2016 National Foreign Linguistics & Applied Linguistics Doctoral Forum was Held at GDUFS

From May 14th to 15th, the 2016 National Foreign Linguistics & Applied Linguistics Doctoral Forum was Held at GDUFS on the North Campus.

On May 14th, JIAO Fangtai and LIU Jianda, Vice Presidents of GDUFS, attended the Opening Ceremony. This forum was an international academic forum involving 85 excellent theses and 30 universities both in China and abroad. Also, prizes were set up for the first time in order to encourage doctoral students to continue pursuing excellence. The forum also served as a launch ceremony of the Doctoral Salon.

The Scene of the Opening Ceremony

At the beginning, Vice President JIAO delivered an opening speech, warmly welcoming the distinguished guests, and congratulating the doctoral students for their achievements. Also, he gave a brief introduction to the forum and GDUFS. According to JIAO, GDUFS has held this forum for 12 consecutive years, and it is one of the first universities nationwide to start research of Applied Linguistics. In 1998, the discipline of Applied Linguistics at GDUFS was listed as one of the National Key Disciplines. Since then, with the expansion of the research field, remarkable achievements have been made in the distinctive discipline of Linguistics at GDUFS. Also, he expressed his gratitude to all the specialists and professors that had showed great support to this forum, and warmly welcomed all the valuable opinions and suggestions.

Opening Remarks Delivered by Vice President JIAO

The following section was a keynote speech entitled “The Influence of Dialectal Experience Exerted on Cognitive Ability” presented by LI Rongbao, Professor at Fujian Normal University. His research conducted on Dialect-Putonghua bilinguals showed that, contradictory to “bilingual advantages”, the bilinguals were in an inferior position in the respect of language meta-cognition compared with Putonghua monolinguals. According to Professor LI, the formation of language meta-cognition was the process of abstracting the specific language experience, in which the characteristic of the language and the written language education played a vital role. However, due to the lack of written language education, dialect experience was difficult to become the knowledge of meta-language. Therefore, Professor LI concluded that the “bilingual advantages” did not produce an observable effect in terms of specific language abilities. At the end of his speech, several questions were put forward by the audience and Professor LI answered them patiently.

Professor LI Rongbao Presented a Keynote Speech

Next was another keynote speech: The Comparasion of Negative Words in VP-neg Sentences, presented by Professor TANG Sze Wing from The Chinese University of Hong Kong. His research mainly focused on the comparisons among different uses of the negative words and the omitted constituents in Chinese negative constructions. He pointed out that, in Cantonese, there are four negative words, but only one of them can be used in a VP-neg sentence. With a large amount of example sentences, he made a clear illustration of various negative words, attracting attention and reflections on the use of negative words from the audience.

Professor TANG Sze Wing Presented a Keynote Speech

The Audience put forward Some Questions

Awards Were Given to the Two Professors

On May 15th, TIAN Hailong, a Professor from Tianjin Foreign Studies University, was invited to give a keynote speech: Linguistic Studies on Social Concern and its Implementation. Firstly, Professor TIAN illustrated the changes in research paradigms of linguistic studies after being influenced by post-modernism. Secondly, he focused on how linguistic studies are applied to social issues. Professor TIAN highlighted CDA (Critical Discourse Analysis) and gave a brief introduction of its development. He also introduced how to carry out CDA. The first step is to understand social issues. Then methods of linguistic studies should be applied. Finally, the research framework of CDA should be followed.

Professor TIAN Hailong Presented a Keynote Speech

Awards Were Given to Professor TIAN Hailong

Then came the Award Ceremony for Excellent Doctoral Student Theses. Students were happy winning prizes.

The Award Ceremony

After the award ceremony, the Launch Ceremony of the Doctoral Salon began. ZHAO Chen, Vice Dean of School of Graduate Studies, gave a speech. He explained the background and purpose of holding the Salon. He emphasized that doctoral students played an important role in technological innovation. And he hoped that doctoral students would benefit from the salon.

Professor ZHAO Chen speaking

At the end of the forum, LIU Jianda, Vice President of GDUFS, gave a closing speech. He affirmed that the forum was a huge success. He concluded that the forum held this year was widely-covering and high-quality. He expressed his gratitude to professors, doctoral students and related department personnel, who made a great contribution to the success of the forum.

Vice President LIU Jianda Giving the Closing Speech

Group Photo