The Hong Kong Polytechnic University - Dept of English and Communication

28/08/2026

🌱🏃‍♂️ Alumni Career Talk: The Power of Sustainability (11 September)

Join us for an inspiring alumni career talk by Dr Andes Leung, a distinguished PolyU DBA alumnus, and Co-founder and CEO of "RunOurCity" RunOurCity 全城街馬, a social enterprise dedicated to transforming lives through the promotion of street running.

Drawing on his recent running journeys, Dr Leung will explore how sustainability goes beyond endurance and pacing. His story and experience will also highlight how sustainability can be meaningful and impactful in our personal lives, career development, and beyond.

✨ Be inspired to discover your own sustainable path to success.

📅 Date: 11 September 2026 (Friday)
🕡 Time: 7:00 - 8:00 pm (HK Time)
📍 Venue: UG09, UG/F, PolyU Hung Hom Bay Campus
🎤 Speaker: Dr Andes Leung

🔗 Register Now: https://polyu.hk/iTyAV

21/08/2026

🤖 Don’t Miss - New Frontiers in Corpus Linguistics Symposium (September 2026) 🚀

From Gen Z slang and chatbot authenticity to digital health discourse and AI-driven corpus design— join us for the New Frontiers in Corpus Linguistics Symposium (16–17 September 2026).

This two-day hybrid symposium brings together leading international researchers to explore how emerging technologies, new data sources, and Generative AI are reshaping language research.

✨ Key Highlights & Sessions:
🗣️ The Language of Gen Z & Spoken Corpora: Unpacking American Gen Z speech patterns and introducing the new 10M-word LANA-CASE corpus (Prof. Paul Baker & Dr Elizabeth Hanks)
🤖 Evaluating Chatbot Authenticity: Using corpus linguistics to test ChatGPT’s conversational realism (Prof. Vaclav Brezina)
💻 Hands-on X Workshop: Practical applications for teaching multi-word expressions in the classroom (Prof. Vaclav Brezina)
🩺 Health Discourse & Vibe Coding: Metaphor analysis in online dementia support communities (Dr Gavin Brookes) and identifying collocational divergence using LLMs (Prof. Paul Baker)

📌 Event Details:
📅 Date: 16–17 September 2026
📍 Venue: PolyU Hung Hom Bay Campus | Online (except the Workshop on 16 September afternoon)
🎟️ Register Now! https://polyu.hk/RstBb
💬 Full Information & Abstracts: https://polyu.hk/ZtjDG

Don't miss this opportunity to connect with global experts and discover new possibilities in Corpus Linguistics. See you there! 👋

19/08/2026

【New Book by Dr Hyejeong Kim on Exploring Aviation English as a Global Lingua Franca】

We are pleased to announce the publication of "Aviation English as a Global Lingua Franca" by our Research Assistant Professor, Dr Hyejeong Kim, published by Cambridge University Press.

This new monograph explores aviation English as a global lingua franca through the lens of communities of practice, shedding light on how pilots’ and air traffic controllers’ ongoing learning through practice in the international context helps make their communication safe and efficient.

This book critically examines the limitations of current international aviation language proficiency requirements and analyses live radiotelephony discourse in abnormal situations. It also reveals key communication challenges in high-stakes aviation contexts.

Read this book to discover why linguistic and domain-specific accommodation are essential to intercultural communication—and why greater standardisation is needed in handling abnormal situations.

Read more 👉 https://bit.ly/4bSodmQ

18/08/2026

Congrats to our two alumni, Dr Frederick Cheung and Prof. Esterina Nervino, on winning the Outstanding Alumni Award of PolyU Faculty of Humanities!

【理大人文學院傑出校友 2026】🎊
恭賀理大人文學院傑出校友得獎者 （按英文姓氏排序）:

理大人文學院傑出校友2026
張富華博士
中華基督教青年會中學校長
2005年英語教學文學碩士(英文及傳意學系)

理大人文學院傑出校友 2026
邢杰教授
廣東外語外貿大學高級翻譯學院副院長、教授及博士生導師
2010年哲學博士(語言科學及技術學系)

理大人文學院傑出青年校友2026
林沛怡女士
言語治療師、大學兼職助理講師及臨床導師
2016年言語治療碩士 (語言科學及技術學系)

理大人文學院傑出青年校友2026
Esterina NERVINO教授
香港城市大學英文系及市場營銷學系副教授
2018年哲學博士(英文及傳意學系)
理大人文學院傑出校友旨在表彰校友的專業成就，及其對社區與母校的卓越貢獻。
了解更多得奬者資料👉🏻 https://polyu.hk/ogHOF

【Outstanding Alumni Award of PolyU Faculty of Humanities 2026】
Congratulations to the following award recipients on receiving the Faculty’s Outstanding Alumni Award (in alphabetical order of the last name):

Outstanding Alumni Award of PolyU Faculty of Humanities 2026
Dr Frederick CHEUNG Fu Wah
Principal, Chinese Y.M.C.A. Secondary School
Master of Arts in English Language Teaching (2005)
Department of English and Communication

Outstanding Alumni Award of PolyU Faculty of Humanities 2026
Prof. XING Jie
Vice Dean, Professor and PhD Supervisor, School of Interpreting and Translation Studies, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies
Doctor of Philosophy (2010)
Department of Language Science and Technology

Outstanding Young Alumni Award of PolyU Faculty of Humanities 2026
Ms Jody LAM Pui Yee
Speech Therapist, Part-time Assistant Lecturer and Clinical Educator
Master of Speech Therapy (2016)
Department of Language Science and Technology

Outstanding Young Alumni Award of PolyU Faculty of Humanities 2026
Prof. Esterina NERVINO
Associate Professor, Department of English and Department of Marketing, City University of Hong Kong
Doctor of Philosophy (2018)
Department of English and Communication

The Award recognises alumni for their professional achievements and significant contributions to the community and their alma mater.

