In my first 2 years of study, I gained not only professional knowledge but also professional support in various areas. BALT has provided a robust foundation of knowledge for my future development and given me the opportunity to explore different options. The kind and patient academic team supports the needs of students, providing opportunities for exchange, internships and research and empowering them to discover their true passions through these precious experiences. They always answer questions carefully and are willing to help with research projects and provide career advice. I feel privileged to be a BALT student. 

The CBS offers not only a variety of course choices, to allow students to explore their interests and achieve all-round development, but also an extremely encouraging learning environment. The inspirational and supportive academics motivated me to consider all possibilities and challenge myself. Without my tutors’ endless encouragement, I would not have had the confidence to participate in multifarious extracurricular activities and initiate a service project delivering essential mental support for the PolyU community. 

Although the pandemic had an impact on our teaching mode, the support from the University was unwavering. When all plans for physical academic exchange were abandoned, opportunities to enrich university life through local internships were offered under the Work-Integrated Education (WIE) component. This enabled me to consolidate my academic learning and accrue practical work experience under challenging circumstances.   

I believe that if you enjoy studying language and strive for personal growth, the CBS is the best choice!

I was repeatedly wowed by the opportunities that the CBS offered during my 4 years of study. The internships, research projects, service learning and countless other possibilities were tremendous and should not be overlooked by prospective students of the BACBS programme. One of the ambitions of the Department is to inspire students to involve themselves in learning activities overseas, a vision that I took advantage of on several occasions, such as by attending conferences and other events in foreign countries.  

The programme structure smooths a way for a highly personalised study path: I, for one, chose a Minor in Computing, a field vastly different from my Major, along with a rider in Linguistics, although my love of translation persists. Given the scope of this programme, my experience is only one of many pathways for students. Outside my academic studies, I played a role in the founding and growth of the Hong Kong Linguistics Olympiad, a linguistics-oriented competition for secondary school students. 

If you are enthusiastic about language but also attach great importance to its integration with modern technology, this programme is a perfect choice. Studying linguistics is more than spending the whole day in a library unpicking obscure sentences. For example, we are taught to recognise the anatomical landmarks of our body that are essential to speech production by studying real examples. In psycholinguistics, we tried to design a simple behavioural experiment using a computer program and tested it on our friends. Gradually, I have discovered how language should be viewed scientifically and how its integration with technology can benefit human society.

Linguistics. What a nice word to contemplate. Three years ago, a Google search for “linguistics” returned merely “the scientific study of language”, which gave me little new insight into this discipline. Nor did exploring branches of linguistics help. In fact, encountering “Jabberwocky” terms with Greek roots (syntax, phonetic, pragmatics…) only added to my confusion.  

However, freedom to explore the CBS curriculum lifted the veil of linguistics and drew me deeper into the discipline. From one theory to the next, the lecturers bring us closer to what is on the tip of our tongues or fingertips every day. What the CBS teaches is not merely language; it is about language creators and users, who are all of us.   

Studying linguistics definitely smooths the journey of language learning, which in my case is German from a Minor in European Studies, and reveals a world outside the net woven by Chinese and English. The Major has also surprised me by introducing me to computer languages. As scary as they initially appear, lines of code are our friend. Indeed, learning computer code is a key part of our holistic training.   

Charlemagne said, “To have another language is to possess a second soul”. That very much sums up what we do in the CBS –questing after whatever it is that lies under the pearly white surface of language.