University of London, Birkbeck College

Faculty Member, Applied Linguistics & Communication

About

Zhu Hua’s main research interests include speech and language development and disorders of children, especially children who are speaking languages other than English, pragmatics, conversation analysis and cross-cultural communication. She has studied phonological acquisition and disorder of Chinese-speaking children, including children of hearing impairment, and developed the notion of Phonological Saliency to account for cross-linguistic similarities and differences in early sound acquisition. In 2001-2, she was involved in a normative study of phonological development of English-speaking children, which resulted in the clinical assessment DEAP: Differential Evaluation of Articulation and Phonology (Psychological Corporation). She has also investigated early language development of bilingual children. Currently, she is leading a research project on the changing nature of Chinese phonological awareness, funded by the British Academy.

Zhu Hua leads on two other research projects. One is a DTI/ESRC funded Knowledge Transfer Partnership project with CISV, an international children’s charity for peace education. The project aims to develop innovative educational programmes for children’s cross-cultural awareness and communicative competence. The other project is an AHRC-funded project on intergenerational conflict talk in immigrant families. It is part of AHRC’s Diasporas, Migration and Identities programme.

Research Grants information
2008-10 Developing leadership skills, global citizenship and intercultural communicative competence among young people. KTP (Knowledge Transfer Partnership) grant, funded by ESRC/TSB in partnership with Raleigh International (£122,818). Press release web link is

http://www.bbk.ac.uk/news/news-releases/birkbeck-and-raleigh-awarded-new-knowledge-transfer-partnership

2004-7    Developing cross-cultural competence in young children, KTP (Knowledge Transfer Partnership) grant, funded by ESRC/DTI in partnership with CISV (£125,000)

2006-8    The changing nature of Chinese phonological awareness, funded by British Academy (£7,482).

2005-7    The nature of phonology and the role of the weaker language in a bilingual Mandarin-English-speaking child, funded by UWS Research Grant Scheme (with Dr Ruying Qi,  School of Languages and MARCS, University of Western Sydney, Australia) (AU$24,260)

2005-6    Duelling Languages, duelling values, funded by AHRC (Diaspora, migration and identity programme) (£9,055)

2005        Language Learning/Teaching as Social (Inter)Action, (with Paul Seedhouse, Li Wei and Vivian Cook), seminar grant, funded by British Association of Applied Linguistics /Cambridge University Press (£950)

2003-4    International students learning and studying experience in UK, (in collaboration with Chris Haywood, Lin Mei), funded by Humanities and Social Sciences Small Grant, University of Newcastle (£1,960)

2002-3    Bilingual infants’ vocalisation-in-interaction, funded by Humanities and Social Sciences Small Grant, University of Newcastle (£1,800)

Esteem Indicators:
Zhu Hua was Sir James Knott Research Fellowship at Newcastle University between 2000 and 2003.

She was awarded an International Visiting Research Fellowship at the MARCS Auditory Laboratories, University of Western Sydney, Australia, in 2004.

She is Visiting Research professor at Nanjing Normal University, China.

She is Reviews Editor of the International Journal of Bilingualism, and Co-Editor of Interspectives: Journal of Transcultural Education.