Read more about the awardees👉🏻 https://polyu.hk/LjdjW

#香港理工大學 #理大 #人文學院 #理大校友

10/08/2026

📘 New Book Release | Miscommunication in Healthcare

Congratulations to our Honorary Professor, Professor Bernadette Watson, on the publication of her latest book, Miscommunication in Healthcare.

Drawing on more than 30 years of research in health communication, Prof. Watson explores how communication breakdowns across healthcare settings can lead to serious consequences for patients and professionals alike. The book examines doctor-patient consultations, multidisciplinary teamwork, intercultural encounters, and adverse patient events, offering valuable insights for healthcare practitioners, researchers, policymakers, and students.

🎉 Join the official book launch📅 19 August 2026
🕡 6:00 pm for a 6:30 pm start
📍 Avid Reader Bookshop, Brisbane

https://avidreader.com.au/pages/14165-BernadetteWatson-MiscommunicationinHealthcare

If you are interested in healthcare, communication, patient safety, or health systems research, this is an event not to be missed.

07/08/2026

【Funded PhD Position Supervised by Prof. Paul Baker】

The Department of English and Communication at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University is seeking a qualified PhD candidate to join us in early 2027 under the supervision of Professor Paul Baker. The position is funded with a monthly stipend of HK$19,220 (approx. US$2,460).

The successful candidate will contribute to an international comparative project examining how values are constructed, contested, and negotiated in newspaper discourse across Hong Kong, the United Kingdom, and Italy. The candidate's PhD research will focus on the construction and corpus-assisted discourse analysis of a substantial collection of Hong Kong newspaper articles written in Traditional Chinese (2022–2026).

Key Requirements:

1. Master’s degree in Linguistics, Applied Linguistics, Discourse Analysis, Communication, or a related discipline
2. Demonstrable experience in corpus linguistic methods and tools
3. Proficiency in written Traditional Chinese and English
4. Knowledge of Hong Kong history, culture, and contemporary media environment
For full information, visit https://polyu.hk/pRtFP

Please name Prof. Paul Baker as the potential supervisor when applying.

📅 Application Closing Date: 1 September 2026

👉 Apply via PolyU Research Postgraduate Admissions System: https://polyu.hk/PeDJm

03/08/2026

【New Volume Edited by Prof. Louise Cummings on Communication and Swallowing Disorders in Infectious Diseases】

We are pleased to announce the publication of Communication and Swallowing Disorders in Infectious Diseases, edited by our Adjunct Professor, Professor Louise Cummings, and published by Routledge (Taylor & Francis).

While the COVID-19 pandemic brought infectious disease to the forefront of speech-language pathology, SARS-CoV-2 is only one of many pathogens that can severely compromise human communication and deglutition. This comprehensive volume examines a wide range of viral, bacterial, parasitic, and fungal infections—including HIV, Herpes Simplex, Zika, HPV, Tuberculosis, Syphilis, and Streptococcal infections—and their impact on speech, language, voice, hearing, and swallowing in both children and adults.

Each chapter provides crucial insights into epidemiology, disease onset, clinical course, neurological sequelae, and evidence-based assessment and treatment strategies for diverse clinical populations.

An essential resource for clinicians, researchers, and students across speech-language pathology, audiology, neurology, pediatric medicine, ENT medicine, and health communication!

Read more 👉 https://bit.ly/4yDhlTU

31/07/2026

Congrats 🎉 to the following academic staff on their recent promotions:

1. Prof. William Feng to Professor
2. Prof. Lydia Catedral to Associate Professor
3. Dr Rickey Lu to Senior Lecturer

Let's extend our best wishes and congratulations to them! 🎊🎊

24/07/2026

[PhD student Mohammad Mosiur Rahman wins the HAAL Best Paper from Novice Scholars Award]

Our Department’s PhD student, Mohammad Mosiur Rahman, has won the Best Paper Award from Novice Scholars from the Hong Kong Association for Applied Linguistics (HAAL). The award-winning paper, co-authored with his supervisor, Chair Professor Guangwei Hu, "Translanguaging and trans-semiotizing in English-medium classrooms: Upholding university's policies or constructing knowledge?", was published in Linguistics and Education. Mosiur presented the paper at the HAAL Postgraduate Event and Award Presentation Ceremony held on 22 May 2026.

Building on Mosiur’s prior research and his current doctoral project, the study offers a fascinating look at how teachers and students navigate English policies while using a full spectrum of linguistic and semiotic tools to build knowledge and foster learning.

Read the full article here: https://bit.ly/4thFr2V

Join us in congratulating Mosiur on this outstanding performance!