News and Kudos

CBS academic and administrative staff win Faculty Awards 2020/21

We are thrilled to announce that four CBS staff members have been awarded the Faculty Awards 2020/21 by the Faculty of Humanities in recognition of their noteworthy achievements on research and scholarly activities and services. The CBS awardees are listed below:   Faculty Awards for Outstanding Performance Achievement 2021  Category of Awards Awardee Post Research & Scholarly Activities: Outstanding Researcher (Individual) Dr PENG Gang Associate Professor Research & Scholarly Activities: Outstanding Young Researcher (Individual) Dr Emmanuele CHERSONI Research Assistant Professor Knowledge Transfer: Society (Team) Prof. CHAN Shui Duen and Prof. ZHU Xinhua Research Professor and Professor Faculty of Humanities Staff Awards for Excellence 2020/21 – Outstanding Service Award  Awardee Post Ms SZE King-wan, Loretta Executive Officer   The award presentation ceremony will be held during the 27th Congregation (Faculty of Humanities) on Saturday, 13 November 2021. Congratulations to all the award recipients!

Two papers by CBS colleagues selected as Lingua Editor’s choices

Congratulations on the two research papers by PolyUCBS colleagues that are selected as Lingua Editor’s choices for having significant potential impacts in the field of linguistics. Two of the authors, Dr. Huiheng ZENG and Ms. Siyu LEI are CBS’ Post-doctoral Fellow and PhD student respectively. The papers will be available free of charge until the end of December 2021.   Winnie Huiheng Zeng, Christian Burgers, Kathleen Ahrens. 2021. Framing metaphor use over time: ‘Free Economy’ metaphors in Hong Kong political discourse (1997–2017). Lingua, Volume 252, 102955. https://doi.org/gh6t2x   Siyu Lei, Ruiying Yang, Chu-Ren Huang. 2021. Emergent neologism: A study of an emerging meaning with competing forms based on the first six months of COVID-19. Lingua, Volume 258, 103095. https://doi.org/gwmn

CBS undergraduate student wins the 2nd place in the Korean Speech Contest in Hong Kong

Ms. LAU Hiu Ching, a Year 3 student of BA (Hons) in Chinese and Bilingual Studies minoring in Korean, has won second place in the 5th Korean Consul General Cup Korean Speech Contest in Hong Kong.   The prestigious contest is held and sponsored annually by the Korean Cultural Center and the Consulate General of the Republic of Korea in Hong Kong. Among the 15 finalists, Ms. Lau stood out as one of the two second place winners of the competition. It is worth noting that Ms. Lau is one of a couple of finalists who have learned Korean in a relatively short period of time, given that she only completed the introductory course of the Minor in Korean programme last semester.   A big round of applause to the diligent student for the hard work and efforts that she has put into mastering the language, and also CBS’ native-speaking Korean teachers Dr. Kim Sun-A, Dr. Han Hae Min and Ms. Sim Sin Ae who have provided the student with detailed guidance and feedback.

PolyU-trained students win the first-ever award for Hong Kong in the International Linguistics Olympiad 2021

Trained by the Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies (CBS) and the Department of English (ENGL), the student representatives have won the first-ever award for Hong Kong in the 18th International Linguistics Olympiad (IOL). All the four students have earned medals (1 Gold, 2 Silvers and 1 Bronze) with their impeccable performance in solving the world's toughest linguistic puzzles. Among 56 teams consisting of 216 talented young linguists, the record-breaking Hong Kong team has obtained the highest average score for the individual competition and been inducted into the Hall of Fame as one of the Dream Teams in which all team members earned a medal. Congratulations!   Result of IOL2021: https://ioling.org/results/2021/ Hall of Fame: https://ioling.org/results/hall_of_fame/

Officials of Food and Health Bureau visit CBS

Three government officials from the Food and Health Bureau, namely Deputy Secretary Shirley Kwan, Principal Assistant Secretary Chris Fung and Assistant Secretary Ricky Wu, visited CBS on 7 July and met with our Head of Department David C.S. Li, Associate Head Roxana Fung and the teaching team of Master of Speech Therapy (MST) programme. During the meeting and the guided tour of the Speech Therapy Unit (STU), the officials received a briefing on STU’s services and the professional training that we provide to aspiring speech therapists. The two parties exchanged ideas on nurturing professional speech therapists, and discussed the speech therapist manpower planning in Hong Kong and relevant policy initiatives. The officials also visited our Speech and Language Sciences Laboratories and learned more about the department’s initiatives in the teaching and research in speech therapy and language sciences.

