RECENT FOCUS

PolyU Faculty of Humanities is pleased to announce the laureates of the first Yuen Ren Chao Prize in Language Sciences. The Prize is initiated and hosted by the Faculty to recognise distinguished contributions to language science research. The Lifetime Achievement Award is awarded to two esteemed scholars, Prof. Peter Hagoort and Prof. William Shiyuan Wang (in alphabetical order of last name). Their research findings have led to major breakthroughs and have far-reaching impacts in the field around the globe, owning them the reputation as pioneering and inspiring leaders in language sciences. Click HERE for more details.

The University has conferred the title of University Fellow on Mr Benedict Sin Nga-yan together with two other outstanding individuals in recognition of their significant contributions to the University and community on 26 April 2024.

Mr Sin has been a Court Member of PolyU since 2019, providing valuable advice and support for university development. As the Governor of Sin Wai Kin Foundation Limited, a charitable foundation founded by his late father Dr Sin Wai Kin, Mr Sin has been instrumental in fostering the establishment of the Endowed Professorship in Humanities and Technology in 2022, enabling PolyU scholars to explore and advance cutting-edge research for the betterment of mankind. The Foundation has generously supported PolyU’s education and research initiatives, including setting up the Sin Wai Kin Chinese Humanities Development Fund to promote the learning and research of Chinese culture, language, history and philosophy and funding for humanities and rehabilitation sciences research projects. Click HERE for details.

PolyU is committed to promoting the rich traditions of Chinese culture and, to this end, last year established the Research Centre for Chinese History and Culture to facilitate promotion of Chinese history and cultural education on campus. This year, the University is organising the “PolyU Chinese Culture Festival” to showcase the beauty and significance of various aspects of Chinese culture, cultivate a deeper appreciation of Chinese heritage, strengthen a sense of pride and belonging to the Nation among the younger generation, and contribute to the development of Hong Kong into an East-meets-West centre for international cultural exchange.

Six FH nominees were offered the highly competitive Hong Kong PhD Fellowship to pursue PhD study at our departments, four at CBS and one each at CHC and ENGL. The Fellowship Scheme was established in 2009 by the Research Grants Council to support the best and brightest students around the world to pursue their PHD studies in Hong Kong universities. For further details about the Scheme, please visit https://www.ugc.edu.hk/eng/rgc/funding_opport/hkpfs/. More about FH research areas https://www.polyu.edu.hk/fh/research/fh-researchers/.

Our Department of English and Communication is set to unveil a gifted education programme, "Cultivating English Language and Digital Literacies for Future Leaders". This programme is funded by the Gifted Education Fund of the Education Bureau (EDB) of the HKSAR Government.

This year-long programme is meticulously designed to enhance the knowledge and skills of gifted secondary school students in Secondary 4 and 5 (2023/24 school year) in three key areas: academic, digital, and professional workplace literacies. The programme is led by Dr Christy Qiu and Dr Jenifer Ho from the Department. Click HERE for more details.

We are pleased to announce that the Faculty is now calling for nominations for the Outstanding Alumni Award of PolyU Faculty of Humanities 2024. The award aims to give public recognition to FH graduates for their diverse accomplishments and contributions. The nomination deadline is 13 May 2024. Click HERE for more details.

Prof. William Shiyuan Wang, Chair Professor of Language and Cognitive Sciences, was recently profiled in a feature article of Hong Kong Economic Journal Monthly. The writer lauded Prof. Wang for his transdisciplinary knowledge and approach in research, quoting from him that “only by identifying new links between various disciplines can knowledge be advanced.” The late Prof. Yuen Ren Chao, who is widely regarded as the Father of Modern Chinese Language Studies, and the Yuen Ren Chao Prize in Language Sciences organised by the Faculty were also covered in the article. Click HERE to read the article.

Online learning has become “the new normal” of education since COVID-19 severely disrupted face-to-face teaching activities. Researchers from PolyU have conducted a study to analyse whether and how the instructor’s presence in online video lectures affected student learning and learning outcomes. The results reveal that students are more motivated to perform socio-emotional and cognitive processing when an instructor, human or animated, is present onscreen, hence facilitating more effective learning. The study findings have been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Dr Wang Qian, a graduate of our Doctor of Applied Language Sciences programme, won Second Prize in the 2023 Philosophy and Social Science Outstanding Achievement Award of Shaanxi Province for a paper co-authored with Associate Dean Prof. Hu Guangwei. The paper, published earlier in Lingua, is entitled “What surprises, interests and confuses researchers? A frame-based analysis of knowledge emotion markers in research articles”. Click HERE for more details.

Our CBS MATI student, Mr Zhou Zhihao, won First Prize in the 2023 "Bilingual Chinese Stories" English Writing Competition (Group A) and Third Prize in the BETT National College Student English Reading Competition (Finals). Our Lecturer, Dr Li Wenjing, who served as the instructor for Zhihao, has also been recognised with the “Excellent Instructor” award.

Both the "Bilingual Chinese Stories" and the BETT series cover a number of national competitions for college students, including English reading, writing, as well as application and translation of foreign languages.

EVENTS

• (9 May 2024) Young Scholar Forum on Language Neuroscience
• (10 May 2024) Chao Prize Distinguished Lectures in Humanities: Windows into the Language Ready Brain
• (10 May 2024) Chao Prize Distinguished Lectures in Humanities: Whither Sapiens?
• (10-11 May 2024) International Symposium on Language Sciences (ISLS): Interdisciplinary Research and the Legacy of Yuen Ren Chao
• (24 May 2024) Migrant Worker Lives Matter Symposium
• (13-14 June 2024) TCCSL International Conference 2024
• (14-16 June 2024) Shaping the Future of Translation and Interpreting Studies in a Context of Technological, Cultural and Social Changes
• (2 July 2024) Distinguished Lectures in Humanities: Hybrid Agencies in Human - Artificial Agents Interactions (to be given by Dr Anna CIAUNICA, Principal Investigator, Centre for Philosophy of Science, University of Lisbon, and Research Associate, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London)