Stephen Chan, Thomas Hun-tak Lee, Gladys Tang, Kin-yuen Wong, Virginia Yip
Department of English, CUHK
February 21, 1997
Contents
1. Introduction
2. The academic disciplines and sub-disciplines housed at the English Department
3. The aims of the English Department
3.1 The aims of the undergraduate programme
3.2 The aims of the postgraduate programme
4. The curriculum
4.1 The undergraduate curriculum at the English Department, CUHK
4.2 The postgraduate curriculum at the English Department, CUHK
4.3 The English curriculum at Brown University
4.4 The English curriculum at Duke University
5. Debunking the myths
1. Introduction
Of late, there have been numerous intense debates within the English Department of the Chinese University (hereafter referred to as "The English Department") about the nature and scope of its academic programmes. The debates have come up in postgraduate admission and thesis matters, and in discussions of faculty research, recruitment, resource allocation, and departmental restructuring.
In our view, some of these debates reflect genuine differences in intellectual and ideological orientation which are part of the normal discourse of any academic department. On the other hand, other debates have stemmed from anachronistic and fallacious beliefs about the proper role of the English department in a multilingual Asian community like Hong Kong. They have also arisen from a narrowly literal interpretation of the name of the department, as well as a failure to clearly separate the postgraduate curriculum from the undergraduate curriculum.
Examples of what we consider to be fallacious beliefs, which may at first glance appear to make sense to the non-specialist, include: (a) students come to the English Department of CUHK mainly to learn English; (b) taxpayers expect the English Department of CUHK to focus on English studies, and not on areas such as Comparative Literature or General Linguistics; (c) a shift of emphasis to more novel domains of inquiry such as cultural studies or local languages will lead to a decline in students’ language proficiency. As we will show below, none of these assumptions hold up to critical scrutiny, and they should be abandoned on rational grounds.
Ideological positions based on these fallacies have led to some colleagues in the department advocating a policing’ role. Suggestions have been made, for example, to remove from a department bulletin board posters promoting an international conference on Chinese linguistics, or to require that new staff recruits declare a so-called commitment’ to English, or to rule it unacceptable for a guest lecture on the history of English to be given in Putonghua, or to screen out postgraduate research proposals with a comparative focus bearing the word 'Chinese', or to dictate that the content of Special Topics courses whose aims are primarily theoretical include 'purely English' texts. These practices run directly counter to the spirit of intellectual freedom. They have contaminated the atmosphere of the department, disrupted the flow of its creative energies, and eroded the core consensus in the department necessary for its normal functioning.
In the light of the present confusion about the aims of the department that have been pursued actively since the early 1980’s, we find ourselves obliged to reiterate the main themes of the department’s philosophy. We take this opportunity to elaborate on what we think an English department in Hong Kong, especially one in an institution like CUHK with its particular clusters of strengths, can contribute, as it moves into the twenty first century. This paper addresses what we see as (a) the aims of the English Department; (b) the scope and content of its teaching and research programmes, at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels; (c) the relationship between the name of the department and its academic content. In our discussion, we will draw from the content of the programmes of two prestigious English departments in the US to evaluate our own activities in a broader perspective.
2. The academic disciplines and sub-disciplines housed at the English Department
A department can be understood as a set of formal institutional mechanisms and curricular frameworks. It is a plain historical fact that these mechanisms and frameworks can change drastically over time as a result of shifts in intellectual paradigms in the academic disciplines they encompass. The curricular of the same department in two different historical periods may bear little resemblance to each other. One only needs to look at the popular introductory textbooks of any discipline (be it biology, psychology, linguistics, history, or literature) over several decades to be convinced of this.
It is also a linguistic truism that the content of the academic programmes of a department cannot be predicted simply from the name of the department. As the Princeton philosopher Saul Kripke has taught us, the denotation of a proper name is not fixed by its sense. It follows therefore that there is no way one can predict, let alone circumscribe, the activities of a department merely on the basis of the meaning of its title, which is a proper name. We know that a department of Business Management often hires, besides specialists in management, experts in economic theory, finance, and operations research; a department of Urban Planning may have, alongside experts in urban planning, political theorists and philosophers; a department of English may have not only specialists in English studies, but also academics devoted to world literature, film, media studies, linguistics, semiotics, and feminist criticism. This kind of indeterminacy of the disciplinary scope of academic departments is a natural outgrowth of the cross-disciplinary nature of many new branches of knowledge. In our view, these perpetual redefinitions of the content and boundaries of academic departments should be welcome as a positive impetus to the development of higher learning and not suppressed with paranoia and hostility. Departments, we emphasize, are often conglomorates of disciplines covering diverse concentrations, whose inclusion under the same administrative structure is justified as long as a sound intellectual argument can be given for it. As Hong Kong moves into the twenty first century and a post- colonial era, it would seem imperative that we be critical and forward-looking in rethinking academic programme structures, and not be delimited by traditional disciplinary and departmental boundaries that may have emerged from unwarranted assumptions.
In the case of a humanities and social science discipline, it also stands to reason to assume that the particular tasks a department sets for itself should reflect sensitivity to the history, tradition and cultural resources of the local community. The particular departmental demarcations one draws should also take into account the research strengths the particular university has and the constraints it works under. In the end, the true measure of the success of a department lies in the original contributions it makes to scholarship and to education. If it fails to tap the native resources of the students and faculty, or fails to encourage them to exploit this potential, it will have denied itself an invaluable avenue for making genuine contributions to international scholarship.
Given our above discussion, it should be no surprise that the English Department at CUHK is not exclusively concerned with English Studies. The department is host to Literature and Linguistics, each of which subdivides into several sub-disciplines. Literature colleagues specialize in English Studies, Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies. Linguistics colleagues focus on General (Theoretical) Linguistics and Applied Linguistics. Each sub- discipline subsumes a variety of intellectual orientations.
In Linguistics, for example, the areas of specialization range from very practical studies such as English language teaching to theoretical concerns such as the study of Universal Grammar. Some colleagues focus on English per se, whereas other colleagues adopt a cross-linguistic perspective on language study, and see Linguistics as a cognitive science. The latter colleagues adopt the position that if the study of language is inherently comparative, it would be a flaw to attach conceptual significance to labels such as 'English linguistics' or 'Chinese linguistics'- just as it does not make sense to have a field called 'English chemistry' or 'Chinese chemistry'.
In Literature, our curriculum ranges from the study of historical periods, genres and canonical texts in the English tradition to literary theory, comparative literature, other literatures in English, and cultural studies. At least half of the courses we offer to our undergraduate students are therefore comparative in perspective, and this does not simply mean the direct comparison of two works of literature. By offering courses such as Major Concepts in World Literature, Literature and Religion, Literature and Film, and Other Literatures in English, we ensure that our students will be sensitive to the contributions made to world literature by the humanist tradition of Western culture, put in the light of some of the major alternatives found in the non-Western cultures. In our case, efforts made in the latter field have typically included pioneering research in Chinese-Western comparative literary studies, post-colonial studies of the late twentieth century, as well as the critical reconsideration of the linguistic and cultural phenomena of Hong Kong in the context of historical and interdisciplinary analyses.
The department is therefore a conglomorate of disciplines each of which could form the basis of a single department. In many major universities (for example, Brown University, cf. Table 8 below), there are the Department of English, Department of Comparative Literature, and the Department of Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences. At The University of Hong Kong, a Department of English Studies and Comparative Literature had existed for a long time until the early 1990s, when a separate Department of Comparative Literature was set up to focus on the study of Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies. At CUHK, for historical reasons, there are no departments of Linguistics or Comparative Literature. These disciplines have been housed in the English Department together with English Literature since the department’s early years. In universities where there is no department of Linguistics or Comparative Literature/ Cultural Studies, it is common to have courses in these two areas offered in the English department (for example, Duke University, cf. Tables 10 and 11).
