AI Mode's Response to "Professional Communication in English in Hong Kong": What are Missing?
- šļø Pre-conference Workshop
- šļø 13:00-14:00, November 6, 2025
- š Room 716, General Studies Building, Taipei Tech (åē§å¤§å ±åē§é¤Ø 716 室)
Professor, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (retired 2020), Hong Kong
The following is a summary of the response of Googleās AI Mode to the prompt āProfessional communication in English in Hong Kongā:
In Hong Kong's diverse and multicultural business environment, professional communication in English balances Western directness with local sensitivity and context. Given that English is a primary business language in the city, the ability to communicate with clarity, conciseness, and cultural awareness is crucial for success.
Key aspects of professional English communication in Hong Kong: Bilingual and multilingual environments, Written communication, Politeness and indirectness, Cross-cultural awareness, Verbal communication, Non-verbal communication, and The 7 Cs of communication.
Common challenges in the Hong Kong workplace: "Singlish" or Hong Kong English, Gap between business English education and real-world needs, Limited vocabulary, and Lack of confidence.
How to improve professional English communication: Many educational institutions and organizations offer courses to help professionals enhance their communication skills. Programs often focus on specific areas such as: Business writing, Speaking and presentation skills, Interpersonal and negotiation skills, and Cross-cultural competence.
(AI Mode, Google, 19 September 2025)
What are missing from AI Modeās response can be partly addressed by the mission statement of Research Centre for Professional Communication in English (RCPCE), Department of English, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU), when RCPCE was founded in 20026, namely āTo pursue applied research and consultancy so as to deepen our understanding of professional communication in English and better serve the communication needs of professional communitiesā.
I had been Director of RCPCE from 2006 to 2018. In this workshop, I will give an overview of RCPCE major collaborative and interdisciplinary applied research projects with the pillar industries in the Hong Kong economy, such as financial services, surveying, construction engineering and tourism, during 2006 and 2018. I will describe the objectives and outcomes of the projects as well as methods employed to collect and analyse instances of professional communication, in particular the procedure adopted to compile RCPCE profession-specific corpora, such as the Hong Kong Engineering Corpus and Hong Kong Financial Services Corpus. Other methods of data collection include data-collection log-sheet (DCL) method, surveys, shadowing, and site observation. The value and implications of these projects in applied research and consultancy as well as professional communication pedagogies will be discussed.
The workshop aims to show while AI Modeās response to the prompt āProfessional communication in English in Hong Kongā is useful, it is more important, and indeed necessary, to inform, and improve, learning and teaching of professional communication in English in Hong Kong with applied research and consultancy.
The workshop also invites participants to suggest the extent to which similar applied research and consultancy in professional communication in English has been carried out in Taiwan, and potential developments of similar applied research and consultancy in Taiwan.