The informal talk series known as 'Polylinguist' were created in 1995 by a group of linguists in The Hong Kong Polytechnic University as a platform to exchange research experiences with colleagues who are interested at language and linguistics. The free discussion which often led to heated debate quickly became its trademark and made it very popular.

The Polylinguist series phased out in 1998 since more and more academic departments were organizing formal talks or seminars and there was a shortage of time slots. After several years of staying in the sideline, however, we feel that there is a compelling need for an informal forum so that local linguists can share their works with each other and discuss or even debate issues of common interest. We are therefore re-introducing the Polylinguist forum in the format of a linguistic salon. The idea is to keep the informal atmosphere of Polylinguist but make it more concentrated by discussing one paper each time.

With a strategic emphasis on applied research, the University firmly believes that research is an integral part of academic life on campus. It informs teaching and advances the frontiers of knowledge and technology, thus contributing to lifting the competitiveness of business and industry and to Hong Kong's move towards a knowledge-based economy.

In 2008/09, of a total of 1,232 students enrolled in our MPhil or PhD programmes, 125 graduated with a PhD and 60 with an MPhil award. About 70 per cent of these research postgraduate students studied full-time, while 574 academic staff members were involved in supervising research degree students.

Our research efforts in 2008/09 culminated in the production of 1,919 refereed journal papers, 1,591 conference papers and 1,198 other publications. The annual rate of increase in the number of refereed journal papers published has averaged 0.99 per cent over the last five years.