To stimulate the research development of our Department, our teachers actively apply for the research funding to support their research projects. In the past 10 years, a number of research projects have successfully acquired funding from the Research Grants Council, the Quality Education Fund and other external funding bodies. The research specializations of our teachers include Chinese linguistics and phonology, ancient Chinese texts, classical Chinese literature, and modern Chinese literature. Under the strong research atmosphere of our Department, we anticipate to have more valued research and bring new thoughts to the academia in the future.
Funded by the Research Grants Council
A Study on the Newspaper Literary Supplements of the Overseas Chinese Daily News (Wah Kiu Yat Po 華僑日報) of Hong Kong (2003/04)
Project Title
A Study on the Newspaper Literary Supplements of the Overseas Chinese Daily News (Wah Kiu Yat Po 華僑日報) of Hong Kong
Funding Year
2003/04
Principle Investigator
Prof Hoyan Hang Fung Carole
Other Investigator
Prof Yeung Chung Kee
Dr Cheung Wing Mui
Dr Wong Nim Yan
Granted Amount
HK$504,000
Funding Organization
RGC Earmarked Research Grant
Description

This research proposes a study of the literary supplements of the Overseas Chinese Daily News (Wah Kiu Yat Po 華僑日報 OCDN) of Hong Kong, with the aim to trace the evolvement of its ideological inclinations and artistic preferences throughout its seventy years of history, so as to investigate its relationship with the development of Hong Kong society and literature, and its contribution to the formation of Hong Kong identity. This project has a long-term significance in supplementing the research on both Hong Kong literature and Hong Kong newspaper history. The study of Hong Kong literature began to receive attention from scholars since the 1980's. However, studies in the field largely focus on published books, while newspaper supplements were neglected due to the lack of raw materials compilation. Since the adherence of literature to newspaper supplements is a unique phenomenon of Hong Kong, the study of newspaper supplements is essential to the investigation of Hong Kong literature.

This project focuses on the OCDN due to the following reasons: (1) it is the newspaper with the longest history in Hong Kong, (2) it is locally established and has a strong social concern, (3) most works in the OCDN literary supplements (the Supplements) have not been compiled into anthologies. A systematic study of these scattered works will facilitate further research on Hong Kong literature and shed light on the relationship between the socio-cultural conditions and the development of literature. The research involves 2 stages: (i) systematic and exhaustive documentation. We will build an archive of the Supplements and compile an oral history based on interviews with the editors and writers relating to the Supplements. (ii) detailed analysis of the works in the Supplements will be analyzed from the social, cultural and aesthetic aspects. We will adopt the mythology of fukan xue (the study of newspaper supplement 副刊學), which constituted an established field of research in the Mainland and Taiwan (See Part III for references). As in Hong Kong, we believe that the present project will make a pioneer large-scale research of its kind. The results of our research will be published both in printed compilations and on a specially designed OCDN online database.

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