In addition, Chinese dialects such as Chiuchow (Chaozhou), Hakka (Kejia), and Shanghai are actively used to varying extents by members of the community, as are the familiar European languages of French, German, and Asian languages such as Japanese, Korean, Hindi, Panjabi, Tagalog, Thai, and Indonesian. Hong Kong is a multi-lingual, multi-cultural community in which Cantonese, Modern Standard Chinese, and English are the dominant languages. An important goal of our undergraduate programmes is to enable students to do this. To be able to use language well for the precise articulation of ideas in communication, we need to have a good understanding of the nature and form of this symbolic system.

At the same time, language is an intricate symbolic system for communication, consisting of an elaborate network of words that encode concepts and intentions, and a finite set of rules for forming recursive sentence structures and expressing complex meanings. It is what distinguishes us from other animal species it is what makes us human. Language is part of our biological endowment. Dual Degree Programme with Peking University (B.A.Programme in Bimodal Bilingual Studies (for senior entrants only) ( Leaflet 2022) The department of Linguistics and Modern Languages offers the following undergraduate programmes:

Best undergraduate linguistics programs