3. The aims of the English Department
3.1 The aims of the undergraduate programme
We take the following to be the aims of the English Department as far as the undergraduate programme is concerned. These aims, formulated a number of years ago when the university shifted into a credit-unit system, constitute, in our view, the common ground shared by most colleagues. This body of operating principles was agreed on after many hours of discussion among colleagues who hold diverse perspectives on the function of an English Department at a university in Hong Kong. We consider these educational objectives to be the most appropriate for the department in its present mixed structure. However, we see no reason why these goals should not be radically modified in future if the department should be restructured and new programmes set up.
(a) to enhance the English language proficiency of the students to the extent that they can
articulate their ideas and feelings in English with some degree of sophistication;
(b) to enable students to develop a sensitivity toward the complexities of language structure
and use, as well as a sensitivity toward East-West literary and cultural perspectives, in the
context of a bilingual and bicultural community like Hong Kong;
(c) to help students acquire a basic understanding of the characteristic properties of
language, literature and culture through studies of the English language and English-
language texts in a critical and comparative context.
It is clear to most colleagues that while we help undergraduates improve their command of English through the freshman writing programme, and through exposure to literature and linguistics, the enhancing of English proficiency is only one of a number of goals of the department at the undergraduate level. It is not, and should not be, the exclusive concern of an academic department.
As educators of undergraduate students, we attach importance not only to the improvement of English proficiency of our undergraduates. We attach equal, if not greater importance, to the ability of our students to engage in critical thinking, to function competently in a complex multilingual community in language and culture, and to demonstrate explicit knowledge of the structure of English and other languages they are in command of, as well as an appreciation of literary form, literary creativity and cultural sensitivity, in the comparative context of Chinese/Western tradition and modernity. We see it as a complete failure of our education if the undergraduates we train are merely proficient in English but deficient in critical thinking, or in bilingual or bicultural competence.
3.2 The aims of the postgraduate programme
At the postgraduate level, the aims of the department are to enable research students to make original contributions to English Studies, Comparative Literature, Cultural Studies, General (Theoretical) Linguistics and Applied Linguistics. The extent to which students can make such intellectual contributions depends considerably on the scholarly expertise of the department. We see no need at all to restrict the activities of postgraduate research either in terms of linguistic, literary or cultural data. Imposing such straitjackets cannot in our view be justified on intellectual grounds and can only be detrimental to the research productivity of the department. The University has long recognized the value of the comparative studies in Literature or Linguistics that have been the focus of research of most colleagues in the English Department. These studies draw heavily on indigenous data (see Table 6 below). It would be difficult to justify a policy which permits staff to do research in these areas but creates all sorts of obstacles for students wanting to do the same.
At the postgraduate level, we attach importance to truly original thinking on the part of our students and the vast store of potential they can tap in their own intuitions about language and culture. We encourage students to try out new approaches and domains. We would consider it a pedagogical fiasco if our master’s and doctoral students fail to relate their research to their own cultural experience and cultural history, turn out theses which have no original insights and for this reason are ignored completely by other scholars in the field.
As scholars in their areas of expertise, the primary contribution of colleagues to the department lies in their original research in the specialist areas, and not necessarily in research on the enhancing of language proficiency. After all, the latter purpose has been well served by the English Language Teaching Unit.
The English proficiency of postgraduate students has not been, and should not be, an issue of concern in their research agenda. The enhancing of English proficiency is NOT a goal of the postgraduate programme and is academically irrelevant to it.
4. The curriculum
The aims of the department are achieved through its curriculum and its research activities. In this section, we first present the latest curriculum of the English Department at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels. As will be seen, they cover the cluster of disciplines of English Studies, Comparative Literature, Cultural Studies, Theoretical Linguistics and Applied Linguistics. Then we will examine the courses offered by the English departments of Brown University and Duke University to evaluate our programme from a broader perspective.
4.1 The undergraduate curriculum at the English Department, CUHK
In the undergraduate curriculum, it can be seen that students are provided with a foundational training in writing and rhetorical skills (the courses on WALL [Writing About Language and Literature]. In literature, there is a concentration of courses in English Literature, as well as a variety of elective courses in Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies. The linguistics component offers a range of courses on English and on theories of language structure, language use, and language acquisition. Exemplification is done primarily through English data.
Table 1: Undergraduate Courses, The Department of English, CUHK
ENG 1310 Writing I: Exploration and Discovery ENG 1320 Writing II: Patterns of Organization ENG 1330 Writing III: Strategies for the Essay ENG 1340 Research and Seminar Skills ENG 1350 Advanced Communicative Skills ENG 1500 Aspects of Language Study ENG 1510 Phonetics and Phonology ENG 1520 Grammatical Structure of English ENG 1610 Introduction to Literature ENG 1620 Literature and Ideas I : From the Classical World to the Renaissance ENG 1630 Literature and Ideas II: From Enlightenment to Modernism ENG 2300 Drama: From the Jacobean Period to the Restoration ENG 2310 Drama: From Ibsen to the Present ENG 2320 Fiction: The Realist Novel ENG 2330 Fiction: The Modern Novel ENG 2340 Poetry: From the Renaissance to the Augustan Age ENG 2350 Poetry: From the Romantics to the Modernists ENG 2500 Shakespeare ENG 2800 Phonological Theory ENG 2810 Syntax ENG 2820 Semantics ENG 2840 Lexical Studies in English ENG 3000 Issues in Comparative Literature ENG 3100 Major Author(s) ENG 3110 Romanticism ENG 3120 Modernism ENG 3130 Issues in Literary Criticism ENG 3140 Topics in East/West Comparative Literature ENG 3150 Linguistic Approaches to Literature ENG 3160 Major Concepts in American Literature ENG 3170 Major Concepts in European Literature ENG 3180 Major Concepts in World Literature ENG 3190 Literature and Culture ENG 3200 Literature and Art ENG 3210 Literature and Religion ENG 3220 Literature and Film ENG 3230 Gender and Literature ENG 3240 Special Topics in Literature ENG 3250 Other Literatures in English ENG 3260 Creative Writing ENG 3600 Contrastive Linguistics ENG 3610 Language Production and Comprehension ENG 3620 Language Acquisition ENG 3630 Language, Culture and Society ENG 3640 Language Teaching and Learning ENG 3650 Special Topics in Applied Linguistics ENG 3660 Special Topics in Theoretical Linguistics ENG 3670 Discourse Analysis ENG 3680 History of the English Language ENG 3700 Independent Research Essay4.2 The postgraduate curriculum at the English Department, CUHK
The MPhil curriculum in Literary Studies offers the courses shown in Table 2:
Table 2: Postgraduate Courses in Literary Studies, Dept of English, CUHK
(A) Foundation Courses: Seminar in Literary Studies I Seminar in Literary Studies II (B) Advanced Courses: Special Topic(s) in Generic Studies Special Topic(s) in Literary History Special Topic(s) in Critical StudiesThe MPhil curriculum in General/Applied Linguistics offers the courses shown in Table 3:
Table 3: Postgraduate Courses in General/Applied Linguistics, Dept of English, CUHK
(i) ENG5010 Foundations in General Linguistics ENG5020 Foundations in Applied Linguistics (ii) ENG5050 Topics in Phonetics and Phonology ENG5060 Topics in Syntax and Semantics ENG5410 Topics in Psycholinguistics ENG5420 Topics in Sociolinguistics ENG5430 Topics in Language Acquisition ENG5440 Topics in Contrastive Linguistics ENG5510 Topics in Curriculum Design and Materials Preparation ENG5520 Topics in Evaluation and Testing ENG5530 Topics in Second Language Classroom Research ENG5600 Special Topics (iii) ENG5540 Seminar on Research MethodsHistorically, the emphasis of postgraduate research in literary studies has been on Chinese- Western Comparative Literature, our programme being the first in Hong Kong to focus on this field of research. The emphasis of postgraduate research in linguistics has been on language learning and comparative linguistic analysis.This can be reflected from three indicators: the titles of MPhil and PhD theses; recent staff publications; and external peer- reviewed grants awarded to staff in the department, as shown in Tables 4 through 6.