CBS Associate Professor wins the RGC Research Fellowship 2021/22

Congratulations to our Associate Professor Dr. PENG Gang for being awarded the prestigious RGC Research Fellowship (RFS) 2021/22! Competing with more than 30 nominations with his excellent research proposal, Dr. Peng is the only PolyU awardee among the 10 RFS awardees, winning a grant of around HK$5.16 million. RFS is a fellowship grant funded by the Research Grants Council (RGC), aiming to recognize exceptionally outstanding academics teaching in universities and provide them with sustained support to their research and development.

CBS undergraduate student wins the President Emeritus Professor Poon Chung-kwong Scholarship 2020/21

Mr PAN Tung-le, a Year-3 student of BA (Hons) in Chinese and Bilingual Studies (BACBS), was awarded the President Emeritus Professor Poon Chung-kwong Scholarship.   Since joining PolyU, Mr Pan has demonstrated his dedication to linguistics studies and strong leadership quality through his active involvement in linguistics-related activities. For instance, he has been playing a key role in the organization and training activities of the Hong Kong Linguistics Olympiad, while he is also a student helper for CBS’ Chair Professor Huang Chu-ren’s linguistics research projects. During his summer internship, he developed the application of linguistics to language technology as a project leader in an AI-based language learning company in Taiwan. In addition to his outstanding academic performance, Mr Pan is evidently an active member of the PolyU student community by devoting his time to various extracurricular activities and community services. We are very proud of Mr Pan’s accomplishment!

PolyU-trained students win 8 medals in the 3rd Asia Pacific Linguistics Olympiad

The Hong Kong Linguistics Olympiad (HKLO) team, under the training by the Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies (CBS) and the Department of English (ENGL), has proudly won 8 medals (1 Gold, 2 Silvers and 5 Bronzes) among 182 contestants from 6 countries or regions in the 3rd Asia Pacific Linguistics Olympiad (APLO2021) on 28 Mar 2021. Kudos to our talented HKLO team! https://aplo.asia/results/aplo-2021-results/

Linguistic Training and Internship Programme for Gifted Students in Secondary Schools

To further unleash the potential of gifted students, the Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies and the Department of English at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University offer the Linguistic Training and Internship Programme to secondary school students. Funded by the Gifted Education Fund of Education Bureau, this programme is the first workshop in Hong Kong which provides linguistic training and internship opportunities for gifted students at secondary levels. Schools, parents and guardians are cordially invited to nominate Secondary 2 to Secondary 5 students to apply for this programme. This 13-month programme aims at equipping students with knowledge in the areas of language sciences and developing their analytics skills and research methods. It provides precious internship opportunities for students to gain hands-on experience in conducting research projects under mentorship, as well as improve their interpersonal and teamwork skills through their engagement with peers and mentors in an interdisciplinary and multi-cultural environment. This programme is free of charge and 20 students will be selected to participate in this programme since May 2021. For those who would like to nominate students to apply for this programme, please send the completed application form by post on or before 15 April 2021 (Thursday) to the following address: CF701 Tang Ping Yuan Building The Hong Kong Polytechnic University 11 Yuk Choi Road, Hung Hom, Kowloon (Attn: Ms Tracy LUO Xin) The application form can be downloaded from the Education Bureau’s website. For more details about the programme, please refer to the programme outline and our website https://polyu.hk/KwLxD. Should you have any enquiries, please contact Ms Tracy LUO at 3400 3823 or via email at tracyxin.luo@polyu.edu.hk.

CBS Postgraduate Scholarships 2021/22

In order to recruit high-calibre students who are determined to pursue academic research, the MA Scheme in Chinese, Linguistics and Translation is launching two scholarships in the 2021/22 academic year. CBS Postgraduate Scholarship is an entry scholarship, which offers a 50% tuition waiver to applicants with outstanding intellectual potential to complete an MA thesis and have achieved excellent academic results in the qualifications already obtained. CBS Distinguished Postgraduate Scholarship is a graduation scholarship, which worth 50% of the tuition fee for graduates who have completed their MA thesis and graduated with excellent academic achievements. Distinguished students may receive both scholarships, which will be awarded full tuition fee in total. No separate application is required for the scholarships. Applicants who have submitted their application by 31 March 2021 will be automatically considered for the Entry Scholarship through the admission interview process.