Hong Kong

This course examines the field of marine biology, including the fascinating diversity of marine life, their function, ecology and inter-relationships. The topics cover: a) The physical and chemical environments (e.g., light, current, atmospheric -ocean interactions, salinity, temperature, pH, dissolved oxygen, nutrients) and how these may affect the marine biota; b) Important groups of marine organisms (e.g., phytoplankton, zooplankton, benthos, nekton, marine mammals) and marine food web; c) Major marine habitats and ecosystems (e.g., intertidal, benthic, pelagic, deep sea, coral reefs, mangroves); d) Exploitation of marine biological resources (e.g., fisheries and bioactive compounds); and e) Contemporary issues (e.g. climate change, marine pollution, sustainable use of marine living resources, invasive species). 

This course examines the atmosphere, weather and climate. It covers atmospheric processes as the driving forces of weather and climate, weather systems and world climates and their classification. Illustration of weather elements and the related fundamental physical principles, as well as their applications in studying weather and climate, will be emphasized. Major concepts and principles of meteorology and climatology constitute the core of this course. Weather systems and climate will be examined from a global perspective, yet with a regional focus on Hong Kong, mainland China and East Asia.

This course examines the actors, dynamics, strategies and rules of the changing international political system, and patterns of interaction among the powers.

This course examines the intersection between energy consumption and human/corporate/economic activities. It looks at how energy is utilized; what factors are affecting energy consumption in intensity and in total; and how human behavior could be changed for energy conservation and pollution control. 

This course examines the observational aspect of astronomy (including constellations and planets), the physics of our solar system, and our own Sun, stars and their evolution, galaxies, blackholes, and cosmology.

This course examines economic analysis applied to law. Topics may include: efficiency of law, rules of liability, tort rights and remedies, criminal sanction, legislative processes as resource allocating and income distributing mechanisms. 

This course examines specific topics which vary from year to year. Generally, they can be genres, systems of representation, cultural forms, issues and/or theories related to the dynamic process of interactivity among cultures.

This course examines various types of psychological disorders falling under psychiatric nomenclature and other behavioral models. It covers theories and research concerning the origin, diagnosis and treatment of these disorders.

This course examines common patterns and common forms of communication which are found across all sectors of society as well as across cultural boundaries for communicating ideological values and constructing subjectivities and identities. Topics include different approaches to ideologies; multimodal critical discourse analysis; a social-semiotic theory of communication; semiotic resources as a system of ideological choices; evaluation of stance; discourse representations of social actors and social actions in historical and cultural contexts; modality; nominalisation and presupposition.

This course examines the phenomenon of ‘globalization’ in relation to language and communication. It looks at the constant tension between language, languages and languaging as we negotiate similarities and differences in a global setting – by examining relevant notions such as monolingualism, multilingualism (semilingualism, fake multilingualism, parallel monolingualism, multiple language ontologies), universal language, lingua franca, translation and translatability, translingualism (polylingualism, translanguaging, etc.), and exploring global issues such as the digitalization/technologization of language and literacy, language commodification, as well as the topic of global English(es).