Table 4: MPhil and PhD Theses Completed at the Department of English, CUHK
LITERATURE Ph.D. Theses 1996 The Crisis of the Body and Chinese Modernity: A Trans-contextual Study of the Self-fashioning in Modern Chinese Poetry, 1920-1945. 1995 Art, New Culture, and Women: The Reception of the Pre- Raphaelites in China. 1994 The Historical Formation of Romantic Egotism: Sensibility, Radicalism, and the Reception of Wordsworths and Coleridges Early Poetry. 1993 Reading (as) the Other: Hermeneutics, Marginality and Chinese-Western Comparative Discourse. M.Phil. Theses 1996 The Survival of Love in Pinters Drama of Hostility. 1996 A Genre of Longing and Hope: Idea of the Child and Childrens Literature in Hong Kong. 1996 Plurality of Identity and Culture: The Wanderer Motif in Contemporary Chinese and Chinese-American Writings. 1995 From Public Sphere to Interpretative Citizenship: Chang Ta-chun and the Ideal of Communicative Praxis. 1995 Space of Exalted Repression and Complicitous Resistance: Approaching the Postmodern Hyperspace and Cyberspace through Fantasy. 1995 Betrayal in Contemporary British Drama: Harold Pinter, Tom Stoppard and Peter Nichols. 1994 The Female Self in Contemporary Chinese Fiction. 1994 Female Initiation in Modern Chinese Fiction. 1994 The Uses of Sam Hui -- An Investigation of the Formation of Cultural Identity in Hong Kong. 1994 Female Identity in Virginia Woolf and Wang Anyi. 1993 The Hermeneutic Turn of Translation: Illustrated with Tang Poetry. 1993 Adequacy of Landscape: Subjectivity in Wallace Stevens and Wang Wei's Poetry. 1991 Reviewing the Tamkang Review: Some Theoretical and Methodological Issues in the Development of East-West Comparative Literature Studies. 1991 Imagination in Sino-Western Comparative Perspectives. 1990 A Comparative Study of Teahouse. 1990 A Comparative Study of the Mother Archetype in Death in Chicago and A Passage to India. 1990 Between Realist and Allegorical Discourse: A Comparative Study of Han Shaogong's Fiction. 1990 Metaphorical Process in Sikong Tu's Shipin. 1990 Theory, Institution and Text: Feminism and Critical Strategies. 1990 Zheng and Oi in Chinese and English Fictions. 1989 The Chinese Short Story of l917-1927: Patterns of Influence. 1988 Metamorphosis in the Chinese Narrative: A Comparative Study. 1987 A Semiotic Study of the Chinese Theatre. 1987 A Study of Lu-shih as an Aesthetic Form in the Chinese Lyrical Tradition. 1987 Love in Yuan Za-ju: A Comparative Psychological Study. 1986 Hsu Chih-mo's Indebtedness to Katherine Mansfield. 1986 Plot in Ling Mengchu's Short Stories in the Light of Aristotelian and Neo-Aristotelian Criticism. 1986 The Organic Aesthetics of Liu Hsieh and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. 1986 The Tale of the White Serpent: An Archetypal View. 1985 Mao Dun's Interpretation of Western Literary Realism. 1985 The Diversiveness in Hongloumeng: A Comparative Study of Narrating Techniques East and West. 1984 Su Man-shu and Lord George Byron, A Question of Influence: Their Literary Relationship re-assessed. 1984 The Theme of Exile in the Li Sao: A Comparative View. 1983 Heterocosm and Ching-chieh: Towards a Concept of Interiority for the Literary Work of Art. 1983 The Journey's End: Return in Four Novels. 1983 Wan-kao: A Study on a Chinese Genre in the Perspective of Western Genre Theory.Table 5: MPhil and PhD Theses Completed at the Department of English, CUHK
LINGUISTICS Ph.D. Theses 1995 Semantic Structure Theory and L2 Learning of English Adjectival Participles. M.Phil. and M.A. Theses 1996 Acquisition of Finiteness in Verb Complementation by Cantonese ESL Learners. 1995 A Sociolinguistic Study of Code-mixing of Hong Kong. 1995 Analyzed Linguistic Knowledge, Cognitive Control, Working Memory, Intelligence and Reading in Chinese and English. 1995 A Study of the Validity of the HKCE English (B) Paper III. 1995 Task Motivation in Language Learning --- A Comparative Study among Chinese Learners of English in the Mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan. 1995 The Middle Construction in English and Chinese. 1995 The Lexical Semantics of Motion Verbs. 1994 A Study on the Morphological Aspects of the Verb-Complement Compounds in Chinese. 1994 Cultural Schemata and ESL Reading in Secondary School Students of Hong Kong. 1994 Triggering the Unlearning of Null Arguments: The Null Argument Parameters in the ILS of Chinese L2 Learners of English. 1993 Program Design for Adult Chinese Immigrants Learning English as a Second Language. 1992 Code-mixing in Hong Kong Cantonese-English Bilinguals: Constraints and Processes. 1991 The Acquisition of the English Dative by Chinese ESL Learners. 1991 The Acquisition of English Passive Structure by Chinese ESL Learners. 1991 The Acquisition of English Word Stress by Cantonese ESL Learners. 1991 Cultural Schemata in ESL/EFL Reading Comprehension: a Developmental Perspective. 1990 Second Language Classroom Research: A Developmental Perspective of Teachers' Error Correction Behaviour in an Anglo-Chinese Secondary School's Classroom in Hong Kong. 1989 The Development and Use of English Modal Auxiliaries in Chinese EFL Learners. 1989 The Effect of Grammatical Instruction on the Acquisition of English as a Second Language. 1989 Attitudes and Motivation in the Learning of English by Chinese EFL Students at the Tertiary Level. 1987 A Critical Evaluation of the Language Plan Proposed in the Education Commission Report (1984): A Language Planning Perspective. 1986 An Investigation of the Patterns of Learning English Interrogative Structures by EFL Learners in China. 1986 Reading in General English and in ESP by Chinese Readers: Students' Comprehension Difficulties and Implications for Classroom Teaching. 1986 Cognition and Comprehension: A Study of the Need for Incorporation of Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives in English as a Second Language Remedial Reading Programmes. 1986 A Comparison of the Effects of Reading Aloud and Silent Reading on Comprehension among Chinese EFL Learners. 1986 Accuracy and Fluency: A Comparison of Native and Non-native Evaluation of Compositions written by EFL Learners in China. 1986 An Investigation of the Transitional Patterns in the Learning of English Negation by EFL Learners in China. 1986 An Analysis of the Communicative Functions of the Revised English Syllabuses for Hong Kong Schools. 1986 The Effects of Mode on Syntactic and Rhetorical Complexity for EFL Students at Three Grade Levels. 1985 A Diary Study of Teaching EFL Through English and Through English and Chinese to Early Secondary School Students in Remedial English Classrooms. 1985 The Effects of Sociocultural and Psychological Factors Upon Second Language Learning in a Bilingual Community. 1984 Reference as A Cohesive Tie in Chinese and English Narrative Discourse: A Contrastive Study. 1984 An Investigation of Learning Strategies in Oral Communication That Chinese EFL Learners in China Employ. 1983 To Play or Not to Play: A Study of the Attitudes of English Language Teachers and Students in Hong Kong Towards Language Games. 1979 The Unstressed Syllable in English and Mandarin: A Contrastive Study.Table 6: Representative Publications of the Staff of The English Department, CUHK
Boyle, Joseph P.
