10 Faculty Members Awarded GRF/ECS Research Grants in 2023-24 Exercise

10 Faculty members have been awarded the General Research Fund (GRF) and Early Career Scheme (ECS) grants in the 2023/24 exercise (eight GRF and two ECS projects): GRF “Neo-Confucianism and Political Culture in the Mid-Southern Song Dynasty” (PI: Dr CHANG Weiling(CC)) “Group-level and individual-level precision functional mapping of the linguistic cerebellum: comparisons across linguistic and motor domains” (PI: Dr FONG Cheuk Man Manson(CBS)) “Online corporate instructional videos for branding: A qualitative investigation of pre-flight safety videos” (PI: Dr Jenifer HO(ENGL)) “A corpus-driven study of formulaic language in constrained English: A multimodal approach” (PI: Prof. LI Dechao(CBS)) “Technologies, Data, and Learning: Digital language learning (DLL) and second language representation” (PI: Prof. LI Ping(CBS)) “The Politics of Recontextualizing the Hong Kong Basic Law in News Media: A Corpus-assisted Discourse Study” (PI: Dr LIU Ming(CBS)) “The cultural context of moralisation as a driver of health stigma in Hong Kong SAR and Australia” (PI: Prof. Stefano OCCHIPINTI(ENGL)) “Understanding Vulnerabilities in Narrative Performance in Mandarin-Speaking Children with Developmental Language Disorder” (PI: Prof. SHENG Li(CBS)) ECS “Discrimination and self-branding on online language tutoring platforms: An Applied Linguistics approach” (PI: Dr Nate Ming CURRAN(ENGL)) “Poetic Tectonics: Collection, canon formation, and the landscape of versification in Chinese manuscript culture, c. 479 BCE–220 CE” (PI: Dr David J. LEBOVITZ(CC)) Under the Research Grants Council, GRF aims to supplement universities’ research support to researchers who have achieved or have the potential to achieve excellence. The ECS, introduced in 2012/13, is intended to nurture junior academics. The assessment criteria include the scientific and scholarly merit of the proposal, originality, potential for social, cultural or economic application, and more.

PolyU, Tsinghua University and the University of Macau Organise Tripartite Exchange Programme to Promote Chinese Culture

The Research Centre for Chinese History and Culture of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU), established on 17 January this year, successfully held its inaugural event from 26 to 30 June. The Research Centre jointly organised an academic and cultural exchange programme with Tsinghua University and the University of Macau, enabling students from Beijing, Hong Kong and Macau to engage in Chinese historical and cultural exchange. The exchange programme provided an important platform for students to explore modern Chinese history, new perspectives on traditional Chinese culture, and deepen professional learning in the context of national development. PolyU was honoured to receive strong support from Tsinghua University’s Rixin College and Faculty of Humanities, and the University of Macau’s Faculty of Social Sciences and Faculty of Arts and Humanities. Approximately 70 teachers and students from the three universities gathered in Hong Kong to participate in the five-day exchange programme. In addition to lectures, participating students were tasked with writing a 3,000- to 5,000-word paper on one of three topics: 1) Modern China and the World; 2) Modern China: Thought, Culture and History; or 3) New Interpretations of Traditional China. Students then presented their papers for discussion with instructors and peers. The Research Centre arranged excursions for teachers and students to cultural sites including the Sheung Wan Heritage Trail, West Kowloon Cultural District, Hong Kong Palace Museum, Tai Kwun and The Peak. These visits provided first-hand experience of Hong Kong’s modern historical and cultural developments. Dr Louis Ng, Director of the Hong Kong Palace Museum (4th from left) and Mr Kenneth Ng King-tsun, General Manager, Communications and Public Affairs of the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority (1st from left) introduced the Hong Kong Palace Museum and cultural facilities of the West Kowloon Cultural District to participants. Dr Lam Tai-fai, Chairman of PolyU’s Council and Advisory Committee Chairman of The Research Centre for Chinese History and Culture, said, “The Research Centre is committed to enhancing young people’s interest in Chinese culture and their awareness of national identity. Through this exchange programme and other upcoming activities, we hope participating students will gain a deeper understanding of China, build national pride, and contribute to the Nation’s development.” He added, “Moving forward, the Research Centre will continue establishing close partnerships with Tsinghua University and the University of Macau for cooperation in education, research, and innovation. This includes co-hosting high-level academic symposia, developing Chinese history learning materials, and providing teacher training - all with the aim of promoting Chinese culture together.” Read More: https://polyu.hk/wCKLS

