This award is first offered as an encouragement to young scholars who wish to devote themselves to a career in Teaching Chinese as a Second Language, a field in which Dr. Sun Dejin was especially interested in, and to which he has made numerous important contributions. The award is an annual prize in the amount of US$200, donated by the founding members of IFOLCE. On the recommendation of the review committee after reviewing all the SYSTA submissions, a maximum of three finalists will be invited to present their papers in the special SYSTA session at the forum. Two nights of local lodging will be provided for these three finalists (one recipient for each paper) by the organizer free of charge; the finalists must notify the organizer of their travel plan in a timely manner as required.
(1) Eligibility
    Age: The applicant must be 45 years of age (or younger) in the year of the forum.
    Degree: Applicants are not required to hold a PhD. However, for those who do, the degree must have been awarded no more than six years prior to the year of the forum.
(2) Applicants must submit an abstract of their thesis before January 31, 2026. Those whose abstracts are shortlisted as finalists will be asked to submit a full paper by March 15, 2026. The full paper must be no more than 20 pages (single-spaced) in length and formatted in APA, MLA, or LSA style or the styles of other Chinese core academic journals in Chinese linguistics or language acquisition. The following should be written as the first line of the paper: “Submission for the Sun Dejin Young Scholar Thesis Award”. Submitted papers must be original works that have not been published elsewhere. Priority will be given to applicants who have not received this award before. A maximum of three finalists will be anonymously reviewed and selected by the review committee, and the thesis must be presented at the special session of the annual forum.