1. Intelligence, reasoning and language proficiency. The Modern Language
Journal, 71, 3:277-88. 1987.
2. English Language Testing in Hong Kong. (Eds. Joseph Boyle and Peter
Falvey). 1994:366 Hong Kong: Chinese University Press.
3. Hong Kong's educational system: English or Chinese? Language, Culture
and Curriculum, 8,3:291-304. 1995.
Chan, Stephen Ching-Kiu
1. "Future Un-Imagined." Hong Kong Cultural Studies Bulletin 4 (Winter
1995): 20-26.
2. "Split China, or the Historical / Imaginary: For a Theory of the
Displacement of Subjectivity at the Margins of Modernity." In
Politics, Ideology and Literary Discourse in Modern China: Theoretical
Interventions and Cultural Critique. Ed. Kang Liu and Xiaobing Tang.
Durham: Duke Univ. Pr., 1993. 70-101.
3. "The language of Despair: Ideological Representations of the 'New
Women' by May-Fourth Intellectuals." Modern Chinese Literature 4:1-2
(1988): 19-38. Collected in Gender Politics in Modern China: Writing
and Feminisim. Ed. Tani E. Barlow. Durham: Duke Univ. Pr., 1993.
13-32.
Ching, Mimi Yuet-may
1. " ‘O ribald company’: Reflections on Ezra Pound’s Reflections," in
Proceedings of the Sixth Quadrennial International Comparative
Literature Conference. Tamkang Review 22.1-4 (1991-92): 107-123.
2. "From Priest to Victim: Sacrifice in Allen Upward and Ezra Pound," in
Paideuma 24.1 (1995): 53-69.
3. "Literature and Death: Sacrifice in the Life and Works of Allen
Upward," Special Session on "Literature and Life: Fact and Fiction,
"Annual College English Association Meeting, Orlando, Florida, April
7-9, 1994.
Crisp, Peter
Publications: include articles on metaphor, narrative theory, philosophy of
literature, Ezra Pound’s religious concepts and particularly their Chinese
dimension, and Chinese and Western millenarianism.
Deeney, John
Books on comparative literature from Chinese perspectives and (in Chinese)
new orientations in comparative literature as well as numerous articles on
Chinese-Western comparative topics and work as founder editor of the
Chinese/International Comparative Literature Bulletin
Fu, Baoning
1. 'On the representation of tone.' Toronto Working Papers in Linguistics
2. 'An acoustic analysis of consonant reduction in two speaking modes.'
(co-author) Toronto Working Papers in Linguistics
3. 'Tone space and tone features.' Northwest Conference in Linguistics
11, University of Victoria
4. 'Against the features [Upper] and [Raised].' Toronto Working Papers in
Linguistics
Gleckman, Jason G.
Forthcoming in the fields of early modern studies and Renaissance literature.
Gu, Yang
1. "Aspect Licensing, Verb Movement, and Feature Checking," Cahiers de
Linguistique Asie Orientale, France, 1995. 2, 49-83.
2. "Causativity & the Feature Checking Mechanism: From a Minimalist
Perspective," (in press) Studia Lingua Sericae, City University of
Hong Kong Press (1996).
3. "On the Locative Existential Construction in Chinese," in Proceedings
of the Tenth West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics, D. Bates
ed., Stanford University, USA, pp. 183-195. (1992)
Ho, Louise Siu-wan
1. "Shakespeare and Possibilities of Comparison: Notes on Ideas of
Order," in Studies in Chinese-Western Comparative Drama (Ed. Y.T.Luk).
Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 1990:177-184.
2. "Fragmented Eliot and Henry Moore's Weak Midriff," in Visions of
Beauty, Tokyo, 1994.
3. Local Habitation, (a book of poems) Hong Kong: Twilight Books [in
conjunction with Department of Comparative Literature, Hong Kong
University], 1994.
Hung, Joseph Hin-wai
1. Hung, H.W.J. & Senf, M.M. (1992) "Improving oral English in the Hong
Kong context: the camp approach," in New Horizons 33.
2. Hung, H.W.J. (1996) "An innovative approach to high school EFL teacher
education and development in Taiwan," in the Twelfth Annual ROC TEFL
Conference Proceedings. Taipei: The Crane Publishers.
3. Hung, H.W.J. & Hu, J-M (1993) "On the teaching and learning of English
in Guangdong Province (China): Past, present and future." In J-M Hu
(ed.) Essays on English Teaching Methodology. Guangdong Education
Press.
Lee, Thomas Hun-tak
1. "Linearity as a Scope Principle for Chinese: the Evidence from First
Language Acquisition" in Bridges Between Psychology and Linguistics,
(Ed. D. Napoli and J. Kegl) Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1993:
183-206.
2. "The Learnability of Locality Conditions on Quantification," in Papers
on Analytic Philosophy and Philosophy of Language, (Ed. S.H. Liu, H.H.
Ho, T.M. Li, P. K. Chou, and Y.M. Fung) [New Asia Monograph Series No.
10] Hong Kong: New Asia College , The Chinese University of Hong Kong,
1993: 283-309.
3. "Theoretical issues in language development and Chinese child
language," in New Horizons in Chinese Linguistics. (Ed. James C-T
Huang and Audrey Li) Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1996: 293-356.
Luk, Thomas Yun-tong
1. "Chinese Theatricalism and Modern Drama," Comparative Literature
Studies, Vol. 24, No. 3, 1987.
2. Chinese-Western Comparative Drama, ed., Hong Kong: The Chinese
University of Hong Kong, 1990.
3. Chinese-Western Comparative Studies, ed., with Xia Xieshi, Beijing:
Chinese Dramatic Publishing, Co., 1989.
4. Film and Literature. Taiwan: The Chinese Cultural University Press,
1984.
Parkin, Andrew T.L.
1. Publications: include numerous books, articles, and editing Canadian
Journal of Irish Studies (1976-89). Recent books include: The Herne’s
Egg by W.B. Yeats (Irish Dramatic Texts series). Washington, D.C.:
Catholic University of America Pres s, 1991.
2. File on Nichols. London: Methuen, 1993.
3. From the Bluest Part of the Harbour [Anthology of H.K. Chinese Poems
trans. into English, with Introduction by Andrew Parkin and Linda
Wong.] Hong Kong and London: Oxford University Press, 1995.
Tam, John Kwok-kan
1. "Hou wuxi huaiyi zhuyi yu Zhongguo xiandai wenxue de xiandaixing,"
["Post-May Fourth Skepticism and the Modernity of Modern Chinese
Literature"] in Xiandai yu duoyuan [Modernity and Pluralism]. (Ed.
Chou Ying-hsiung). Taipei: Dongda tushu gongshi , 1996: 155-170.
2. "Cong Bahedin de fengci wenlei lilun kan Wang Suo de Laizi renwu yu
laizi wenhua" [Bakhtin's theory of satire as a literary genre and Wang
Suo's picaresque heroes"] in Zhong guo xiandai wenxue yu zhiwo [Modern
Chinese literature and the self] . (Ed. Chen Bingliang.) Hong Kong:
Lingnan College, 1995: 164-83.
3. "Self-identity and the Problematic of Chinese Modernity," in The
Humanities Bulletin 4 (Dec 1995): 57-64.
