All Affiliates
Adjunct Assistant Professor

Dr Sinead Kwok

BA, PhD HKU

Contact Information

Email

sineadsk@hku.hk

Profile

Sinéad Kwok received her PhD in language and communication at the University of Hong Kong. Her research interests lie in language philosophy, semiology and semiotics, communication theories, translation studies as well as textual studies. Having published papers in numerous journals, Sinéad’s monograph titled Translation in Signs is scheduled to be published in early 2026. She is currently the associate editor of Language and Communication and the executive editor of Empedocles: European Journal for the Philosophy of Communication. Sinéad Kwok received her PhD in language and communication at the University of Hong Kong. Her research interests lie in language philosophy, semiology and semiotics, communication theories, translation studies as well as textual studies. Having published papers in numerous journals, Sinéad’s monograph titled Translation in Signs is scheduled to be published in early 2026. She is currently the associate editor of Language and Communication and the executive editor of Empedocles: European Journal for the Philosophy of Communication.

Publications

Published
  • Kwok, S. (2026). Translation in Signs: An Integrational Approach. London & New York: Routledge.
  • Kwok, S. (2024). Navigating contemporary linguistics and textual studies: an integrational semiology of textualization. In A. Pablé & D. Duncker (Eds.), Signs in Activities. New Directions in Integrational Linguistics (pp.165-187). London & New York: Routledge.
  • Kwok, S. (2023). (Bio)semiotics and translation: an open door or a closed book to each other? In A. Biglari (Ed.), Open Semiotics Volume 3 (pp.87-102). Paris: L’Harmattan.
  • Kwok, S. (2022). Contracting, expanding and integrating translation: who and where to draw the line? Forum Linguistico, 90: 7226-7247.
  • Kwok, S. (2021). Integrationism and postcolonialism: convergences or divergences? An integrational discussion on ethnocentricity and the (post)colonial translation myth. In S. B. Makoni, D. P. Verity & A. Kaiper-Marquez (Eds.), Integrational Linguistics and Philosophy of Language in the Global South (pp.137-155). London & New York: Routledge.
  • Kwok, S. (2020a). Postcolonial translation theories and the language myth: an integrationist perspective. Language Sciences, 80(3): 101286. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langsci.2020.101286
  • Kwok, S. (2020b). The human-animal divide in communication: anthropocentric, posthuman and integrationist answers. Language and Communication, 74(1): 61-73. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langcom.2020.06.005

 

All Faculty
Dr May Wong
Lecturer

Dr May Wong

BA, MPhil HKU; PhD Lancaster; FHEA (UK)

Contact Information

Phone

3917-7281

Email

mwongly@hku.hk

Profile

May L-Y Wong is a Lecturer in the School of English at the University of Hong Kong (HKU) and a Fellow of Advance HE (UK). She holds a PhD from Lancaster University, as well as a First Class Honours Bachelor's degree and an MPhil from HKU. With over two decades of teaching experience across leading tertiary institutions, she has contributed to the School of Humanities (Linguistics) and the School of Professional and Continuing Education at HKU, as well as the Department of Linguistics and Translation at the City University of Hong Kong. Her research interests centre on interdisciplinary inquiry, particularly the intersections of language, visual and media studies, culture, and heritage. Adopting a transdisciplinary approach, she explores language and communication through the lenses of multimodality, social issues, gender, and cultural identity – particularly within Hong Kong’s dynamic media landscape. Her monograph, Multimodal Communication: A Social Semiotic Approach to Text and Image in Print and Digital Media (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), along with articles published in journals such as Semiotica, Chinese Semiotic Studies, and Asian Languages and Linguistics, investigate the city’s distinctive history and politics, and its rich, culturally diverse heritage. Her work draws on visual and verbal repertoires found in public and commercial advertising, new(s) media, museum artefacts, and Cantonese slang. She also specialises in digital humanities, employing both quantitative and qualitative methods to examine (cross-)linguistic features of Hong Kong English and English-Chinese translation. Her research appears in leading peer-reviewed journals including Linguistics, International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, Journal of Pragmatics, and Languages in Contrast, as well as in her monograph Hong Kong English: Exploring Lexicogrammar and Discourse from a Corpus-Linguistic Perspective (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017). Most recently, she completed the Professional Certificate in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education from HKU’s Teaching and Learning Innovation Centre and successfully obtained Communication-Intensive (CI) badging for her undergraduate modules Language and Advertising and New Englishes.

Research expertise

corpus linguistics; cognitive linguistics; discourse analysis; multimodality; social semiotics; translation studies; World Englishes (with particular reference to Hong Kong English).

