HKMU holds the 28th International Conference on Yue Dialects to foster academic exchange in the study of Yue dialects and Cantonese
31 December 2024
In delivering the opening remarks, Prof. Paul Lam Kwan-sing, HKMU President, noted that 2024 marked a significant milestone for HKMU as it celebrated its 35th anniversary. In early 2024, HKMU was designated as the first university of applied sciences (UAS) in Hong Kong, leading in the integration of theory and practice to nurture talent with applied skills and knowledge for societal contribution. In this context, language is crucial, especially concerning Yue dialects, which are predominant in the Greater Bay Area. This is particularly important for Hong Kong, where Cantonese serves not only as a dialect for intra-group communication, but also as an official language, in line with Hong Kong's “Biliteracy and Trilingualism” language policy.
Yue 28 demonstrates the unwavering commitment of the RIBiLT and E&L to the development and application of language studies. The two-day event brought together a distinguished group of professionals from both local and international backgrounds. It featured three keynote presentations, four invited presentations and 59 parallel presentations on a wide range of topics, including corpus linguistics, language acquisition, syntax, semantics, phonetics, phonology, pragmatics and sociolinguistics. The conference helped foster scholarly exchange and strengthen ties among researchers and institutions, facilitating collaboration that can lead to impactful advances in the knowledge of Yue dialects and Cantonese studies.