Tang, Gladys Wai-lan
1. 'Linguistics Engineering in Hong Kong Schools: an Ecological
Approach,' (co-authored with K. Johnson), Journal of Asia Pacific
Communication, Vol. 4, No. 1, Multilingual Matters, Ltd.
2. 'Language Testing and Second Language Acquisition,' (co-authored with
A. Pollitt), Boyle J. and Falvey, P. (eds) English Language Testing in
Hong Kong, Chinese University Press, 1994.
3. 'Subject Orientation in the Chinese Reflexive "ziji",' (co-authored
with Gu Yang), Theoretical Explorations in Chinese Linguistics,
Linguistics Society of Hong Kong. (To appear)
Weiss, Timothy
1. On the Margins: The Art of Exile in V. S. Naipaul. Amherst, MA: The
University of Massachusetts Press, 1992. 276 pages.
2. "Naipaul's Fin-de-Sicle: A Reading of The Enigma of Arrival and A Way
in the World," in ARIEL: A Review of International English Literature
July 1996, 15 pages.
3. "Translation in a Borderless World," in Technical Communication Quarterly 5.1 (1995): 401-427.
Wilcoxon, Hardy
Include essays on language and literature teaching
Wong, Kin-yuen
1. "From Modernism to Critical Education Theories: Towards a Theoretical
Paradigm for internisation of Higher Education," in Modernity and
Pluralism (Ed. Chou Ying-hsiung). Taipei: Dongda Tushu gongshi, 1996.
2. "Hermenuetics and Translation" in An Encyclopaedia of Translation:
Chinese-English, English-Chinese. Hong Kong: The Chinese University
Press, 1995.
3. "Preliminary Notes on Cyberian Subculture in Hong Kong," presented at
"Workshop on Media & Society in Contemporary Hong Kong" at Harvard
University, June 1995.
Yip, Virginia Choy-yin
1. "Consciousness-raising and Learnability," in Perspectives on
Pedagogical Grammar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
2. Matthews, S. & Yip, V. Cantonese: a Comprehensive Grammar. London:
Routledge, 1994.
3. Interlanguage and Learnability: from Chinese to English. Amsterdam:
John Benjamins, 1995.
Yuan, Heh-hsiang
Include books on literary theory and comparative aspects of literature,
with numerous articles on problems and issues in the comparative context of
Western-Chinese studies. Society in Contemporary Hong Kong at Harvard
University, June 1995.
Zhang, Benzi
1. "Japanese-American Literature," in New Immigrant Literatures in the
United States. (Ed. Alpana S. Knippling) Westport, CT: Greenwood
Press, 1996: 125-141.
2. "Paradox of Origin(ality): John Barth's 'Menelaiad'," in Studies in
Short Fiction 32 (1995): 199-208.
3. "Paradox of Chinese Boxes: Textual Heterarchy in Postmodern
Fiction,"Canadian Review of Comparative Literature 20 (1993): 89-103.
Table 7: Peer-reviewed External Grants Awarded to Staff of
The Department of English, CUHK
CHAN, Stephen "Hong Kong Cultural Studies" 1994-97 (UGC Central Allocation Grant) "Culture, Media and the Public" 1992-94 (RGC Earmarked Grant) "New Cultural Imaginaries" 1996-98 (Rockefeller Foundation Arts & Humanities (Grant) HUNG, Joseph "The Creation of a Computer-based Corpus of Spoken and Written English" 1991-94 (RGC Earmarked Grant) LEE, Thomas Hun-tak "The Development of Grammatical Competence in Cantonese-speaking children" 1991-94 (RGC Earmarked Grant) "The Acquisition of Modality by Cantonese-speaking children" 1996 (RGC Earmarked Grant) "Parametric Variation in Three Chinese Dialects" 1996-98 (RGC Earmarked Grant) "The Acquisition of Focus Particles in Cantonese" 1997-98 (RGC Earmarked Grant) PARKIN, Andrew "The Poetry of the Pacific Rim" 1994-96 (RGC Earmarked Grant). TANG, Gladys "The Development of Grammatical Competence in the Formal ESL Learning Environment," 1992-95 (RGC Earmarked Grant) "A Study of Sign Language Varieties in Hong Kong," 1994-96 (RGC Earmarked Grant) YIP, Virginia "Studies in the comparative grammar of Cantonese and English" 1992-1996 (RGC Earmarked Grant) "Development of Grammatical Competence in the Formal ESL Learning Environment" 1993-1996 (RGC Earmarked Grant) "The Development of Bilingual Competence in Hong Kong Children" 1994-1997 (RGC Earmarked Grant) "The Min Dialect of Chaozhou: Comparative Chinese Dialectal Grammar" 1996-1999 (RGC Earmarked Grant)We should emphasize that the undergraduate and postgraduate course offerings listed above in no way deviate from the aims and scope of an English department, given the understanding of the function of an academic department outlined above. They are fully compatible with the kinds of courses offered at major universities abroad. Let us examine the courses offered by the English departments of two major American universities: Brown University and Duke University. The former is a prestigious Ivy League school, while the latter has in recent years become one of the ten most competitive undergraduate and graduate schools in the United States, and has a renowned English department.
4.3 The English curriculum at Brown University
The courses offered by the English department of Brown University in 1996-97 can be found in Table 8:
Table 8: Brown University, Undergraduate Courses, English Dept (1996-97)
BC/0146 Doctor as Subject, the Doctor as Author
CO/0141 Chinese Opera: Aesthetics and Politics of the Performing Body
CO/0171 Introduction to Literary Translation
CO/0265 Theory of Literature
EL/0001 Reading, Writing, Thinking
EL/0004 Writing in Context
EL/0005 Writing and Style
EL/0006 Workshop in Playwriting I
EL/0007 Workshop in Fiction Writing I
EL/0008 Workshop in Poetry Writing I
EL/0009 Journalistic Writing and the Media
EL/0010 Workshop in Fiction Writing II
EL/0011 Workshop in Poetry Writing II
EL/0012 Workshop in Playwriting II
EL/0013 Writing and Persuasion
EL/0015 Dead Heroines
EL/0017 Special Topics in Literature
EL/0019 Hypertext Fiction
EL/0025 Ethnic Studies
EL/0027 Postcolonial Studies
EL/0031 Survey of English Literature: I
EL/0032 Survey of English Literature: II
EL/0033 American Literature Survey: I
EL/0034 American Literature Survey: II
EL/0035 African American Literature Survey: I
EL/0036 African American Literature Survey: II
EL/0037 Afrian-American Autobiography
EL/0040 Special Topics Seminars
EL/0043 English Literature, Beginnings to 1600
EL/0049 Introduction to Shakespeare
EL/0061 British Literatur of the Romantic Period
EL/0073 Studies in the Victorian Period
EL/0087 James Joyce
EL/0100 Advanced Fiction Writing
EL/0101 Advanced Poetry Writing
EL/0102 Advanced Playwriting
EL/0105 Independent Study in Creative Writing
EL/0106 Independent Study in Expository Writing
EL/0107 Independent Study in Literature
EL/0111 Theorizing Gender and Sexuality
EL/0115 Studies in Sexuality
EL/0117 Postmodern Asian American Literature
EL/0121 Gender Studies
EL/0122 Seminar in Gender Studies
EL/0123 Special Topics
EL/0124 The Poetry Wars at the End of the Century
EL/0127 Structure & History of English Language
EL/0129 Chaucer
EL/0131 Studies in Middle English Literature
EL/0132 Seminar in Middle English Literature
EL/0135 Shakespeare
EL/0136 Senior Seminar in Shakespeare
EL/0137 Studies in the Renaissance
EL/0143 Studies in Restoration/Early 18th Cent
EL/0145 Studies in the Later Eighteenth Century
EL/0147 Studies in Eighteenth-Century Fiction
EL/0149 Studies in the Romantic Period
EL/0150 Seminar in the British Romantic Period
EL/0151 Studies in American Literature
EL/0153 Studies in British/American Literature
EL/0155 The Contemporary African American Novel
EL/0156 Race in African-American Literature and Film
EL/0159 Stdies American Literature,Pre-Civil War
EL/0160 Seminar in American Lit, Pre-Civil War
EL/0163 American Poetry I:Puritans thru 19th C.
