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Professor Janny Leung
Professor

Professor Janny Leung

BA HKU; LLB London; MPhil, PhD Cantab; LLM Yale

Contact Information

Phone

3917-2750

Email

hiuchi@hku.hk

Profile

Dr. Leung is Professor of Linguistics. She obtained her BA in Linguistics and Translation from the University of Hong Kong, her M Phil and PhD in English and Applied Linguistics from the University of Cambridge, an LLB from the University of London, and an LLM from Yale Law School. She had been a Visiting Scholar at the Harvard Yenching Institute, Harvard University, as well as at the Faculty of Law of McGill University. She received the Outstanding Young Researcher Award from the University of Hong Kong in 2017/2018 and the Outstanding Teaching Award (Team) (as leader of the BA&LLB curriculum team) in 2018/2019. She has been an Overseas Distinguished Scholar for Central China Normal University. In 2020/2021, she was a Luce East Asia Fellow at the National Humanities Center (USA). She held RGC’s Humanities and Social Sciences Prestigious Fellowship in 2021/2022.

Broadly speaking, her research has revolved around the study of meaning. Her first line of research, developed from her doctoral work, focuses on the mapping between meaning and linguistic form in the acquisition and processing of language, using a psycholinguistic approach and a quantitative methodology. She is a founding member of the School’s Speech, Language and Cognition Laboratory.

Her second and most current line of research lies in the emergent interdisciplinary area of language and law. She has published a monograph and a series of papers on challenges, ideologies and paradoxes in multilingual legal practice. The book won the Faculty Research Output Prize in 2020. She has also written about language rights, legal interpretation, unrepresented litigation, courtroom discourse, legal translation, and representations of law in the media. Her latest work on multilingualism in digital governance is published in 2026.

Leung is an author/editor of 4 books and 50+ scholarly articles and chapters. She had served as Submissions Editor for the Yale Journal of Law and the Humanities, and as English Book Reviews Editor and International Advisory Board member for the International Journal for the Semiotics of Law. Between 2017 and 2021, she served on the Executive Committee of the International Association of Forensic Linguists.

She coordinated the BA&BEd double degree programme between 2008 and 2013, and directed the BA&LLB double degree in Law and Literary Studies between 2014 and 2020. She served as Associate Dean for Teaching and Learning in the Faculty of Arts between 2018 and 2020 and as Head of School in 2021-2022. She was Dean of the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professor of Law and Society at Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada, between 2022 and 2024.

Leung has served as an expert witness in criminal and civil cases, providing opinion on language-related matters.

Research interests

Language and the law; legal bilingualism and multilingualism; language politics and language rights; legal and political communication; law, language, and digital media; translation and interpreting; cognitive approaches to meaning and conceptual organisation; implicit learning of language.

Publications

Books

Leung, J. (2026) Digital
Multilingualism and Platform Governance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Leung, J. (2019) Shallow
Equality and Symbolic Jurisprudence in Multilingual Legal Orders. New York: Oxford University
Press.

Leung, J. and Durant, A. (Eds.) (2018) Meaning
and Power in the Language of Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Durant, A. and Leung, J. (2016) Language
and Law. Routledge.

Research Report

Ng, E., Leung, J. and Looper, K. (2021) Public Interpretation Services for Ethnic
Minorities in Hong Kong. Equal Opportunities Commission. Available at https://www.eoc.org.hk/Upload/files/research-report/20211225/Study%20Report.pdf

Special Issue

Wan, M. and Leung, J. (Eds.) (2014) The Rule of Law
and the Cultural Imaginary in (Post-)colonial East Asia. Law Text Culture. Vol. 18.

International refereed journal articles

Leung, J. (forthcoming in 2026) Taking Section 14 of the
Charter Seriously: Chronicle of a Court Interpreter Crisis in Ontario. Modern Criminal Law Review.

