Stylistic coherence in speech perception: from human speech to AI voices Date: 12 Nov 2026 (Thursday) Start Time: 2:00 pm Speaker: Dr. Aini Li (Assistant Professor in the Department of Linguistics and Translation at City University of Hong Kong) Venue: CPD LG.08, Run Run Shaw Tower, Centennial Campus, HKU
Prof. Mohammad Momenian – MoLaB: New Lab for Research on Language and the Brain Welcome to our lab! Our lab studies how the brain understands and produces language, and how these processes are influenced by properties of languages and individual differences across the lifespan. A central thread connecting most of the projects in our lab is individual variation: how linguistic experience and cognitive abilities contribute to differences in language performance, particularly as we age. Combining behavioural experiments with EEG and fMRI, we use both carefully controlled tasks and more naturalistic language experiences. Our goal is to understand language as a [...]
AI for Inclusion: Demonstrating HKSL Handshape Detection at InnoCarnival 2026 Our lab was thrilled to take part in InnoCarnival 2026, held from 24 October to 1 November at Hong Kong Science Park. Organised by the Innovation and Technology Commission, the Carnival celebrates innovation and technology across the community through interactive exhibitions, workshops, games, and showcases of local research achievements. At our booth, “A Helping Hand for the Deaf Elderly by Recognizing Handshapes,” we created an interactive, technology-led experience that brought Hong Kong Sign Language (HKSL) research to life in an accessible, engaging, and enjoyable way for visitors of all ages [...]
Discourse origins of tonal person marking Date: 5 Nov 2026 (Thursday) Start Time: 2:00 pm Speaker: Prof. Eric W. Campbell (Associate Professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara) Venue: CPD LG.08, Run Run Shaw Tower, Centennial Campus, HKU
Welcome everyone! Please be informed that we have launched a new webpage for the Formal Linguistics Forum (FLorum) to share news, updates, and upcoming events: https://florum.linguistics.hku.hk/ For any enquiries regarding FLorum, please feel free to contact the Coordinator, Dr. Maksymilian Dąbkowski, at dabkowsk@hku.hk. Thank you very much.
The Complementizer-Subjunctor Asymmetry Hypothesis: A formal and functional perspective Date: 29 Oct 2026 (Thursday) Start Time: 2:00 pm Speaker: Prof. Jesús Olguín-Martinez (Assistant Professor in the Department of Linguistics, The University of Hong Kong) Venue: CPD LG.08, Run Run Shaw Tower, Centennial Campus, HKU
“Tone contour identification from the perspective of production” published in Journal of East Asian Linguistics A new paper by Zhihao and Youngah, Tone contour identification from the perspective of production, has been published in the Journal of East Asian Linguistics. The study addresses a recurring challenge in tone research: the same linguistic tone can sometimes be described as having different contour shapes across different sources. One reason is that a tone’s intended contour can be distorted when it is actually produced, making it difficult to determine whether its target shape is level, rising, or falling from the observed pitch pattern [...]
Interested in the world of Linguistics? Hear from our Faculty members and students about what it is like to study linguistics at HKU! Feel free to join our HKU Information Day on 24 October 2026 (Saturday) Date: 26 Oct 2026 Time: 09:00-18:00 Venue: CPD LG.41, Centennial Campus, HKU All are welcome!!!
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Empowering Deaf Voices: Connecting Hong Kong and the Philippines for Inclusive Change This workshop is jointly organized by HKUArts and De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde, Philippines for HKU and De La Salle students to take part in it. It delves into the vibrant deaf cultures and transformative social movements in Hong Kong and the Philippines, sharing insights from deaf educators, students, faculty, advocates, and industry leaders committed to advancing inclusion and accessibility across both regions. Date: October 9, 2026 (Fri) Time: 1:00 – 2:30 PM Format: Zoom Speakers Mr. Kai-fung Wang | Executive Director, Hong Kong Sign Language Association [...]
Syntactic limits of A’ingae’s phonological dominance Date: 24 Sep 2026 (Thursday) Start Time: 4:00 pm Speaker: Dr. Maksymilian Dąbkowski (Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Linguistics, HKU) Venue: Rm 7.58, Run Run Shaw Tower, Centennial Campus, HKU
Formal Linguistics Forum (FLorum) Director: Dr. Maksymilian Dąbkowski Description: What kinds of algorithms can capture how natural language sound systems work? What is the best way to represent the structure of words and sentences? What is the relationship between formal logic and the meanings of those words and sentences? What insights can theoretical models afford into the structure of conversations? These and other questions are discussed at the Formal Linguistics Forum (or FLorum, for short), a working group that advances cutting-edge research in theoretical linguistics. The group’s interdisciplinary scope encompasses formal approaches to any aspect of language structure (including phonology, [...]