EL/0165 Studies 19th Century British Literature
EL/0169 Studies in 19th-Cent British/Americn Lit
EL/0175 American Poetry II
EL/0179 Modernism(s)
EL/0183 British and American Drama to WW II
EL/0188 The Fragment
EL/0189 Contemporary British and American Drama
EL/0191 Contemp British and American Literature
EL/0192 Seminr in Contemporary Britsh/Amercn Lit
EL/0193 Contemporary British and American Poetry
EL/0195 Seminar in the Teaching of Writing
EL/0197 Senior Honors Thesis
EL/0200 Graduate Workshop in Fiction Writing
EL/0201 Graduate Workshop in Poetry Writing
EL/0202 Graduate Workshop in Playwriting
EL/0205 Independent Study in Creative Writing
EL/0206 Independent Study in Literature
EL/0207 Indpndnt Study in Lit for Doctoral Cand
EL/0210 English Studies Seminar
EL/0219 Advanced Critical Theory
EL/0221 Studies in Sexuality
EL/0225 Postcolonial Studies
EL/0231 Structure & History of the English Lang
EL/0234 Topics in Old English Literature
EL/0235 Chaucer
EL/0237 Studies in Middle English Literature
EL/0243 Studies in the Renaissance
EL/0251 Studies in the Eighteenth-Century
EL/0259 Studies in American Literature
EL/0261 Studies in African American Literature
EL/0265 Studies in American Lit, Pre-Civil War
EL/0269 Nineteenth-Century British Literature
EL/0271 Studies in the Victorian Period
EL/0285 Studies in 20th Cent Brit/Amer Lit-WWII
EL/0289 Preliminary Examination Preparation
EL/0295 Seminar in the Teaching of Writing
EL/0299 Thesis Preparation
EL/S004 Writing in Context (Pre-College Program)
EL/S005 Writing and Style (Pre-College Program)
EL/S007 Beginning Fiction Writing
EL/S011 Journalism and the Media (Pre-College Program)
EL/S015 Science as Writing, Scientists as Writers
EL/S024 Autobiographical Writing
EL/S040 The 19th-Century British Novel and the Gothic (Pre-College
Program)
EL/S175 Shakespeare: A Survey of Major Plays
JS/0198 Advanced Seminar In Judaic Studies
MC/0090 Romantic Literature: Writing/Eng Society
MC/0120 The Best Seller and/as Literature
MC/0150 Representing Modernity: Texts of the Modern City
TA/0006 Workshop In Playwriting - I
TA/0012 Workshop In Playwriting II
TA/0042 Special Topic Seminars
TA/0102 Advanced Playwriting
TA/0123 A History Of European Theatre I
TA/0124 A History Of European Theatre II
TA/0128 Topics In Theatre Studies
TA/0142 Feminism And Drama
TA/0144 Sem: Sel Figures in Theatre & Drama
TA/0145 Studies in Sexuality
TA/0188 Contemporary British And American Drama
A number of observations can be made about the courses in comparison to our own
curriculum. First of all, the courses include reading and writing, as well as traditional topics
such as Shakespeare, Renaissance literature, and courses on British and American poetry,
fiction, and drama. Secondly, the curriculum includes a large number of courses on race
and ethnic studies, gender and sexuality, hypertext fiction, as well as topics in modernity
and postcolonialism, courses which could well have been introduced by related departments
such as sociology, anthropology or women’s studies. Third, the courses offered in
Linguistics are minimal: in fact just one course: the Structure and History of the English
Language. The reason for this is obvious: Brown University has a reputable department of
Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences, which offers the courses listed in Table 9.
Table 9: Brown University, Undergraduate Courses, Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences Dept (1996-97)
CG/0001 Approaches To The Mind:Intro To Cog Sci
CG/0009 Quantitative Methods In Psychology
CG/0022 Introduction To Linguistic Theory
CG/0032 The Biology and Evolution of Language
CG/0045 Language And The Mind
CG/0046 Perception, Illusion and the Visual Art
CG/0050 Making Decisions
CG/0063 Children's Thinking: Cognitive Develop
CG/0077 Vision: From Brain to Behavior
CG/0087 Language in Africa
CG/0102 Neural Modeling Laboratory
CG/0111 Introduction To Semantics
CG/0121 Introduction to Phonological Theory
CG/0123 Production,Perception,Analysis of Speech
CG/0129 Understanding The Brain
CG/0131 Introduction to Syntax
CG/0138 Ecological Approach to Percptn & Action
CG/0141 Language Processing
CG/0143 Child Language Acquisition
CG/0144 Topics in Language Acquisition
CG/0148 Language and the Brain
CG/0150 Subcortical Brain Bases of Lang & Thght
CG/0152 Introduction to Human Cognition
CG/0153 Laboratory in Cognitive Processes
CG/0162 Cognitive Development
CG/0167 Advanced Quantitative Methods
CG/0170 Introduction To Computational Linguistic
CG/0195 Senior Seminar in Cognitive Science
CG/0198 Independent Study
CG/0200 Pro-Seminar In Cognitive Science
CG/0201 Research in Cognitive Science
CG/0202 Research in Cognitive Science
CG/0205 Practicum In Teaching
CG/0220 Core Topics In Cognitive Science
CG/0233 Seminar In Cognitive Science
CG/0289 Preliminary Examination Preparation
CG/0291 Topics in Speech Processing
CG/0299 Thesis Preparation
PY/0152 Human Information Processing & Cognition
PY/0153 Laboratory in Cognitive Processes
PY/0162 Cognitive Development
PY/0206 Experimental Design
PY/0233 Grad Seminar: Perception/Cognition/Lang
It should be clear that many of the linguistics courses we offer in the English department at
CUHK, e.g. Introduction to Linguistics, Syntax and Semantics, Language Acquistion,
Language Comprehension and Production, are offered in a different administrative setup at
Brown University because of the existence of a separate department involving Linguistics.
This only goes to show that each department should define its own sphere of activities
taking into account its strengths and limitations. There is nothing wrong with offering a
course on Jewish Culture and Literature, or a course on Syntactic Theory, or a course on
Sexuality in the English department, as long as one can offer ample justification for the
inclusion on intellectual and educational grounds. One should note that Brown University
found it appropriate to offer courses on Literary Translation and Chinese opera in its
English programme presumably in light of their relevance to general literary and aesthetic
theory.
4.4 The English curriculum at Duke University
When we turn to the English programme of Duke University shown in Table 10, we see an even greater disciplinary diversity in the spread of its courses. The English Department of Duke offers undergraduate courses in the five areas of Writing and Language; Introduction to Literature; British Literature; American Literature; Genre, Criticism, and World Literature; and Cultural Studies.
