Dr Gail Forey Associate Professor, Department of English,
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Forey has been involved in the study of workplace English for many years. The Effective Writing for Management Project (EWM) October 1994 to September 1995, at the University of Bristol, UK (Davies et al., 1999), the Communication in the Workplace Project (CPW), September 1995 to June 1996, directed by David Nunan at the University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong (Nunan and Forey, 1996; Forey and Nunan, 2002:205). She completed her PhD in 2002 by applying a SFL model of analysis to workplace written texts (Forey, 1999; Forey, 2002, 2004). Forey has also been involved in studies related to spoken workplace discourse (Forey et al., 1999; Forey and Hood, 2004; Hood and Forey, 2005).
For further information and research related interests,
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Dr Jane Lockwood Associate Professor, Department of English, Deputy Head, English Language Centre,
City University of Hong Kong
Dr. Jane Lockwood heads up the English Language Centre at City University where she also holds a concurrent position as Associate Professor in the Department of English. While she was working in the Philippines from 2003-2005, she founded FuturePerfect Business English Specialists in Manila which provides consultancy, training and assessment support services to the call centre industry. Her involvement in this business processing outsourcing (BPO) industry now revolves around research and publications since returning to Hong Kong in 2005, and she frequently delivers conference papers related to this industry.
Jane’s PhD investigated the workplace English language curriculum and evaluation needs of Hong Kong worksites and she is an active researcher in professional communication needs in a number of industries. She publishes locally and internationally in the area of English for Specific Purpose (ESP) curriculum and assessment development in workplace and professional contexts.
She has published locally and internationally in the area of ESP in workplace contexts.
Mr Tony Bruno Managing Director, LimeBridge Hong Kong
General manager, PCCW Teleservices
Bruno owns and operates an Asian consulting practice, specialising in contact centre strategy and operations. He has extensive knowledge of issues affecting contact centre operations including resource management, quality and productivity management and contact centre technology. He has consulted with major Hong Kong and Asian Corporations including PCCW, Cathay Pacific, HSBC, Manulife, Citic Pacific and CTM. He also runs executive training programmes, in association with the Hong Kong Productivity Council, for personnel involved in the Contact Centre Industry.
Dr Susan Hood Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Education, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia
Dr Hood's research and teaching work focus on systemic functional linguistics and their application in academia and the classroom. Dr Hood's PhD investigates interpersonal meaning and would be able to offer great insight in to the analyses of interpersonal meaning in call centre discourse.
Chair Prof. Kingsley Bolton Head of Department, Department of English,
City University of Hong Kong
Prof. Bolton has published books and articles on sociolinguistics in the Asian region and English across Asia. He is the founding editor of the Hong Kong University Press book series, Asian Englishes Today, and co-editor of the Routledge book series The History and Development of World Englishes.
Prof. Alan Davies Emeritus Professor & Honorary Fellow, Edinburgh University, U.K.
Prof. Davies has taught English and Applied Linguistics in the UK, Kenya, Nepal, Hong Kong and Australia. He has served as President of the British Association of Applied Linguistics, Secretary-General of AILA and President of the International Language Testing Association, which awarded him its first Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003. He has also served as Editor of the journals Applied Linguistics and Language Testing.
Dr Christina DeCoursey Lecturer, Department of English, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Dr. Christina DeCoursey teaches drama and language learning, among other subjects. She taught for many years in Turkey, Bulgaria and Taiwan before coming to Hong Kong. Her research interests include language and identity ¡V in particular focusing on expressions of hybrid identity, transculturation, and drama and language learning.
Dr Li Lan Associate Professor, Department of English, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Li Lan is also the Fellow of Institute of Linguist, UK. She holds MPhil and PhD in Applied Linguistics from the University of Exeter, UK. She has been teaching English at university level for over 20 years, tutoring undergraduates, postgraduates, as well as professional trainees. Her research interest covers professional communication, lexicology, lexicography, corpus linguistics and sociolinguistics.
Dr Lalita Murty Lecturer, English Department, University of York, U.K.
Dr. Murty¡¦s main research interests are in the area of the intelligibility and comprehensibility of accents, especially with reference to call centre agent who have to deal with a wide range of native and non-native accents in the course of their work. Her recent research has explored the attitudes of Indian call centre agents towards some native varieties of English. In the future she plans to record interactions between Indian call centre agents and their customers in order to examine the patterns of interaction between the two, especially with reference to breakdowns in communication and the way these breakdowns are 'repaired'.
Dr Sima Sengupta
Sima Sengupta has a background in teaching English for Academic and Specific Purposes, Media English, Research Methods and Research Writing. Her recent research and publications focus on literacy development across a broad spectrum with special reference to advanced academic literacy and the pedagogy of rhetorical consciousness. Sima is currently a free lance education consultant based in India.
Dr XU Xunfeng Associate Professor, Department of English, Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Dr. Xu¡¦s research interests include Corpus Linguistics, Systemic Functional Linguistics, Computer-mediated Communication, grammar, translation, stylistics, and statistics and he has participated in research projects related to call centre discourse both in English and in Chinese.
Jon Hui The Department of English,City University of Hong Kong
Jon Hui teaches and coordinates English for specific purposes courses in the Department of English at City University of Hong Kong. Jon has over twenty years of industry experience which spans across research and development, sales and marketing, and technical training and services in data communication multinational corporations. His research interests include sociolinguistics, professional, cross cultural and interpersonal communication.
Ms Jenny Wan PhD Candidate, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Miss Wan¡¦s research areas include spoken workplace English and interpersonal meaning. The working title for her present study is Call Centre Communication: an analysis of interpersonal meaning. This study focuses on a text analysis of transcribed telephone interactions in a Philippines call centre and specifically analyzes interpersonal language at points of communication breakdown in service industry.
Steering Committee
Name
Contact Details
Area of expertise
Dr Eija Ventola
Professor
Department of English
P.O. Box 24 (Unionkatu 40)FIN-0014University of Helsinki
FinlandTel.: +358-(0)9-19123413
Email: eija.ventola@helsinki.fi
Professor Ventola has published a book on the language of transaction and professional communication is a key area in her research interests.
Dr Nicky Solomon
Faculty of Education
University of Technology Sydney
City Broadway Campus, 235 Jones Street, Building 10, Level 5, Room 5295
Prof Solomon is the Dean of the Faculty of Education and has been involved in teaching, research and consultancy in the field of Human Resource Development. Her research work has emerged through participating in various sets of educational and research programs across the Faculty.
Neil Elias
Country head, Logica Inc.
neil.elias@gmail.com
Neil Elias was the President of AIG Business Processing Services, Inc. (AIG-BPSI) which is a business processing outsourcing (BPO) company currently serving the needs of the United States's leading insurance company. Its aim is to become a leading provider of outsourced backroom processing as well as contact centre services by integrating the best people, best processes and best technologies to provide better efficiency and service delivery to its customers.
Hayley McCartney
Director,
Global Services and Quality,
FuturePerfect Business English Specialists Inc.
hayley.mccarthy@futureperfect.com
Dan Elias
Director,
Global Operations,
FuturePerfect Business English Specialists Inc.
dan.elias@futureperfect.com
