The University of Macau (UM) announced in a statement yesterday that a plaque-unveiling ceremony for its Centre for Linguistics has been held recently, with its establishment marking the “university’s efforts to promote research studies across different language disciplines and its contributions to the development of linguistics” in Macau.
The public university’s Faculty of Arts and Humanities (FAH) and the Macao Linguistics Society signed a collaboration agreement on the publication of the Macao Journal of Linguistics after the recent ceremony, the statement said.
The ceremony was officiated over by UM Rector Yonghua Song (aka Song Yonghua), FAH Dean and Centre for Linguistics Director Li Defeng and FAH Associate Dean Wang Qingjie, among others. The statement added that the ceremony was also attended by FAH assistant deans, UM Faculty members, students and academics.
The centre’s establishment and future development plans were noted in Rector Song’s speech, the statement said. The statement quoted Song as saying that linguistics is one of UM’s strongest research areas and publication, as well as one of its internationally ranked academic disciplines.
The statement said that, according to Song, the centre “would create a platform for uniting the UM linguists across the different departments”, resulting in helping to promote “collaborations across different language disciplines through the organisation of academic conferences and the publication of academic books and journals”.
Macao Linguistics Society President Huang Yi and Prof. Xu signed the collaboration agreement after the ceremony about the publication of the journal, which was founded in 1995. The statement noted that the journal has published a number of “quality research papers that are impactful in the field of linguistics”. The agreement states that the FAH will be in charge of the publication of the biannual journal in conjunction with Macao Linguistics Society.
The statement also underlined that the centre held its first academic lecture titled “Polarity in the Semantics of Adjectives and Relevant Syntactic Conditions” on the same day with the university’s new faculty member, Yuan Yulin, a linguist and a Changjiang Scholar, as the keynote speaker.
The Changjiang (Yangtze River) Scholar award (长江学者奖励计划) is the highest academic award issued to an individual in higher education by the Ministry of Education, according to Wikipedia.
This undated handout photo provided yesterday by the University of Macau (UM) shows university Rector Yonghua Song (AKA Song Yonghua) delivering a speech during the recent plaque unveiling ceremony for the Centre for Linguistics on the UM Campus.