Table 10: Duke University, Undergraduate Courses, English Dept 1996-97
WRITING AND LANGUAGE 27S. Studies in Nonliterary Topics. 29. Composition and Language. 48A, S. Focus Program Seminar on Writing or Language. 49A, S. First-Year Seminar on Writing or Language. 63S. Introduction to Creative Writing. 100A, S. Writing: Fiction. 100B, S. Writing: Drama. 100C, S. Writing: Poetry. 102S. Screenwriting. 103S, 104S. Writing: Short Stories. 105S, 106S. The Writing of Poetry. 107S. Dramatic Writing. 108S. Advanced Dramatic Writing. 109S. Special Topics in Writing. 110S. Writing: Longer Prose Narrative. 111. Introduction to Linguistics. 112. English Historical Linguistics. 114. Languages of th World 115. Present-Day English. 116A. Scientific Writing. 117A, S. Advanced Composition I. 117B, S. Advanced Composition II. 118S. The Teaching of Composition, Grammar, and Literature in Secondary School. 119. Current Topics in Linguistics. 202S. Narrative Writing. 203S. Advanced Narrative Writing. 205. Semiotics and Linguistics. 206. Semiotics and Culture. 208. History of the English Language. 209. Present-Day English. 290. Methods of Composition Pedagogy. INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURE 20. Literature and Composition. 21S. Studies in the Novel. 22S. Studies in Drama. 23S. Studies in the Short Story. 24S. Studies in Poetry. 25S. Studies in the Epic. 26S. Studies in Special Topics. 48B, S. Focus Program Seminar on Literature. 49B, S. First-Year Seminar on Literature. 50S. American Literature Walkabout. 51, 52. Representative American Writers. 90. Reading Critically: Poetry, Fiction, Drama. 90S. Reading Critically: Poetry, Fiction, Drama.. 91. Reading Critically: Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Pope. 92. British Literature 1750-1950. 94. The Theater. BRITISH LITERATURE 121. Introduction to Medieval Literature. 123. English Literature: 1600 to 1660. 125. English Literature of the Romantic Period. 126. English Literature: 1832 to 1900. 127. British Literature: 1900 to 1945. 128. Special Topics in British Literature Since 1945. 129A, S. The Comedies of Shakespeare. 129B, S. The Tragedies of Shakespeare. 130. Shakespeare and the Theater. 131. Studies in a Single British Author. 132B. Atmosphere and Mystery in Twentieth-Century English Fiction. 132C, S. Topics in Renaissance British Literature 132E, S. Nineteenth-Century British Literature. 132G, S. Twentieth-Century British Literature. 133. British Drama: Wilde to the Present. 135. British Poetry of the Twentieth Century. 136. Eighteenth-Century British Novel. 137. Nineteenth-Century British Novel. 138. Twentieth-Century British Novel. 139S. Special Topics in British Literature. Major Authors: 140, 141. Chaucer. 143, 144. Shakespeare. 145. Milton. 207A. Introduction to Old English. 207B. Old English Literature. 212. Middle English Literature: 1100 to 1500. 213/214. Chaucer. 220. Shakespeare. 221. Renaissance Prose and Poetry: 1500 to 1660. 225. Renaissance Drama: 1500 to 1642. 235. Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Literature: 1660 to 1800. 241. Romantic Literature: 1790 to 1830. 245. Victorian Literature: 1830 to 1900. 251. British Literature since 1900. AMERICAN LITERATURE 151. American Literature to 1820. 152. American Literature: 1820 to 1860. 153. American Literature: 1860 to 1915. 154. American Literature: 1915 to 1960. 155. Contemporary American Writers. 159. Modern Southern Writers. 161. Studies in a Single American Author. 163. Twentieth-Century American Poetry. 65. Studies in an Individual African American Author. 166. African American Literary Genres. 167. Special Topics in Contemporary Black Literatures. 168S. Seminar in African American Literary Studies. 169S. Special Topics in American Literature. 263. American Literature to 1865. 267. American Literature: 1865 to 1915. 269. American Women Writers. 275. American Literature since 1915. GENRE, CRITICISM, AND WORLD LITERATURE 170. Studies in Genre. 172. Literary Theory. 174A. Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century English and European Drama. 174B. European Drama: Ibsen to the Present. 175. Literary Approaches to the Bible. 176A. Special Topics in Drama in England. 176B, S. Theater in London: Text. 176C, S. Theater in London: Performance. 177. Third World and Postcolonial Fiction. 178. Literature and the Other Arts. 179S. Special Topics in a Literary Genre. 180. Writings in the Rural Tradition: From the Caribbean to the American South. 184. Literature and Sexualities. 186A, S. Canadian Literature in English. 186B, S. Canadian Theater. 281. Studies in Genre. 285. Major Texts in the History of Literary Criticism. 289. The Theory of the Novel. CULTURAL STUDIES 28S. Studies in Film and Video. 101A. Introduction to Film. 101B. Introduction to Cultural Studies. 101D, D. Perspectives in Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Studies. 120. Advertising and Society. 156. History of Mass Culture in the U.S. 157, 158. American Literature and Culture 181. Psychoanalysis, Literature, and Film. 182. American Film Genres. 183S. Film and Video Theory and Practice. 185. Studies in Film History. 187. Melodrama and Soap Opera. 188. Narrative Film and the Novel. 189S. Special Topics in Film. 190. Television, Technology, and Culture. 284. Contemporary Film Theory.As in the English curriculum of Brown University, the English programme at Duke includes an integral core of courses on writing skills, and British and American Literature. It is apparent, though, that the array of courses offered at Duke goes far beyond what is included in a traditional English department. It encompasses courses on literary theory and comparative literature. It also includes courses on sexuality, film and video, psychoanalysis, advertising and mass culture, all of which can come under other departments such as psychology, and media and communication studies. While the Linguistics offerings in the English department are limited, it should be noted that they cover topics such as semiotics as well as languages of the world, going again beyond the confines of English.
The graduate courses of the English department at Duke University (see Table 11) further illustrate this flexibility and fluidity in subject matter offered within an English department. The seminar topics range from Christianity, to power, aesthetics, sexuality, postcolonialism, and epistemology.
Table 11: Duke University, Graduate Courses, English Dept 1996-97
African American Autobiography Karla Holloway Theories of the Image Raul Ruiz Representing Christ's Humanity: Literature, Devotion, Politics in England David Aers Rhetoric and Power in Western Culture Stanley Fish Postcolonial Literature and Theory Michael Valdez Moses New World African Literature George Elliott Clarke Wordsworth's Prelude Robert Gleckner Modernism: Histories and Case Studies Marianna Torgovnick American Studies/Cultural Studies: A Preprofessional Workshop Cathy Davidson Transgression and Redemption; or, Romancing the Martyr in American Literature Thomas Ferraro Yeats, Joyce, Beckett Frank Lentricchia, Michael Valdez Moses From Mystery Plays to the Reformation and Commercial Theater Sarah Beckwith Ethics, Faith, and Communities in English Writing from 1350-1450 David Aers The Problem of Modernity Nahum Chandler Pedagogy of Composition Van Hillard History and Sexuality in Renaissance Contexts Jonathan Goldberg Readings in Aesthetic Theory Between Kant and Hegel Thomas Pfau Shakespeare and Co.: New Developments Joseph Porter Nineteenth-Century British Fiction Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick Twentieth Century Reconceptions of Knowledge and Science Barbara Hernstein Smith Advanced Narrative Writing Reynolds Price5. Debunking the myths
Having clarified the goals and content of the academic and research activities of the English Department of CUHK, and reviewed the English curricular of Brown University and Duke University, we are in a position to expose the fallacies that have been raised in criticisms of the current direction of the department. We do not fully understand the parochial attitude often accompanying these criticisms, but would submit that shortsightedness, inertia and a reluctance to change with new developments in the fields of Literature and Linguistics may be underlying factors contributing to these attitudes.
Fallacy #1: Students come to the English Department of CUHK mainly to learn English.
