During my first 2 years of study, I gained not only professional knowledge but also professional support in various areas. BALT provided me with a solid knowledge base for my future development and gave me the opportunity to explore different options. The kind and patient academic team supports the needs of students, offering opportunities for exchanges, internships and research and allowing students to discover their true passions through these valuable 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 LST not only offers a variety of course choices, to allow students to explore their interests and achieve all-round development, but also an extremely supporting learning environment. The inspiring and supportive academic staff motivated me to consider all possibilities and challenge myself. Without my tutors’ endless encouragement, I would not have had the confidence to participate in multiple extracurricular activities and launch a service project delivering essential mental support to the PolyU community. 

Although the COVID-19 pandemic had an impact on our teaching mode, the University's support was unwavering. When all plans for physical academic exchanges 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 gain practical work experience in difficult circumstances.

   
If you love studying language and aspire to personal growth, the LST is the best choice!
 

I was impressed by the opportunities offered by the LST during my 4 years of study. Internships, research projects, service learning and countless other opportunities are invaluable and should not be overlooked by prospective BACBS students. One of the Department's ambitions is to inspire students to participate in learning activities overseas, and I took advantage of this vision on several occasions, such as by attending conferences and other events in foreign countries.  

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

If you are passionate about languages but also value their integration with modern technology, this programme is a perfect choice. Studying linguistics is more than spending an entire day in the library deciphering obscure sentences. For example, we are taught to recognise the anatomical landmarks in our body that are essential to speech production by studying real-life examples. In psycholinguistics, we tried to design a simple behavioural experiment using a computer program and tested it on our friends. Little by little, I discovered how language should be viewed scientifically and how its integration with technology can benefit human society.

Linguistics. What a beautiful word to contemplate. Three years ago, a Google search for “linguistics” returned only the definition “the scientific study of language”, which gave me little new insight into this discipline. Exploring the different branches of linguistics didn't help me either. In fact, encountering “Jabberwocky” terms with Greek roots (syntax, phonetic, pragmatics…) only added to my confusion.  

However, the freedom to explore the LST curriculum lifted the veil on 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 tongue or fingers every day. What the LST teaches is not merely language; it is about language creators and users, that is, all of us.   

Studying linguistics undoutedly smooths the journey of language learning, in my case German through a Minor in European Studies, and reveals a world outside the net woven by Chinese and English. The Major also surprised me by introducing me to computer languages. As scary as they may seem at first, lines of code are our friends. Indeed, learning computer code is a key part of our holistic training.   

Charlemagne said, “To have another language is to possess a second soul”. This sums up what we do at the LST: we look for whatever lies beneath the pearly white surface of language.