Joint research with Hong Kong Institute of Education
Hartmut Haberland, Department of Culture and Identity
In October 2008, Roskilde University entered a cooperation agreement with Hong Kong Institute of Education, which has led to exchange of researchers and students between the two institutions. There is a particularly close cooperation between CALPIU, located at Roskilde University’s Department of Culture and Identity and RCLEAMS at HKIEd’s Department of English.
CALPIU is the Roskilde Research Center for Cultural and Linguistic Practices at the International University, funded by the Danish Council for Independent Research | Humanities, Director: Professor Bent Preisler.
RCLEAMS is the Research Centre into Language Education and Acquisition in Multilingual Societies located at the Hong Kong Institute of Education, Director: Professor Andy Kirkpatrick.
The cooperation between CALPIU and RCLEAMS covers several research projects, and of special interest is the multilingual situation of Hong Kong SAR which is different from that of Mainland China. The official slogan for Hong Kong is as expressed in the slogan 两文三語 ‘two scripts, three languages’. In written communication, both English and Chinese are found everywhere. As far as the spoken language is concerned, English is used but not nearly as much as Chinese, of which there are two forms: the local Cantonese (which has its own tradition of writing) and Standard Mandarin (Putonghua), the regional lingua franca. In university teaching, all three languages play a role and supplement each other: English, Cantonese and Putonghua. HKIEd has an explicit policy of making their students trilingual.
Since CALPIU is also interested in multilingualism - as it emerges in universities not just in Denmark, but all over the world, as a consequence of transnational staff and student mobility - it was only natural to join forces in investigating particular aspects of university multilingualism.
One project at CALPIU that cooperates with RCLEAMS is an investigation of the linguistic landscapes of multilingual universities, conducted by postdoc researcher Janus Mortensen. So far, Janus Mortensen has investigated multilingual signs at Roskilde University and Cardiff University (in Wales, UK) and he is now extending his research to the multilingual signs at HKIEd.
A large cooperative project (with further partners in Spain and Japan) has been active since 2009. Led by Senior Reader Hartmut Haberland of CALPIU and Professor David C.S. Li of RCLEAMS, it investigates the degree to which incoming transnational students, especially those who stay for more than a short period, learn the local language (Danish in Denmark and Cantonese or Putonghua in Hong Kong). Focus is on the perceived and real difficulties of acquisition and the perceived and actual need for using the local language for communication. Although the knowledge of English is widespread in both countries, there are situations where the use of English as a lingua franca will not be of much help for the international academic population. The project is about investigating what these situations are and to which extent they motivate students from abroad to learn Danish, Cantonese or Putonghua.
Senior Reader Hartmut Haberland is a Senior External Research Fellow of RCLEAMS.