TOPIC INSIGHT • 專題探討 2022 UMAGAZINE 25 • 澳大新語 34 developing students’ language skills and promoting language education at the university level. ‘The importance of language skills and language learning cannot be overemphasised,’ says Prof Xu. He contends that language is not only a tool for communication and a symbol of cultural identity, but it also provides a platform for intellectual activities such as acquiring, digesting, integrating, and innovating knowledge. Language skills, namely the command of both native and foreign languages, can also represent a person’s core competencies and competitiveness. Prof Xu further believes that people with strong language skills will be less likely to show poor abilities in other areas, and that language proficiency is itself a manifestation of a person’s overall quality and contributes to all of his or her abilities. ‘Just as mathematics is the foundation of science, engineering, agriculture, and medicine, and history is the background to humanities and social sciences, language is the foundation of all disciplines,’ says Prof Xu. ‘The 4Cs, namely the four core areas of general competence in modern times, are communication, critical thinking, collaboration, and creativity. All of these are directly or indirectly related to language skills.’ Nurturing Language Professionals to Meet Social Development Needs Prof Xu adds that FAH has a long-standing reputation for language education in the academic community. The Department of Chinese Language and Literature draws on the strengths of studies both in the mainland and overseas. The department, together with the Department of Chinese Language and Literature at Peking University, the School of Chinese Studies at the University of Hong Kong, and the Department of Chinese Literature at Taiwan University, has established an inter-university platform for exchange and collaboration at the highest level in Chinese language studies. The other departments in FAH have their own strengths — The Department of Portuguese is one of the best of its kind, while the Department of English and the Centre for Japanese Studies have for many years been innovative and effective in linking foreign language teaching with intercultural communication skills. The use of English has a long history in Macao; British traders began arriving in the first half of the relationship between language and society. ‘Macao's unique history, geographical location, economic structure, and political landscape have all contributed to the coexistence of different languages and cultures among its people,’ says Prof Xu. ‘Although the city has an area of just over 30 square kilometres and a population of only about 600,000, the number of languages spoken here is in double figures. Moreover, there has been a long-standing fusion of Chinese and western cultures. Chinese temples and churches being in the same neighbourhood for hundreds of years is an iconic example of multiculturalism. Thanks to the multilingual and multicultural ecology of the city, Macao provides a rare and almost perfect model of a linguistic and cultural research community for the study of linguistic and cultural contact, linguistic and cultural variation, and the interaction and integration of different languages and cultures. The environment also gives rise to a group of first-rate research topics with profound theoretical significance and practical value.’ The Importance of Language Learning Prof Xu is most proud of the outstanding international faculty team in FAH. Most of the faculty members engaged in teaching or research at renowned universities around the world before joining UM, and their academic expertise spans the core areas of the humanities, including literature, history, philosophy, languages, translation and the arts. Within the humanities, Prof Xu highlights the importance of 語言學研究中心於2022年成立，匯聚不同學術單位的語言學家，全面推進跨語 種學術的研究，進一步貢獻澳門語言學科的發展。 Established in 2022, the Centre for Linguistics aims to bring together linguists from different academic units to promote cross-linguistic research and further contribute to linguistic disciplines in Macao. 2021 UMAGAZINE 24
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