New Research Documents Positive Attitudes towards Hong Kong English

Previous research in Hong Kong has consistently found that people have negative attitudes towards Hong Kong English (HKE), the local variety of English widely spoken in the community. They prefer standard American or, even better, standard British English voices, which have been rated significantly more favourably than HKE in virtually every study that has been published on the topic since the 1980s. A new research paper titled “Teachers’ attitudes towards varieties of Hong Kong English: Implications for English language teaching” published in English World-Wide (online first) by Prof. Hans J Ladegaard in the Department of English and Communication and Dr Roy Chan, former postdoctoral fellow in the Department, has found that attitudes towards HKE in the City are changing. They asked 100 English language teachers in Hong Kong to listen to recordings of five HKE voices speaking as naturally as possible and evaluate the speakers on a number of perceived status and competence traits (intelligent, educated, successful etc.) as well as solidarity traits (kind, friendly, honest etc.). The voices had more or less local features from a ‘heavy’ HKE accent to a ‘mild’ one. The results showed that all five voices received relatively positive evaluations. The most negative evaluation was given to the ‘heavy’ HKE accent, but mostly on status dimensions. All five voices were ranked highly on solidarity and, for four out of five, also on status dimensions. Listener judges were also asked to indicate where the speakers were from, and all five speakers were identified as Hongkongers with close to 90% accuracy. This suggests that speakers of HKE are now receiving the recognition they did not get in the past. The authors see it as evidence of increased localism in the City: HKE allows Hongkongers an identity which is uniquely local and provides differentiation from other Chinese identities. More information about the research paper can be found at this link: https://benjamins.com/catalog/eww.21060.lad.

Eight Projects Funded in TDG 2022-25 Exercises

Following our success in the first round of the Teaching Development Grants (TDG) 2022-25, three additional projects are funded in the second round exercise: AI-assisted and Inquiry-based Chinese Language Learning (PI: Miss Sarah WONG(CLC)) GPT and AI: Empowering HKPolyU students (PI: Mr Adam FORRESTER(ELC)) Exploring European Culture in Metaverse (PI: Dr Renia LOPEZ(ENGL)) The eight projects funded in these two rounds of exercise have received a total funding of over HK$2.2 million.

Inaugural FH Three Minute Thesis Competition Celebrates Exciting Research Conducted by PhD Students

The first-ever Faculty of Humanities Three Minute Thesis (3MT®) Competition, held on 14 June 2023, was a great success with our PhD students presenting to the audience their exciting research. The winners are as follows: Champion: WANG Yunyun Karen(ENGL) First runner-up: LAM Yiu Shun Wilson(CBS) Second runner-up: XU Wandong(CBS) The 3MT Competition, developed by the University of Queensland, is an academic competition that challenges postgraduate students to present their research in just three minutes, using one slide. The competition aims to develop students’ communication and presentation skills, particularly in the area of research communication. The winners of the Faculty 3MT Competition will be joining the University’s 3MT Competition to be held at the end of this month and we wish them every success.

Dr Emmanuele Chersoni and Collaborators Won Outstanding Paper Award at MWE 2023

Dr Emmanuele Chersoni, Assistant Professor of CBS, won the Outstanding Paper Award at the 19th Workshop on Multiword Expressions (MWE 2023) with his collaborators. The winning paper is titled “Are Frequent Phrases Directly Retrieved like Idioms? An Investigation with Self-paced Reading and Language Models”. The paper looks into the question of whether non-compositional multiword expressions like idioms and compositional-but-frequent word sequences are processed differently. The MWE 2023, collocated with the 17th Conference of the European Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics, was held on 6 May 2023. Read the full paper: https://aclanthology.org/2023.mwe-1.13.pdf

Faculty Dean Prof. Li Ping Invited to Elsevier Life Science Journals Editor Gathering

Prof. Li Ping, Chair Professor of Neurolinguistics and Bilingual Studies and Dean of Faculty of Humanities, was invited to the Elsevier Life Science Journals Editor Gathering on 29 April 2023 in his capacity as Editor-in-Chief of Brain and Language and presented with the “Elsevier Dedicated Chief Editor 2023” award. Elsevier journal editors from China gathered in Shenzhen to discuss the latest marketing and publication trends and strategies. Vice President Peter Lee from Elsevier Science Publisher and Elsevier Shenzhen Office hosted the meeting, and researchers along with other Chinese editors of journals in life science participated in the meeting.

