Our Department is delighted to announce the appointment of Professor Anthony Mark McEnery as our Chair Professor of Corpus Linguistics and AI for the Humanities. Professor McEnery brings a wealth of expertise and a distinguished record of scholarly excellence to our Department, and we warmly welcome him to the PolyU family.
Professor McEnery holds a Bachelor of Arts in Linguistics from Lancaster University (1986), a Master of Science in Information Technology from Leicester Polytechnic (1988), and a PhD in Computational Pragmatics from Lancaster University (1996). He was later awarded a Doctor of Letters (DLitt) in Linguistics by Lancaster University in 2012. His academic career began at Lancaster University, where he progressed from Lecturer in 1992 to Professor of English Language and Linguistics in 2001, and was appointed Distinguished Professor in 2013—a position he held until joining PolyU. During his tenure at LancasterU, he served in key leadership roles, including Head of the Department of Linguistics and English Language (2000–2005) and Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (2008–2014).
A leading authority in theoretical and applied corpus linguistics, Professor McEnery’s research explores computational language analysis and the integration of AI techniques in linguistic studies. His work has advanced fields such as speech recognition, multilingual corpora, and ethical AI applications in the humanities, with extensive publications in top-tier journals. He has secured over £10 million in research funding and led ground-breaking projects, including the British National Corpus 2014 and EMILLE Corpora.
Professor McEnery’s contributions have earned him prestigious recognition, including Fellowships of the Academy of Social Sciences, the Global China Academy, Trinity College London, and the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufacture and Commerce. In 2021, he was awarded the Changjiang Chair Professorship by the Chinese Ministry of Education. Notably, he has been consistently ranked among the world’s top 2% of scientists in Communication & Textual Studies (subfield: Languages & Linguistics) on Stanford University’s “World’s Top 2% Scientists” list, underscoring his profound global impact.
We anticipate the innovative perspectives that Professor McEnery will bring to our Department, enhancing our research in corpus linguistics, AI, and humanities.
