Darius ADJONG

PhD Candidate (Full-time)

Thesis (working) title: A grammar of Buli

My research interests are primarily in grammatical description, linguistic typology and language documentation with a focus on the Gur and Kwa (Niger-Congo) languages spoken in Ghana and other parts of Africa.

Supervisor: Dr. Kofi Yakpo
Co-supervisor: Dr. Joe Perry

Email: darius20@connect.hku.hk

Antonia ALVARES

PhD Candidate (Full-time)

Thesis (working) title: Investigating Khatri as a Contact Language

Antonia is working towards writing a descriptive grammar of the Khatri/Pattegar language with the aim of situating it within contact linguistics. The Khatri/Pattegar language is spoken by a small community in India known as the Saojis.

Supervisor: Dr. Kofi Yakpo
Co-supervisor: Dr. Joe Perry

Email: tonia9@connect.hku.hk

Changhe CHEN

PhD Candidate (Full-time)

My research interests are phonetics and laboratory phonology. Currently I use articulatory methods (ultrasound, electroglottograph and nasalance) as well as acoustic analysis to investigate various aspects of Chinese phonetics.

Supervisor: Dr. Jonathan Havenhill
Co-supervisor: Dr. Kofi Yakpo

Email: riverch8@connect.hku.hk

JIANG Tian

PhD Candidate (Full-time)

Research concentration: Cognitive and Neurological Mechanisms underlying Visual Reading in Chinese (Psycholinguistics/Neurolinguistics)

Supervisor: Dr. Wai Ting Siok

Email: mylily03@connect.hku.hk

Jonah Allan LACK

PhD Candidate (Full-time)

Research concentration: I am a PhD student researching L2 syntactic representations and morphosyntactic processing through EEG, and am specifically interested in the differences between syntactic representations in 1st and 2nd language processing and acquisition. My MA dissertation discussed structural priming in bilinguals, including current theories, methodologies, and trends. I’m heavily interested in L2 processing and acquisition broadly, and have been studying Korean and Mandarin since the start of my Bachelor’s degree with the goal of attaining fluency.

Supervisor: Dr. Yoonsang Song
Co-supervisor: Prof. Stephen Matthews

Email: jlack@connect.hku.hk

Hanbo LIAO

PhD Candidate (Full-time)

Thesis (working) title: The Formation of Lingnan Linguistic Traits: Typological Structures and Diachronic Issues.

Hanbo is conducting his Ph.D. study of the formation of the linguistics areal features in the Lingnan region of China in diachronic and typological perspectives. His field of study includes Historical and Comparative Linguistics, Phonology, Phonetics, Grammar, Tonology, Language Typology, Areal linguistics and Language Contact, Bilingualism/Multilingualism and Sociolinguistics, focusing on the Kra-Dai, Southern Sinitic, Austronesian, and Vietic languages. Before joining HKU, he has completed his MA study in Payap University, by conducting a study on tonal development of Tai languages. On that basic he has proposed a practical Tai tone-box scheme which claims to capture all tonal distinctions in any Tai language (Liao forthcoming). Hanbo also focuses on the bilingual development of Zhuang children, and from 2019, he has started to compile a Yang Zhuang-Chinese-English-Thai online dictionary and an introductory textbook of Yang Zhuang language, hoping to provide resources for children’s bilingual teaching of Zhuang-Chinese in the future.

In addition to his linguistic studies, Hanbo is also a philologist in Kra-Dai languages’ oral literature. Since 2008, he has been participating in the protection and inheritance of intangible cultural heritage in the Zhuang areas of China, and helped Jingxi City of Guangxi to successfully apply for the registration of Mot Lan, a Southern Zhuang melodious art, onto the list of the national intangible cultural heritage units in 2020.

Liao Hanbo. (forthcoming). An Integrated Tone Box Scheme for Determining Tones in Tai Varieties beyond Southwestern Tai: Diachronic and Synchronic Concerns. Folia Linguistica Historica.

