Professor Peter Roland George Storey Head of the Department of English Language and Literature

What are the main characteristics of the programmes offered by the Department of English Language and Literature?
We offer an undergraduate degree, the Bachelor of Arts with Honours in English, a taught postgraduate degree, the Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Cultural Studies, and we accept students wishing to undertake original research leading to the award of an MPhil or PhD.

We believe that single subject specialization is important, but that subject specialists need to be able to apply their understandings to more than one subject area in order to be well-equipped to respond to the challenges which societies face in this era. Our programmes therefore all emphasise interdisciplinary approaches.

The Department also offers service English courses taken by all Shue Yan students as part of their degree programmes. These courses aim to develop general English proficiency while introducing the use of English in academic contexts, thus supporting their studies in their major subjects by developing their academic literacy.

Finally we offer a programme of French elective courses ranging from absolute beginner to low intermediate level.

What makes the Department of English Language and Literature different from those of other universities?
The natural aims of any university department of English are to enable students to develop a high level of proficiency in the use of the English language and a love of its literature as well as the ability to deconstruct and analyse both language and literature. These are also the aims of the English Department at Shue Yan. However, we believe that these abilities by themselves are not enough to prepare graduates able to contribute significantly to Hong Kong society and the global community in the twenty-first century. We aim to develop in our graduates a deeper critical awareness of the importance of language in influencing and determining attitudes, identities and outcomes. Making connections between language and technological, scientific and social science disciplines including ecology, biology, psychology and sociology facilitates this critical awareness in our graduates.

What is different about the BA English is that interdisciplinarity is embedded in the structure of the programme, which has four distinct strands, Linguistics, Literature, Cultural Studies and Translation. The inclusion of Cultural Studies enables students to explore issues like gender, race, globalisation, ideology, philosophy and feminism and their relation to language and literature. A key factor which makes our programme distinctive is the fact that we recognise the importance for Hong Kong of bilingual competence among English major students. For this reason, a major strand of our programme is devoted to translation, and bilingual competence is a key programme objective.

What new developments are planned for the future?
While the uniqueness of our programmes is a valuable selling point, we also need to respond to the needs of the market and ensure that we are able to prepare significant numbers of graduates who are well-equipped to contribute to society. For this reason, we keep our programmes under constant scrutiny to ensure that they provide what students need for their future careers. We have identified aspects which the programme could address more effectively and we are developing new courses to meet these needs. We are also planning to propose a new Concentration, which if agreed, would group together existing courses recognised as more relevant to the teaching of English. This is designed to support graduates who decide to go on to study education and take up a career in teaching.

Does the department plan to set up any new bachelor’s degree programmes or other new courses?
The Department has no plans to set up a new bachelor’s degree programme, instead we are focussing on ensuring that our current programme is up-to-date and meets the needs of students and society. On the other hand, we do plan to inject new elements into existing courses as well as to develop new courses. Shue Yan University is focussing on digital literacy, Big Data and Digital Humanities. This is motivating the department to inject corresponding elements into our courses, for example to ensure that English students graduate with the digital skills to function effectively in commercial, educational, technological and academic domains according to their chosen career path. It is also motivating us to develop new courses which make connections between technology and language, technology and literature.

Another important new development spearheaded by the Department is to help all Shue Yan students meet recognised English language standards before they graduate. We will be putting forward a proposal for external funding to support language development courses helping students attain recognised standards in external assessments such as the IELTS test, which has significant currency in the Hong Kong job market.

What are the major challenges the department faces in the near future?
A major challenge we face is to build our research profile. All department staff are expected to carry a significant teaching commitment. The associated preparation, consultation, feedback, marking and grading do not leave much energy to devote to research which requires deep concentration and plenty of time. Nevertheless, colleagues in the English Department have achieved a modest degree of success in obtaining external funding for research. In the last 5 years, there have been three successful applications for Research Grants Council (RGC) grants, amounting to HK$1.5 million. This year, one colleague successfully obtained funding of more than HK$1 million from the Standing Committee on Language Education and Research. A number of colleagues in the Department are preparing new applications or re-submissions for the ninth round of the RGC Competitive Research Funding Schemes for the Local Self-financing Degree Sector and we look forward to enjoying success in this area in the near future.

Source：50th Anniversary Special Issue