On 12 October 2026, PolyU CPCE’s Division of Languages and Communication organised an online talk entitled “A Phonological Kaleidoscope: A Multidimensional Exploration of Chinese Opera, Art, Geography, Ethnicity, Climate, Human Origins, Philosophy, History and Culture”, attracting around 60 students from PolyU HKCC’s Associate in Language and Culture, PolyU SPEED’s BA (Hons) in Chinese Language and Culture, and PolyU SPEED’s MA in Applied Chinese with Language Technologies programmes.
The talk was delivered by phonetics expert Prof. Zhu Xiaonong, who currently serves as Distinguished Professor at Jiangsu Normal University and Visiting Professor at Yunnan Minzu University. Through a multidisciplinary exploration of language and phonetics, Prof. Zhu examined the relationships between sound and meaning, linguistic typology, the origins of language and humankind, language evolution, and the influence of ethnic and geographical differences on linguistic development. He also highlighted the contributions of phonetics to philosophical inquiry and emerging paradigms in phonetic research.
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