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.

Call for Nominations: Outstanding Alumni Award of PolyU Faculty of Humanities 2023

The Outstanding PolyU Alumni Award has three levels, namely Department, Faculty and University levels. In addition to the recipients of the Department Award, graduates of the Faculty level programmes (such as Doctor of Applied Language Sciences and BA(Hons) in Language Studies for the Professions) are also eligible to be nominated for the Faculty Award. We are pleased to announce that the Faculty of Humanities(FH) is now calling for nominations for the Outstanding Alumni Award of PolyU Faculty of Humanities 2023. The award aims to give public recognition to FH graduates for their diverse accomplishments and contributions. Award Categories There are four award categories: Professional Achievement Entrepreneurial Achievement Scholarly Achievement Community Service Achievement Candidate who is aged under 40 by the end of the award year (i.e., 31 December 2023) can be considered for the Outstanding Young Alumni Award. Faculty awardees of the current year may be nominated for the Outstanding Alumni Award at the University level. Eligibility The nominated candidate must be a graduate of the Faculty of Humanities* who has successfully completed a full-time or part-time programme offered by PolyU (or its forerunners: Hong Kong Government Trade School, Hong Kong Technical College, and Hong Kong Polytechnic) which led to academic award accredited by the respective Institution. Recipients of the Outstanding Alumni Award at the departmental level and graduates who have completed programmes offered at the Faculty level are eligible for nomination to the award. The proposer can be PolyU graduates, Honorary Graduates, University Fellows, PolyU staff, current PolyU Council and Court members and current Advisory Committee members. There is no limit to the number of nominations to be submitted by each proposer. However, the proposer cannot be the candidate himself/ herself or a direct relative of the candidate. *including graduates from the former Faculty of Communication Nomination and Deadline 31 May 2023 Award Details and Nomination Form Completed forms shall be sent to emily.ip@polyu.edu.hk. Contact Us Ms Emily Ip Email: emily.ip@polyu.edu.hk Tel.: +852 3400 8224

PolyU Launches New Publication “Kaiwu: Science, Technology and Culture”

The new PolyU publication, Kaiwu: Science, Technology and Culture, is edited by our Department of Chinese Culture and Research Centre for Chinese History and Culture. It is a biannual journal that publishes accessible scholarly articles on the developments of science and technology and their profound impact on society and culture, covering topics on scientific ethics, medical humanities, digital humanities, environmental history, historical geography, archeology, as well as other frontiers of science and technology studies. Read the inaugural issue at: https://polyu.hk/kCtwy

PolyU Students Win Awards in the Mainland-Hong Kong-Macao University Students’ Chinese Classics Recital Show 2022

The Mainland-Hong Kong-Macao University Students’ Chinese Classics Recital Show 2022 (2022年港澳和內地高校大學生中華經典誦讀交流展演) was co-organised by Jiangsu Normal University, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University and the University of Macau on 20 March 2023. A total of 720 entries were received from over 160 universities and 30 entries were shortlisted for the Recital Show. Four students from PolyU participated in the event and one of them was awarded the Best Recitation Award (最佳朗讀作品獎) while three others received the Classic Splendour Award (古韻華彩獎). Our Faculty member Ms Helen Ma(CLC) was responsible for training the PolyU participants.