Prof. David C.S. Li, newly appointed Head of the Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, spoke about the intricate interconnections of languages and cultures.
What attracted you to studying languages?
Born to Hakka parents and becoming Cantonese-dominant through schooling, I developed an interest in language learning while very young. At primary school, I enjoyed memorising the spelling of strange-sounding English words. From about age 10, exposure to English TV programmes allowed me to pick up idiomatic expressions. Listening to English songs was also my favorite pastime as a teenager.
One summer I had a taste of French at Alliance Française, which inspired me to choose it as a Minor while studying for my Bachelor of Arts in English at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. I later studied for a Master of Arts in Applied Linguistics at L’Université de Franche-Comté à Besançon in France under the auspices of a French government scholarship.
After obtaining the Master’s degree and returning to Hong Kong, I was granted another scholarship to learn German and eventually gained a PhD in General Linguistics at the University of Cologne. While there, I spoke Putonghua/ Mandarin with many students from mainland China and Taiwan. That was how I became ‘pentalingual’ in five languages by age 35.
What makes multicultural settings like those you experienced so challenging for multi-language users?
Learning an additional language can be challenging because of “language shock”. For instance, it took me a while to understand that in Germany and many other parts of Europe, when people knock on a table towards the end of a seminar, it is an expression of applause rather than complaint. One ought to be cautious of what ‘normative’ cultural behavior means when crossing language boundaries.
In your recently published Multilingual Hong Kong: Languages, Literacies and Identities, you outline your concerns about Hong Kong’s language education policy. What are they?
After reviewing research in closely-related areas, it gradually became clear to me that the goal of being “biliterate and trilingual” is beyond the reach of most home-grown, Cantonese-dominant students. Under the current language policy, kindergarten and primary education receive relatively little support compared with the secondary and tertiary education sectors. However, brain and neuroscience research has shown that language learning sensitivity and productivity is at its prime roughly from ages four to eight. Beyond age eight, language learning effectiveness gradually declines.
Within the tertiary sector, your vision is to uplift individual plurilingual competence in Hong Kong. What is the Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies (CBS) doing in that regard?
Communicative competence in an additional language is like a key that helps open more doors. This is why as the Department Head, I will do my best to promote additional language learning among PolyU students. Apart from offering major programmes in Chinese and Bilingual Studies, Japanese and Korean are among the most popular minor programmes at PolyU. We firmly believe that good teaching is guided and informed by sound research, which is why CBS colleagues are actively engaged in one or more language-focused research areas.
On a broader stage, you have suggested that CBS can contribute to the national “One Belt One Road” (OBOR) initiative. How?
More than 60 countries are covered by the OBOR initiative, involving many languages. CBS is in a privileged position to launch and maintain a multilingual website to help make Belt and Road information accessible. It is my wish that we could engage leading universities in various Belt and Road countries in creating this online platform where up-to-date information may be accessed in the web-surfers’ preferred languages to facilitate understanding. ♦