Leung, J. (2024) Is This Political Slogan Seditious? A
Linguistic Analysis. International Journal for the Semiotics of Law 37: 647-675. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11196-023-10042-x

Leung, J. (2023) Hurdles and Horizons of Linguistics for
Social Justice. Language in Society 52(5): 882-893. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047404523000635

Leung, J. (2022) Shortcuts and Shortfalls in Meta’s
Content Moderation Practices: A Glimpse from its Oversight Board’s First Year of Operation 1(2): 55-73.
Comparative Law and Language. https://doi.org/10.15168/cll.v1i2.2365

Leung, J. (2021) The Audience Problem in Online Speech
Crimes. Journal of International Media & Entertainment Law 9(2): 189-234. https://www.swlaw.edu/sites/default/files/2021-10/189%20LEUNG.pdf

Liu, Y. and Leung, J. (2021) Corpus Insights into the
Harmonization of Commercial Media in China: News Coverage of Migrant Worker Issues as a Case Study. Discourse,
Context & Media 41: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcm.2021.100482.

Yeung, M. and Leung, J. (2020) Litigating without speaking
legalese: the case of unrepresented litigants in Hong Kong. The International Journal of Speech, Language and
the Law 26(2): 231-256. https://doi.org/10.1558/ijsll.34404

Chan, R. and Leung, J. (2020) Why are lexical tones
difficult to learn? Insights from the incidental learning of tone-segment connections. Studies in Second
Language Acquisition. Volume 42, Issue 1, 33-59 https://doi.org/10.1017/S0272263119000482

Leung, J. (2019) Does the World Need More Canada? Legal
Multilingualism and Strategic Pluralism. Sherbrooke Law Review / Revue de droit de
l’Université de Sherbrooke. Volume 47(no. 2-3): 193-226. https://www.usherbrooke.ca/droit/fileadmin/sites/droit/documents/RDUS/volume_47/_2-3/47_2-3-Leung.pdf

Leung, J. (2019) Interpretive Violence and the
‘Nationalization’ of Hong Kong Law: Notes on the Oath-taking Controversy. Law and Literature.
Vol 31, Issue 2, 221-238. https://doi.org/10.1080/1535685X.2018.1506408

Chan, R. and Leung, J. (2018) Implicit Knowledge of
Lexical Stress Rules: Evidence from the Combined Use of Subjective and Objective Awareness Measures. Applied
Psycholinguistics 39(1): 37-66. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0142716417000376

Leung, J. (2017) Publicity Stunts, Power Play, and
Information Warfare in Mediatised Public Confessions. Law and Humanities 11(1): 82-101. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17521483.2017.1320039

Yeung, M. and Leung, J. (2017) “You have to teach
the judge what to do”: Semiotic gaps between unrepresented litigants and the common law. Semiotica
216: 363-382. https://doi.org/10.1515/sem-2015-0070

Leung, J. (2016) Negotiating Language Status in Multilingual Jurisdictions: Rhetoric and Reality.
Semiotica 209: 371-396. https://doi.org/10.1515/sem-2016-0013

Yeung, M. and Leung, J. (2015) Removing linguistic
barriers to justice: a study of official reference texts for unrepresented litigants in Hong Kong. International
Journal of the Semiotics of Law 28(1): 135-153. https://doi.org/10.1558/ijsll.v22i1.17224

Leung, J. (2015) Lay Litigation Behaviour in Postcolonial
Hong Kong Courtrooms. Language and Law / Linguagem e Direito 2(1): 32-52. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2864282

Yeung, M. and Leung, J. (2015) An empirical study of lay
comprehension of Chinese legal reference texts in Hong Kong. International Journal of Speech, Language and Law
22(1): 79-110. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11196-013-9345-6

Leung, J. and Williams, J. (2014) Cross-Linguistic Differences in Implicit Language Learning.
Studies in Second Language Acquisition 36(4): 733-755. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0272263114000333

Wan, M. and Leung, J. (2014) Introduction. Law Text Culture. Vol 18. 1-5. https://ro.uow.edu.au/ltc/vol18/iss1/2/

Leung, J. (2014) Critique of Law in a Martial Arts Thriller: the Peril of Emotions, Limits of
Rationality, and Pluralistic Laws. Law Text Culture. Vol 18. 56-81. https://ro.uow.edu.au/ltc/vol18/iss1/5/

Leung, J. (2014) The Object of Fidelity in Translating Multilingual Legislation. Semiotica
201: 223- 238. https://doi.org/10.1515/sem-2014-0026

Chan, R. and Leung, J. (2014) Implicit Learning of L2 Natural Language Stress Rules. Second
Language Research. 30(4): 463-484. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0267658313510169