Prof. Jesus Olguin-Martinez has been invited to teach a course at the LSA Summer Institute. The Institute will be held at the University of Oregon Linguistics Department in 2027. It is the largest and most prestigious summer school for linguistics in the world and has been held since 1928. It is run under the auspices of the Linguistic Society of America (LSA) and is designed as an intensive, short-course summer school format that brings together leading scholars across many subfields. Prof. Jesus Olguin-Martinez will teach the following course: Morphosyntax beyond the simple clause: Formal and functional perspectives Although formal and [...]
"Languages on the Periphery" published in Languages The paper "Languages on the Periphery: Historical, Geographic, and Contact Factors in the Formation of Hunan’s Linguistic Ecosystem" by Dr. R. Marcelo Sevilla has been published in the journal Languages. The abstract is below: The region today corresponding to modern Hunan province has been a site of stable language contact for over 2500 years, with the intensification of that contact occurring in particular between the 17th and 21st centuries. Major political developments during this time led to massive population movements which reshaped the demographics and linguistic ecology of Hunan. The region has considerable [...]
“Conservativity in the scope of phonological generalization learning” published in Linguistics Vanguard We are pleased to share a new publication by Adam, Bingzi, and Youngah in Linguistics Vanguard: “Conservativity in the Scope of Phonological Generalization Learning.” The study investigates how people learn phonological patterns, or regularities in the sound systems of languages. In many languages, sound changes known as phonological alternations occur when words combine with affixes, often reflecting broader restrictions on which sound sequences are allowed in the language. Because of this relationship, many theories of phonology assume that knowledge of alternations and knowledge of phonotactics (sound-pattern restrictions within [...]
“Exploring Substantive Bias Through Incidental Phonological Learning: Accuracy and Conscious Status of the Resultant Knowledge” published in Language and Speech We are pleased to share a new publication by Xiaoyu, Yuyan, and Youngah in Language and Speech. The paper, titled “Exploring Substantive Bias Through Incidental Phonological Learning: Accuracy and Conscious Status of the Resultant Knowledge,” investigates how substantive bias emerges in phonological learning by comparing the acquisition of phonetically natural patterns (vowel harmony) versus unnatural ones (vowel disharmony). To address why many previous studies have struggled to find evidence for this bias, the team introduced a disguise task to minimize [...]
Clarifying when-constructions: Conversation, morphosyntax, lexicon, and mode and their interactions in language use Abstract: The present study investigates clarifying when-constructions (e.g., when I say more, I don’t mean that we should consume more, but really it’s about creating a rich life) in a sample of 971 examples from The Corpus of Contemporary American English. In this construction, a phrase or clause from a different or the same turn is repeated in a when-clause to provide clarification through the main clause, often accompanied by a refining clause. The present research centers around identifying configurations of variables that are correlated with whether [...]
HKU Linguistics Seminar 2026-27 Please feel free to disseminate this message to your friends, colleagues, and students who are interested in the topic, and contact us at linguist@hku.hk if you have any queries. Best wishes, Department of Linguistics The University of Hong Kong
Prof. Kofi Yakpo of HKU Linguistics received a prestigious Overseas Research Fellowship Scheme Award (ORFS) of the University Grants Committee of the Government of Hong Kong to investigate dynamics in the expansion of Swahili (East Africa) and Lingala (Central Africa). He will collaborate with the Universidade Agostinho Neto (Luanda, Angola) and Kenyatta University (Nairobi, Kenya) between August 2026 and January 2027.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0093934X26000209 Abstract We revisit Ellen Bialystok’s seminal chapter, “Selective Attention in Cognitive Processing: The Bilingual Edge”, exploring its impact on over three decades of research. We explore how theoretical and methodological advances have refined our understanding of the cognitive effects of bilingualism including shifts in how bilingualism is operationalized and assessed, the application of neuroimaging techniques, and the adoption of more robust statistical approaches. We also draw attention to ongoing challenges including mixed reports of bilingual effects identified across evidence syntheses, the role of individual differences, and the need for more ecologically valid research methodologies. Finally, we plot a course [...]
