LUN, Suen Caesar

Hi, I am Caesar LUN, Lin Sun in Chinese and Leon Syun in Cantonese. I am an Associate Professor and Program Leader of MALS, MA in Language Studies. Since I was in secondary school, I have been fascinated by language reform in China (namely Romanization of the Chinese writing system, promotion of Putonghua and Modern Standard Chinese and later on in my career, standardization of terminology) and so I went to study linguistics at the University of Texas and finally obtained a PhD at HKU. My research interests are in sociolinguistics, contrastive linguistics, computer-assisted language learning (CALL) and terminology. Besides deeply involved in the daily operation of the MALS program, I have also helped in the design and promotion of Jyutping, the Cantonese Romanization scheme of the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong, To make linguistics really applicable, I spare my free time being managing director of LangComp Co. Ltd., an ex-affiliated company of CityU Enterprise I founded in July 1997.  The company aims to produce language-related educational software and provide translation and natural language processing services. I am also concerned with language policy in HK and terminology for the Chinese language and serve in the working groups of the Chinese Language Interface Advisory Committee (CLIAC) under OGCIO.   I believe language is the most important communicative and conceptual tool human beings have ever invented, and for the sake of better flow of knowledge and flow of reason, we should treasure the development and maintenance of language as our most important infrastructure in society and in government. All informed citizens should possess some knowledge of linguistics, in addition to different language systems.

• Sociolinguistics, 
• Computer-assisted language learning (CALL) 
• Terminology & Terminography 
• Contrastive Studies of English and Chinese 

 

Teaching

• Linguistics (Putonghua, English and Chinese Phonology/Phonetics; 
• English and Chinese Syntax; 
• English Semantics; 
• Contrastive Grammar of English and Chinese; 
• Language, Culture & Thought; 
• Machine Translation; 
• Lexicography; 
• Computational Lexicography; 
• Computer Aids for Translators; 
• Computer-assisted Language Learning; 
• Sociolinguistics, Research Methodology, Cantonese Linguistics, GE Cantonese Language in Use)