This is a fallacy because it underestimates the significance of the faculty members of the department as scholars in Literature and Linguistics, whose research concentrations are documented in detail in Table 6. Undergraduate students may be attracted to the English Department partly to upgrade their English proficiency, but this is clearly not their sole objective. The undergraduate programme brochure of the English Department makes it very clear that the emphasis of the programme is on Literature and Linguistics (see Table 1 above). Undergraduates English majors fully understand that they need a relatively high level of English in order to survive in the programme, and that mastery of the language serves merely as a tool for exploring the subject matter of Literature and Linguistics. As for postgraduate students, none that we have been acquainted with came to the English Department to improve their proficiency in the language. Rather, they enrolled in the department because of the expertise and reputation of colleagues in English Studies, Comparative literature and Linguistics. At the postgraduate level, the appeal of the department lies entirely in the research expertise it offers to students.
It should be observed that we are in increasingly keen competition with other tertiary institutions for good undergraduate students, who are aware that an advanced and balanced language proficiency in both English and Chinese will have to be combined with specialist expertise to get them anywhere. We are also competing with related departments in other institutions for quality postgraduate students. The fallacy just described is based on the unfounded assumption that students do not attach importance to the specialist knowledge they will acquire from the study of linguistics, literature and culture. The false conception can mis-orient our admissions policy, turn away quality students who may otherwise be attracted to the English Department, and hurt the overall development of the department in the long term.
Fallacy # 2: Taxpayers expect the English Department of CUHK to focus on English studies, and not on areas such as Cultural Studies or General Linguistics; it would be morally irresponsible not to devote primary attention to English in one’s research.
As we tried to explain at great length in the preceding discussion, it is a perfectly normal state of affairs for colleagues in the department of English to come from a variety of disciplines and sub-disciplines. A layman unfamiliar with the complexities of new intellectual developments may wonder about rumours that 'a Chinese curriculum' had been secretly implanted in the English Department. To this kind of doubt, we reply that, as teachers of undergraduates, we make every effort to ensure that the aims of undergraduate programme are followed, emphasizing English language training as well as the illustration of literary and linguistic concepts with the help of English data. As researchers in the respective fields, the crucial measure of achievement lies in our original contributions to these fields. The RGC assessment exercise has made it very clear that what counts is not how the department does in the eyes of the layman in the street or the taxpayer, but how the department performs in the eyes of fellow professionals. To the extent that we have fulfilled this role successfully, whether we are working on English Studies, Comparative Literature, Theoretical or Applied Linguistics, we have accomplished our duties as academics affiliated with the English Department of CUHK. The question of how we relate to the taxpayer simply does not arise. We find this argument absurd, since by the same token, we can attribute immorality to a theoretical economist in a Business Management department, or a political theorist in an Urban Planning department, or a statistician in a Public Health department, on grounds that their research does not reflect the name of the department or their 'commitment' to its cause is suspect. After all, the moral duty of academics is to be at the frontier, to lead and to add to new knowledge. Waiting to be instructed by the pedestrian on the daily duties they should perform would seem to us the last thing academics should worry about.
Fallacy # 3: A shift of emphasis to more non-canonical domains of inquiry such as comparative literature, cultural studies or the linguistic properties of local languages will undermine the goal of the English department; specifically, since non-English texts may be involved in these areas of study, this may lead to a decline in students’ English proficiency.
In connection with this fallacious assumption, we observe that first of all, English figures prominently in the studies of these areas in the English curriculum at CUHK. All past theses under comparative studies of literature, culture and linguistics, have involved a substantial body of texts in English, only that they are sometimes grouped under categories of poetics, literary and linguistic theories, or conceptual labels such as feminism and postcolonialism (see Tables 4 and 5).
Second, we argue that it is perfectly legitimate to depart from the canonical domains and methods of inquiry in an English Department. In comparative studies of language, if one considers the discipline a cognitive science, and is concerned with general theory, it would be futile and intellectually stifling to limit oneself just to English. The study of local languages such as Cantonese or Mandarin is thus fully compatible with the aims and scope of the English Department. In comparative studies of literature and culture, recent research has precisely called into question the existence of a Western canon. In other words, one may study Shakespeare in an English curriculum, but not necessarily as the epitome of English greatness, but also equally as a symptom of colonial values.
In Chapter 25 of the UGC Report on "Higher Education in Hong Kong" released in November of 1996, it is stated that on top of gearing students for the market, universities should also train them for "an overall development of the powers of the mind, flexible and innovative approaches to the problems of both work and leisure, skill in communication and with others, learning to participate in a community, and an appreciation of both one’s own and different cultures." We would submit that courses such as comparative studies of language, literature and culture precisely aim at enabling our students to develop the above powers and skills. Instead of setting students adrift from English per se, these courses redirect our effort for a better understanding of what "Englishness" can mean to them. The comparative study of language helps students understand not only properties of English, but also deep and universal properties of language that distinguish it from other communication systems. Comparative studies of literature allow students to discover that English has a contingent rather than necessary relation to English literature, and gain awareness of a new sense of social function in English studies, especially in the (post)-colonial context of Hong Kong. Cultural studies provide a creative base for students to approach the changes and problems of their social world through renewed examinations of different forms of cultural production (verbal, visual and aural). All these focussed studies of language, literature and culture serve to enhance and diversify, rather than impoverish or narrow, the cultural life and social consciousness of our students.
Third, we argue that reading theoretical texts in English about culture and postcolonial theory, or about the structure of languages other than English, in no way reduces the students’ opportunity to enhance their proficiency. As far as improving our students’ English communication skills is concerned, we simply cannot agree that teaching, say, Raymond Williams’ writings on culture and criticism is in any way less efficient than teaching the canon of English literature. There is absolutely no logical ground for the claim that Shakespeare or Milton provides the best material for students’ language enhancement. This kind of assumption has long been abandoned by specialists in the Teaching of English as a Second Language.
Fourthly, it is equally fallacious to assume that some exposure to non-English texts will weaken students’ command of English. For those of us who have an active command of more than one of the languages in use in Hong Kong, mediating between the various languages is a fact of daily communication. The fallacious assumption that in a multilingual community like Hong Kong, using more than one linguistic code will hamper one's English proficiency is mere folk belief, as one cannot find a single shred of research evidence in support of it.
In demolishing the above myths, we must add that we find it disappointing that certain colleagues in the department subscribe to popular myths about language use so willingly and uncritically. We also deplore some of the suggestions that have been made with these fallacious assumptions as underlying support, especially those which insist on the requirement that one should vow to 'commit' oneself to 'English' in the Department of English. This kind of argument may make perfect sense to an uninformed layman unfamiliar with the history and role of the academia. To us, it reflects nothing more than disciplinary inertia and a lack of understanding of contemporary scholarship.
We would also observe that we find it an anomaly that these same colleagues who voice complaints about English proficiency do not express the same degree of concern about the intellectual growth and critical consciousness of our students, given the fact that our department is NOT concerned exclusively with language improvement. We are of the view that there are more important aspects of education in the English Department that are worthy of concern. Are we satisfied with the ability of our students to critically evaluate texts? Do they have adequate knowledge of different literary genres, or of various literary and cultural functions in the modern world upon graduation? Do they know enough about English grammar and phonology or how English differs from Chinese when they leave us? Do they show intellectual curiosity? All these questions are relevant to evaluation of the success of our educational programmes, and should receive just as much attention as the question of English proficiency, or the prescription of a hegemonic 'English' training.
In a complex multi-lingual and multi-cultural society like Hong Kong, the future of the English Department hinges on its success in imparting to students a coherent body of knowledge which allows them to innovatively respond to the challenges of a new post- colonial era marked by 1997. We as educators should not simply respond passively to the needs’ of the market. Rather, we should explore the frontiers of our disciplines and spearhead changes, with an explicit conception of the role of the English department in the specific social and cultural contexts that CUHK finds itself in, as well as an understanding of the way education promotes cultural change in general.