Professor Zhu Hua conferred as Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences
She is one of 65 academics, practitioners and policymakers who have been recognised by the Academy of Social Sciences for their substantial contribution and leadership in the social sciences.
Zhu Hua, Professor of Applied Linguistics and Communication at Birkbeck, has been conferred as a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences.
She is one of 65 academics, practitioners and policymakers who have been recognised by the Academy of Social Sciences for their substantial contribution and leadership in the social sciences.
The author of 14 books and special issues, as well as dozens of book chapters and journal articles, Zhu is a prolific researcher. Her main research interests span across multilingualism, intercultural communication and child language. She studied Chinese pragmatics and speech acts and published a number of articles on topics such as gift-offering and acceptance and business negotiation in her early career.
For her PhD, Zhu studied speech and language development and disorders of Putonghua-acquiring children, including normally developing children, children with speech and language delay and disorders, hearing impaired children and twins. This work led to the development of the notion of Phonological Saliency which she used to account for cross-linguistic similarities and differences in early sound acquisition.
She has led a number of large research projects including an ESRC-funded project on Family Language Policy, a GCRF project funded by Academy of Medical Sciences on speech and language assessment and an AHRC-funded project on Translation and Translanguaging.
She said: “I am honoured to be awarded a fellowship of the Academy of Social Sciences. As an applied linguist and interculturalist, the recognition is an acknowledgement of the importance of multilingualism and intercultural communication to society and the role of language and communication in building a new inclusive world order. I am delighted that the fellowship gives me further opportunity to champion the work of the department, the university and the British Association for Applied Linguistics.”
Further Information
- Professor Zhu Hua
- Department of Applied Linguistics and Communication
- Courses in Applied Linguistics and Communication