Supervisor: Prof. Stephen Matthews
Co-supervisor: Dr. Joe Perry

Email: lhb77610@connect.hku.hk
Personal webpage

Ming LIU

MPhil Candidate (Full-time)

I’m a Mphil student planning to work on phonetics and SLA. I’m interested in speech learning in second language acquisition as well as sound change in natural language contact, especially the interaction between Mandarin and Hakka.

Supervisor: Dr. Jonathan Havenhill
Co-supervisor: Dr. Youngah Do

Email: u3007723@connect.hku.hk

Ralph Chun Yin LIU

PhD (Full-time)

I have just graduated from my PhD studies and I am working currently as a post-doctoral fellow on the neuroscience of reading. I am interested in using neuroimaging techniques such as fMRI to probe into the mind and cognition. My research goal is to find out a unified theory of the brain network of reading and reading disorders. I am teaching LING2053 Language and the Brain and LING6022 Reading Acquisition and Developmental Dyslexia this year.

Supervisor: Dr. Wai Ting Siok

Email: yin2013@connect.hku.hk

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Yue LYU

MPhil Candidate (Full-time)

Supervisor: Dr. Joe Perry
Co-supervisor: Dr. Youngah Do

Email: ymlyu98@connect.hku.hk

NI Wenjing

PhD Candidate (Full-time)

Supervisor: Dr. Christophe Coupé

Email: u3006222@connect.hku.hk

REN He

PhD Candidate (Full-time)

My research interest lies in syntax, semantics, and their interfaces. My current studies include (crosslinguistic) control constructions, logophoricity, and attitude embedment. I have completed my MA degree at University College London, and my BA degree at Nanjing University.

Supervisor: Dr. Joe Perry
Co-supervisor: Prof. Stephen Matthews

Email: u3006205@connect.hku.hk

Robert Marcelo SEVILLA

Phd Candidate (Full-time)

My research interests include the Xiang group, Sinitic typology, acoustics (of hesitation markers like uh and um in particular), and grammatical variation (of classifier constructions in particular). I'm also willing to chat about diachronic linguistics with anyone, rain or shine!

Supervisor: Prof. Stephen Matthews
Co-supervisor: Dr. Jonathan Havenhill

Email: u3545575@connect.hku.hk

Samuel Sui Lung SZE

PhD Candidate (Full-time)

Research concentration: Second language acquisition

Supervisor: Dr. Yoonsang Song
Co-supervisor: Dr. Youngah Do

Email: u3564255@connect.hku.hk

Qingchun WANG

PhD Candidate (Full-time)

Supervisor: Dr. Wai Ting Siok

Email: tun1015@connect.hku.hk

Zhihao WANG

PhD Candidate (Full-time)

Research Interest: Phonology, Phonetics, Language Contact

Supervisor: Dr. Youngah Do
Co-supervisor: Dr. Jonathan Havenhill

Email: wzhihaow@connect.hku.hk

Enoch Chi Lok WONG

MPhil Candidate (Full-time)

Research concentration: Computational Linguistics, sentiment analysis in speech, Machine Learning

Supervisor: Dr. Christophe Coupe
Co-supervisor: Dr. Jonathan Havenhill

Email: enochw@connect.hku.hk

Xiaoyu YU

PhD Candidate (Full-time)

Xiaoyu joined the PhD program in 2021. He is currently working on sound changes and phonological learning using experimental methods. His other research interests include sociophonetics, Middle Chinese phonology, and Chinese varieties.

Supervisor: Dr. Youngah Do
Co-supervisor: Dr. Jonathan Havehill

Email: xyu97@connect.hku.hk

Bingzi YU

MPhil Candidate (Full-time)

I am a second-year MPhil student working on phonology. I am currently interested in learning biases, which is about why certain sound patterns are preferred by humans and are more prevalent in typology data, and what kind of biases affect people’s choices and how they influence language change over generations.

Supervisor: Dr. Youngah Do

Email: iceyu@connect.hku.hk

Shuang ZHENG

PhD Candidate (Full-time)

Research interest: Phonology, phonology-morphology interface, varieties of Chinese

Supervisor: Dr. Youngah Do
Co-supervisor: Dr. Jonathan Havenhill

Email: ivyzheng@connect.hku.hk