The PhD in Language, Communication and Creativity is dedicated to the interdisciplinary study of Chinese culture from social, political, economic, cultural, archaeological, historical, and philosophical perspectives. The programme is dedicated to the interdisciplinary studies of Chinese culture, with focus on a wide range of research areas, such as Chinese language, literature, history, cultural heritage studies, visual studies, museum studies, and philosophy.
 
This programme concerns the development of professional skills and intellectual inquiry in Chinese culture research, and addresses how to enhance the academic development of PhD holders in Chinese literature, history, philosophy and cultural heritage in research and teaching. It also emphasizes the development of critical thinking and research skills so as to foster advanced research, publication and teaching in the field of Chinese culture. The programme is designed to equip students with a wide range of research skills, knowledge, theoretical frameworks, and methodologies enabling them to take leading position in the academic and cultural worlds.

Students will become acquainted with the major trends in the discipline and the possible correlation to scholarship of both theories and works in the Chinese culture field at present. The programme trains students to think about Chinese language, literature, history, cultural heritage and philosophy sophisticatedly in conceptual, theoretical and methodological ways through a flexible programme.

The programme attends to the full range of interdisciplinary theory and perspective drawn from relevant domains in the language, literature, history, cultural heritage and philosophy, as well as other related professional fields, including:

• Documentology, poetry, fiction, philology, phonetics and semantics;
• Political history, urban history, religious history, medical history, cultural history, social history, and art history;
• Social sciences, anthropology, museum studies, visual studies, art and film studies.

Upon successful completion of this Programme, students should be able to:

1. Demonstrate knowledge of  academic writings including academic paper, review article and book review;

2. Apply a thorough understanding of the advanced knowledge, concepts, theories and methods in the chosen area of study;

3. Critically and creatively evaluate and analyse current research issues and new ideas in light of methodological and theoretical perspectives;

4. Create, discover, interpret and communicate new knowledge through original research;

5. Relate relevant theoretical frameworks and methodological principles to generating innovative research;

6. Conduct original research independently by using appropriate research methods.

A. Although this PhD Programme will be divided into two streams (Stream 1 the  Chinese Module and Stream 2 the English Module) and the contents of both streams are identical, it should be noted that students, by default, should enroll in Stream 2 (the English module). Students who wish to take Stream 1 (the Chinese module) will have to fulfil the “Chinese Proficiency Requirements” as stated in Part C below and the Department will consider the applications on a case by case basis.

B. Justifications to use Chinese as medium of instruction and assessment

The Department of Chinese and History will enforce and abide to the University   language policy. Applicants for our RD programme should meet the English standard for admission and are required to send in their research proposal in English. Nevertheless, besides English, they should also have advanced proficiency in Chinese (as stated below), since texts used to illustrate research methods are primarily written in Chinese and/or in classical literary Chinese. The methods and concepts related, such as the way to compile historical texts, can also only be expressed dynamically in Chinese.

In addition, considering that a significant number of distinguished professors (especially from mainland China and Taiwan) acting as guest speakers for the PhD program will prefer to use Putonghua to conduct their talks, in order to maintain academic standard and respect their scholarly decision, it is well-justified to adopt Chinese to be the medium of instruction and assessment for some courses.

C. Chinese Proficiency Requirements

Students who enrol in Stream 1 (Chinese Module) are required to hold a degree in Chinese, Chinese Literature, History, Philosophy, Archaeology or Art from any university Mainland China or Taiwan.
  
Students with qualifications from a university or comparable institution outside   Mainland China and Taiwan where the language of teaching or examination is not Chinese are required to obtain:

• Level 6 (a score of 210 or above) in the New Chinese Proficiency Test  (Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi, New) (in or after 2010), in which a score of 65 or above in the Test of Written Chinese or
• Advanced Level (score 9 or above) in the Chinese Proficiency Test (Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi) (before 2010) or
• Level 4 or above in listening, speaking, reading and writing in Test Of Chinese as a Foreign Language (TOCFL)

Other qualifications will be subject to the Department’s approval.