cantonese language to form a variety of English
that distinguishes the girls and their peers from both monolingual vernacular English speakers and
monolingual Cantonese speakers. This mixed-code variety that is produced on the Internet and includes
different degrees of code-switching (from predominantly English to predominantly Cantonese) enables
the girls to develop a sense of fluency and confidence in speaking English that has to some extent been
transferred to the local American context, as evidenced in the girls' interview narratives. At the same time,
this language variety serves to create a collective ethnic identity for the girls and their peers around the
globe as bilingual Chinese emigrants. It is with this new identity that the girls speak English on the
Internet, not as English-speaking Americans or Cantonese-speaking Chinese.