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e-Bulletin - 2024 December Issue
RECENT FOCUS
Chinese Classics Recital Show 2024” Successfully Held
PolyU is dedicated to promoting the rich traditions of Chinese culture. On 16 November 2024, the University successfully hosted “The Mainland-Hong Kong-Macau University Students” Chinese Classics Recital Show 2024” at the Chiang Chen Studio Theatre. Over 40 university students from Hong Kong, Macau and Mainland China participated in reciting classic works from various eras to showcase the diversity and charm of Chinese culture. The show aimed to enhance the younger generation’s appreciation of Chinese culture and promote the art of recitation in Chinese heritage. Click HERE to read more.
Congratulations to the Class of 2024! The 30th Congregation (FH) has been successfully concluded on 9 November 2024. A total of 872 students graduated this year, including 704 students receiving postgraduate degrees and 168 students receiving bachelor’s degrees. Awards and certificates were presented to students and Faculty members for their outstanding achievements and services. Click HERE to read more.
Preceded by a flag-raising ceremony to celebrate the 30th anniversary of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) as a university, the opening ceremony of the Chinese Culture Festival’s signature event “Chinese Culture and its Modernisation: Yan Fu’s Legacy” international forum, exhibition and public lectures was held on campus today. The event attracted more than a thousand PolyU members, political and business leaders and distinguished guests from various sectors. Click HERE to read more.
The 16th East Asia Humanities Forum, titled The Formation of East Asian Academic Communities: Histories, Discourses, and Practices was successfully held at PolyU from December 6 to 7, 2024. This year’s forum was organised by PolyU and co-organised by Tsinghua University, Nankai University, Taiwan University, and Hanyang University. The forum kicked off with a welcome speech by Faculty Dean Prof. LI Ping, and then followed by an agreement signing ceremony. The five panels, attended by 25 scholars, covered a wide range of topics, including history, literature, linguistics and linguistics history, art history and visual culture, interdisciplinary research innovations.
The Opera Show La Bohème, presented by the Department of English and Communication, was successfully conducted on 28 November. The event drew a large audience, resulting in a full house of enthusiastic opera lovers and supporters of the Department.
La Bohème is part of a larger programme of opera awareness developed together with Dr Warren Mok, Honorary Professor in ENGL, for the PolyU community. This programme includes opera performances, talks, and master classes. Click HERE to read more.
Workshops” to Celebrate the Beauty of Chinese Culture
The Faculty and the School of Language Science and Arts at Jiangsu Normal University jointly organised “The Language and Literary Arts Workshops” at PolyU from 18 to 21 November, which attracted more than 100 PolyU students, staff, and general public to explore the richness of the Chinese culture and the language and literary arts. Click HERE to read more.
The PolyU Young Historian Competition 2024 organised by the Department of Chinese History and Culture has successfully concluded on 23 November with the award presentation ceremony. Over 600 S4 and S5 students and teachers from 74 schools were drawn to compete for the championship. The competition aims to provide students with diverse and enriching learning experiences under the guidance of esteemed experts, and foster a deep interest and cultivate the talents of young individuals. Click HERE to read more.
ACHIEVEMENT
Our Faculty Dean and Sin Wai Kin Foundation Professor in Humanities and Technology, Prof. Li Ping, has been elected as a Fellow of the Cognitive Science Society (CSS). A Fellow of the Cognitive Science Society is an individual whose research has demonstrated sustained excellence and had sustained impact on the Cognitive Science community. The presentation ceremony will be held at the CSS Annual Meeting in San Francisco this summer.
The CSS is a professional society for the interdisciplinary field of cognitive science. It brings together researchers from many fields, including psychology, linguistics, education and neuroscience, who share the common goal of understanding the nature of the human mind.
Dr Emmanuele Chersoni, Assistant Professor in the Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, has won the Best Paper Award at the BlackboxNLP 2024 Conference held in Miami on 15 November 2024. The award-winning paper, titled “Log Probabilities Are a Reliable Estimate of Semantic Plausibility in Base and Instruction-Tuned Language Models,” was co-authored by Dr Chersoni along with Dr Carina Kauf and Dr Evelina Fedorenko from MIT, Prof. Alessandro Lenci from the University of Pisa, and Dr Anna Ivanova from Georgia Tech.
The Blackbox NLP is an important international workshop on analysing and interpreting neural networks for natural language processing.
Dr Azar Tajabadi, Lecturer in the Department of English and Communication, along with her students Hyunkyu Shim and Seong-bin Cho, won the best poster presentation at the Japan Association for Language Teaching (JALT) Conference 2024 held in Shizuoka, Japan held on 15-18 November. Their poster, titled “Motivational Trajectories of Two Novice English Teachers” received the highest votes in Session 4.
JALT hosts one of the largest annual international conferences for language educators in Asia, providing a platform for educators to share research, insights, and best practices. Click HERE to read more.
Mandarin Debate Competition
The PolyU Mandarin Debate Team (PolyU MDT) recently excelled in the 2024 Inter-collegiate Mandarin Debate Competition organised by RTHK's Putonghua Channel, gaining the first runner-up. With outstanding debating skills and resilient spirit, PolyU MDT showcased their brilliance across four matches. Click HERE to read more.
Our Hong Kong Linguistics Olympiad (HKLO) team has achieved outstanding results at the 21st International Linguistics Olympiad held in Brasilia, Brazil this year. The term earned one silver medal, two bronze medals, and one honourable mention in the individual contest, as well as an honourable mention in the team contest.
The team is jointly supported by the Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies and the Department of English and Communication. Click HERE to read more.
VIEWPOINT
Our Faculty Dean and Sin Wai Kin Foundation Professor in Humanities and Technology, Prof. Li Ping, discussed the Blueprint for Arts and Culture and Creative Industries Development in an interview with Wen Wei Po. Prof. Li suggested that the Government establish a fund to encourage creative bodies from the Mainland and overseas to visit the city and collaborate with local academic institutions, thereby advancing the development of arts, culture, and creative industries, as well as facilitating the preservation and promotion of Chinese culture.
Prof. Han Qi, Professor in the Department of Chinese History and Culture, shared his insights into the importance of the exchange of scientific knowledge between the East and the West in an interview with South China Morning Post. Prof. Han has published a large body of work on East-West cultural exchanges in history – in particular the transmission of science between China and Europe.
Dr Elaine Kwong, Associate Professor in the Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, was featured on the local TV programme News Magazine. Dr Kwong discussed the implementation of a standardised diet modification framework for dysphagic patients and the promotion gerontechnology in Hong Kong. Click (Part I) and (Part II) to watch the videos.
Tea and wine have always been important cultural symbols in the history of China. Dr Leung Wai-mun, Associate Professor in the Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, talked about the culture of wine and tea and related economy in the Song Dynasty in a local press. Click HERE to read more.
EVENTS
- (29 March 2025) PolyU Undergraduate Conference on Applied Linguistics and Language Studies (PolyU-CALLS) 2024
