A study analyzed patterns of usage of political vocabulary in Hong Kong English as found in newspaper reports of a leading Hong Kong English-medium newspaper and two other English-medium newspapers. Data were drawn from a computerized corpus and a clippings file. The report begins with an overview of the theoretical basis of the study of ideology in the lexicon of English as a world language. The second section discusses Hong Kong's sociopolitical situation and some themes in official political discourse. Finally, the processes through which some of these themes are embedded in Hong Kong English are examined. Eight categories of vocabulary that exemplify two processes in the transformation of ideology into lexis (naming and metaphor) are identified: nominalization; naming by analogy; "hollow" or neutral names that conceal a document or institution's real function; re-lexicalization, or giving a new name when it is claimed a new concept is at issue; mythical actors (e.g.,"average man"); fixed collocations; intertextual reference; and strategies used to dissociate the writer from his text. It is concluded that the vocabulary used does not accurately reflect cultural and linguistic norms of the indigenous population, but is closely related to colonial ideologies. (MSE)