Publications

Representative publications

Books

Wong, May. 2019. Multimodal communication: a social semiotic approach to text and image in print and digital media. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Wong, May. 2017. Hong Kong English: exploring lexicogrammar and discourse from a corpus-linguistic perspective. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Wong, May L-Y. 2013. Adverbial clauses in Mandarin Chinese: a corpus-based study. Bern, Switzerland: Peter Lang.

Chapters in edited volumes

Luke, Kang Kwong, & Wong, May L-Y. 2015. The Hong Kong Cantonese Corpus: design and uses. Linguistic corpus and corpus linguistics in the Chinese context (Journal of Chinese Linguistics Monograph Series, 25), ed. Benjamin Tsou and Oi Yee Kwong, 312-333. Berkeley, CA: The University of California.

Wong, May L-Y. 2012. Hong Kong English. The Mouton World Atlas of Variation in English, ed. Bernd Kortmann and Kerstin Lunkenheimer, 548-561. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

Wong, May L-Y. 2011. Hong Kong English. The electronic world atlas of varieties of English [eWAVE], ed. Bernd Kortmann and Kerstin Lunkenheimer. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. Available online at http://www.ewave-atlas.org/.

Journal articles

Wong, May L-Y. 2022. The statue of Bruce Lee in the Hong Kong Heritage Museum: a multimodal social semiotic study of Chinese nationalism and masculinity. Chinese Semiotic Studies 18(4): 633-651.

Wong, May L-Y. 2022. Multimodality in Hong Kong government posters 1950s – 1980s: an appraisal analysis and the discursive construction of legitimation. Semiotica 2022 (246): 249-273.

Wong, May L-Y. 2021. Conceptual blending and slang expressions in Hong Kong Cantonese. Studies in Chinese Linguistics 42 (1): 97-120.

Wong, May L-Y. 2020. Mechanisms of semantic change: the case of Cantonese slang. Asian Languages and Linguistics 1 (2): 253-279.

Wong, May L-Y. 2019. Recontextualising cultural heritage and identity through three-dimensional spaces: the case of Hong Kong Maritime Museum. The International Journal of the Inclusive Museum 12 (2): 27-46.

Wong, May L-Y. 2018. Analysing visual imagery: connecting semiotic and cognitive perspectives. Cognitive Semantics 4 (1): 39-75.

Wong, May L-Y. 2017. Analysing discursive representations of aggression of social actors in political protests: combining corpus and cognitive approaches to discourse analysis. Journal of Aggression, Conflict and Peace Research 9 (3): 178-194.

Wong, May L-Y. 2014. Verb-preposition constructions in Hong Kong English: a cognitive semantic account. Linguistics 52 (3): 603-635.

Wong, May L-Y. 2012. Corpus linguistics and cognitive linguistics: a convergence of basic assumptions. International Journal of Cognitive Linguistics 3 (1): 43-68.

Wong, May L-Y. 2010. Hong Kong’s New Senior Secondary (NSS) English language curriculum: perspectives from corpus linguistics. Hong Kong Journal of Applied Linguistics 12 (2): 1-24.

Wong, May L-Y. 2010. “There are many ways to translate it”: Existential constructions in English-Chinese translation. Languages in Contrast 10 (1): 29-53.

Wong, May L-Y. 2010. Expressions of gratitude by Hong Kong speakers of English: Research from the International Corpus of English in Hong Kong (ICE-HK). Journal of Pragmatics 42 (5): 1243-1257.

Wong, May L-Y. 2009. Committee, staff, council, etc.: A corpus analysis of collective nouns in Hong Kong English. Asian Englishes 12 (1): 4-19.

Wong, May L-Y. 2009. Gei constructions in Mandarin Chinese and bei constructions in Cantonese: A corpus-driven contrastive study. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 14 (1): 60-80.

Wong, May L-Y. 2007. Tag questions in Hong Kong English: A corpus-based study. Asian Englishes 10 (1): 44-61.

Wong, May L-Y. 2006. Corpora and intuition: A study of Mandarin Chinese adverbial clauses and subjecthood. Corpora: Corpus-based Language Learning, Language Processing and Linguistics 1 (2): 187-216.

Book reviews

Wong, May L-Y. 2010. Review of Richard Xiao and Tony McEnery, Corpus-based contrastive studies of English and Chinese. Chinese Language and Discourse 1 (2): 329-334.

Wong, May L-Y. 2009. Review of Stig Johansson, Seeing through multilingual corpora: on the use of corpora in contrastive studies. Target: International Journal on Translation Studies 21 (1): 160-163.

Wong, May L-Y. 2006. Review of Tony McEnery, Richard Xiao and Yukio Tono, Corpus-based language studies: an advanced resource book. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 11 (4): 506-509.