Leung, J. (2013) Cross-Jurisdiction Appropriation of the Equal Authenticity Principle. Journal
of Legal Pluralism, 45(2): 209-226. https://doi.org/10.1080/07329113.2013.772463

Leung, J. (2012) Judicial Discourse in Cantonese Courtrooms in Postcolonial Hong Kong: The
Judge as a Godfather, Scholar, Educator and Scolding Parent. International Journal of Speech, Language and
Law. 19(2): 239-261. https://doi.org/10.1558/ijsll.v19i2.239

Leung, J. and Williams, J. (2012) Constraints on Implicit Learning of Grammatical Form-Meaning
Connections. Language Learning, 62(2): 634-662. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9922.2011.00637.x

Leung, J. (2012) Statutory Interpretation in Multilingual Jurisdictions: Typology and Trends.
Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 33(5): 481-495. https://doi.org/10.1080/01434632.2012.680462

Leung, J. and Wan, M. (2012) Constructing the Meaning of Obscenity: an Empirical Investigation and
an Experientialist Account. International Journal of the Semiotics of Law, 25(3): 415-43. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11196-011-9251-8

Leung, J. and Williams, J. (2011) The Implicit Learning of Mappings between Forms and
Contextually-Derived Meanings. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 33(1): 33-55. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0272263110000525

Book Chapters

Leung, J. (forthcoming) Multilingual Laws and
Jurisdictions. In Solan, L., McAuliffe K., and Moreno, J. (eds.) The Elgar Concise Encyclopedia of Law and
Language. Elgar.

Leung, J. (forthcoming in 2026) Finding Equilibrium: Five
Decades of Legal Bilingualism in Hong Kong. International Handbook of Legal
Language and Communication: From Text to Semiotics. Springer.

Leung, J. (2026) The Politics of Official Language Rights
in the Multilingual Courtroom. In Grieshofer, T. and Haworth, K. (eds.) Language
and Justice: Communication in Legal Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
186-200.

Leung, J. (2024) Phantom Justice and Orwellian Violence:
Writing Against Erasure in a Turbulent Hong Kong. In Bayeh, J., Groth, H., and Murphet, J. (eds.) Writing the Global Riot: Literature in a Time of
Crisis. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 137-152.

Leung, J. (2018) Ideology and Political Meaning in Legal Translation. In Leung, J. and Durant, A.
(Eds.) Meaning
and Power in the Language of Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 236-255.

Leung, J. (2018) Language Rights. Monika Rathert & Jacqueline Visconti (eds.) Handbook of Communication in the Legal Sphere.
Walter de Gruyter. 54-82.

Durant, A. and Leung, J. (2017) Pragmatics in legal interpretation. In Barron, A., and Gu, Y. and
Steen, G. (eds.) Routledge
Handbook of Pragmatics. Routledge. 535-549.

Leung, J. (2014) Translation Equivalence as a Legal Fiction. In Sin, KK, Wagner, A., and Cheng, L.
(eds.) The
Ashgate Handbook of Legal Translation. Ashgate. 57-69.

Xia, X. and Leung, J. (2014) L1-based prototypicality effects in L2 vocabulary learning. In
Filipović, Luna and Pütz, Martin (eds.), Multilingual
Cognition and Language Use: Processing and Typological Perspectives. John Benjamins.
287-308.

Leung, J. (2012) On the Edge of Reason: Law at the
Borderline. In Wan, M. (Ed.) Reading
The Legal Case: Cross Currents between Law and the Humanities. Routledge. 128-141.

Xia, X. and Leung, J. (2012) Category typicality effects
in foreign language acquisition: The role of L1-based typicality in L2 semantic organization. In Tizón-Couto,
D., Tizón-Couto, B., Pastor-Gómez, I. and Rodriguez-Puente, P. (eds), New Trends and Methodologies in Applied English Language
Research II: Studies in Language Variation, Meaning and Learning. Bern: Peter Lang.

Wan, M. and Leung, J. (2012) A tale of many newspapers:
perversion, criminality, and scopophilia in Hong Kong’s reportage on the Edison Chen scandal. In Wagner, A.
& Sherwin, R. K. (Eds.), Law, Culture and Visual
Studies. Springer.

Leung, J. and Williams, J. (2006) Implicit Learning of Form-Meaning Connections. In R. Sun and N.
Miyake (eds.), Proceedings of the Annual
Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 465-70. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum.