Dr Phoebe Lin concluded a fruitful trip from the JSPS Invitational Fellowship for Research in Japan

Dr Phoebe Lin has been awarded an Invitational Fellowship for Research in Japan. The Invitational Fellowships, sponsored by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), provide overseas researchers who have an excellent record of research achievements with an opportunity to conduct collaborative research, discussions, and opinion exchanges with researchers in Japan. During her two-month stay in Japan during November and December 2022, Dr Lin spent her time at Yokohama City University, where she worked with researchers from across Japan to explore the potential of developing an automatic system for scoring learner intonation. During her stay, Dr Lin delivered lectures at three universities, including Yokohama City University, the University of Tokyo, and the University of Tsukuba. She also interviewed local teachers and learners of English and gained invaluable insights into the English language learning environment in Japan. Dr Lin shared that the biggest benefits from the Fellowship included being provided with opportunities for exchanges with international researchers and also receiving great inspiration for her upcoming projects.

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. In this new joint research paper published in English World-Wide (online first) under John Benjamins Publishing Company by our Prof Hans J Ladegaard 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 of 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 article can be found on the website HERE.

New joint paper on development and psychometric evaluation of the Aversion to Bowel Cancer Screening Scale

This new joint paper by our Prof. Stefano Occhipinti, published in a journal at Wiley, discusses using a newly-developed Aversion to Bowel Cancer Screening Scale (ABCSS) to assess people's reluctance to have bowel cancer screening. Based on extensive interviews with people in the target population for screening in Australia, the results show that ABCSS is a valid measure of aversion to colorectal cancer (CRC) screening for asymptomatic community members facing the decision to undertake CRC screening. This instrument may provide a more comprehensive understanding of the decision-making process for CRC screening. This paper is the first to assess affective responses across a wide range of emotions and to address the whole process of screening, rather than one single type of screening. Open access to the paper from HERE.

New blog on Long COVID: Understanding the legacy of the COVID-19 pandemic

Our Prof. Louise Cummings wrote a blog article discussing her study that used several discourse production tasks to examine the cognitive-communication difficulties of adults with Long COVID. The results showed the impacts of COVID-related communication problems on the lives of these adults. The findings revealed the cognitive-linguistics difficulties of immediate and delayed verbal recall, category fluency, and letter fluency had significantly poorer performance. In addition, the impacts on the lives and careers of adults of working age with Long COVID also need our attention. The article is published on the European Association of Language Teachers for Healthcare website.

New research article on spacing effects in task repetition research

In this new article published in a top-tier language learning journal at Wiley, our Dr John Rogers provides a conceptual review of the principles of input spacing as they might relate specifically to oral task repetition research. The article presents some of the common methodological considerations from the broader input spacing literature. The purpose of this review is to highlight how these methodological considerations have been overlooked by task repetition researchers, including in studies where input spacing has and has not been a direct focus, and to suggest ways of addressing these methodological shortcomings in future research. More information about the article can be found on the website HERE.  

New book on Data Analytics in Cognitive Linguistics

In this book published by De Gruyter Mouton , our Prof. Dennis Tay and PhD graduate Dr Molly Pan address two key aspects in data analytics for cognitive linguistic work. Firstly, it elaborates the bottom-up guiding role of data analytics in the research trajectory, and how it helps to formulate and refine questions. Secondly, it shows how data analytics can suggest concrete courses of research-based action, which is crucial for cognitive linguistics to be truly applied. The papers in this volume impart various data analytic methods and report empirical studies across different areas of research and application. They aim to benefit new and experienced researchers alike. More information about the book can be found on the website HERE.   

Dr Renia Lopez Awarded Research-Stay at the University of Alcalá, Spain

Dr Renia Lopez, our Associate Professor, has been awarded a one-month study-stay at the University of Alcalá, Spain, under their prestigious programme Giner de los Ríos, established in 2015. Under this programme, renowned scholars are invited to work with Alcalá’s researchers to explore new topics and develop international co-operations. This residency will also serve to strengthen existing cooperation. Dr Lopez has been working on with scholars and students at the Department of Philology, Communication and Documentation of the University of Alcalá for a few years now. With their help, she has led a project studying the benefits of online learning of Spanish as a foreign language when the input is presented in different modalities (video, audio or text). A second project, still ongoing, evaluates the benefits of online teaching when the teacher's grammatical explanations are presented with or without gestures. Among the new co-operations Dr Lopez will explore is a study on the affective elements of the foreign language teaching and learning process. Dr Lopez will also be giving talks to students and staff at Alcalá as well as exploring the opportunities for further collaborations and possible exchanges between the University of Alcalá and PolyU. The first University of Alcalá was founded in 1499, becoming one of Spain’s most prestigious universities during the 16th and 17th centuries. It was moved to Madrid, and renamed Madrid Complutense University, reopening a campus in Alcalá in 1975 that eventually became an independent public university. Today, Alcalá has about 28,000 students a year and just over 2,000 teachers on two campuses. Among their degrees, they offer English studies and Modern Languages and Translation.

New joint article on the influence of metaphor in news on foreign-policy support

Our Professor Kathleen Ahrens is co-author of this new joint paper published by the International Journal of Communication of the USC Annenberg Press under the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. The paper discussed the use of three between-subjects experiments to evaluate the influence of metaphor in news about foreign policies.  The results demonstrate that novel metaphors are helpful to readers processing texts about new topics as they draw attention to the language with their novelty, but remain familiar enough to generate positive affect.  More information of the article can be found on the website HERE.  

New book on navigating the realities of metaphor and psychotherapy research

This new short-form book published by the Cambridge University Press, written by our Professor Dennis Tay, discusses how to navigate the practical realities of applied metaphor research, using psychotherapy as an example. The three foundational components of psychotherapy - the therapist, the client, and the interactional setting - are discussed in turn, covering issues like ethically engaging therapists in research design and data analysis, dealing with underexplored variabilities in client responses, and managing the inherent tension between spontaneity and control in an interactional setting like psychotherapy. This book also offers some thoughts on how the lessons are transferable to other research contexts. More information about the book can be found on the website HERE.

Awardees for The Stephen Evans Best Thesis Award and Best Paper Award 2022

Dr Carol Yu, our PhD Graduate and Postdoctoral Fellow, received The Stephen Evans Best Thesis Award 2022. Her thesis's title is "Communication and Interpersonal Dynamics in Virtual Team Meetings: An Applied Linguistic Perspective". Our PhD student, Amy HAN, received The Stephen Evans Best Paper Award 2022. Her paper's title is "A Mixed-Method Comparison of Therapist and Client Language across Four Therapeutic Approaches". More about The Stephen Evans Awards can be found on the website HERE.