Undergraduate ENGL Conference PolyU-CALLS 2023 a Resounding Success

Organised by the Department of English and Communication (ENGL), the first-ever PolyU Undergraduate Conference on Applied Linguistics and Language Studies (PolyU-CALLS) was held on Saturday, 4 March 2023. The inaugural event, held on campus, was a resounding success, with over 100 students from PolyU and other universities in Hong Kong and the Greater Bay Area participating in the conference. PolyU-CALLS 2023 featured research presentations by undergraduate students as well as plenary speeches by ENGL faculty members Prof. Dennis Tay and Dr Anne Schluter. In keeping with the conference’s focus on showcasing the work of ENGL undergraduate students, the conference was supported throughout the day by more than a dozen undergraduate student volunteers. PolyU-CALLS reflects ENGL’s increasing focus on undergraduate student research. "We saw a need for an event that was tailored to students' research interests, especially those who are completing their Capstone or Final Year projects. We hope that the conference will inspire Applied Linguistics and Communication students in Hong Kong and the Greater Bay Area to get involved in language-based research more actively and spearhead their own original research studies," said Prof. Eric Friginal, Head of ENGL at PolyU. The breadth of topics and diversity of presenters at PolyU-CALLS 2023 brought in an audience that included faculty, postgraduate students, and undergraduate students. Attendees at the conference were able to listen to 32 different undergraduate presentations spanning subject areas that included language and social media; linguistic landscape and urban spaces; next generation workplaces; and language and European studies. Student presenters were competitively selected based on their submitted proposals or via nomination by their home departments. The organisers of PolyU-CALLS 2023 were thrilled with the level of engagement and energy at the event. A post-conference survey was sent to all participants to help the Department know what can be done to make next year’s iteration of the conference even better. Feedback was overwhelmingly positive, with respondents praising the content and organisation of the conference (and the catering and gift bags provided for all conference attendees). The majority of respondents said they would recommend PolyU-CALLS to friends and classmates, with one attendee saying “Great event, hope to have another chance to join that again in the future, even though I am not a presenter. Thank you!”. Praise for the event also came from presenters, who appreciated receiving “a lot of valuable suggestions for research”. Though all student presenters at PolyU-CALLS 2023 did an amazing job, ENGL would like to recognise those outstanding presenters whose work went above and beyond at demonstrating research excellence. After evaluating both abstract submissions and the presentations themselves, ENGL would like to announce the following PolyU-CALLS 2023 award winners: Best PolyU-CALLS presentation: Ashima Shukla from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University Best ENGL presentation: Nok Lam Wong from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University Best non-ENGL presentation: Sum Wai Li from Hong Kong Baptist University The level of student participation at PolyU-CALLS 2023 highlights an appetite for more student-oriented conferences in Applied Linguistics and Language Studies. “It’s amazing to see the level of enthusiasm present at the PolyU-CALLS 2023. We're delighted with how the event turned out,” said Dr Max Diaz, ENGL Undergraduate Programme Leader. “It's exciting to see students getting exposure to new research topics, receiving feedback on their studies, and experiencing an authentic academic conference. We're already planning next year's conference and hope to make it bigger and better.” With its first chapter coming to a successful close, students and the Department of English and Communication are already looking forward to PolyU-CALLS 2024.

Two Young Researchers Awarded RGC Postdoctoral Fellowship 2023/24

Two young research talents (to be supervised by Prof. William S-Y. Wang(CBS) and Prof. Hu Guangwei(ENGL) respectively) are awarded in the RGC Postdoctoral Fellowship Scheme 2023/24 funding exercise. A total of five PolyU candidates have been selected by the RGC for the award in this round of exercise. The RGC Postdoctoral Fellowship Scheme aims to encourage doctoral graduates in pursuing career in research and provide promising researchers with support at a pivotal time in their very early career; for further details about the Scheme, please visit https://www.ugc.edu.hk/eng/rgc/funding_opport/pdfs/.

RCCHC Delegation Pays Visit to Tsinghua University

Led by Dr Lam Tai-fai, PolyU Council Chairman and Chair of the Advisory Committee of the Research Centre for Chinese History and Culture (RCCHC), Prof. Li Ping, Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Prof. Han Xiaorong, Head of the Department of Chinese Culture visited the Institute of Humanities (思想文化硏究所), the School of Humanities (人文學院), and the Rixin College (日新學院) of Tsinghua University from 12 to 14 April 2023. The delegation also met with leaders of the Tsinghua University including Prof. Wang Zhongchen (Dean of the Rixin College), Prof. Ni Yuping (Associate Dean of the School of Humanities), Prof. Zhong Weimin (Director of the Institute of Humanities, Head of the Department of History), Dr Gu Tao (Associate Dean of Rixin College), Prof. A Feng (Branch Secretary of the Department of History), and Prof. Huang Zhenping (Associate Head of the Department of History). Members from the two Universities discussed potential academic and research collaborations to promote relations and mutual understanding via:       • exchange of academic staff and research students       • joint summer camp for undergraduate students       • collaboration in developing themed international conferences and symposia       • collaboration in joint research and the publications arising from joint research projects       • collaboration in providing strategic vision and guidance to the editing of Chinese history textbooks PolyU and Tsinghua University signed an MoU on 17 January 2023 to confirm their intention to collaborate in research, talent development and knowledge transfer in the areas of humanities and the modern history of China.