Browsing by Theses - Programme "Master of Philosophy in English"

The COVID-19 pandemic is a global public health crisis that has had profound impacts on all aspects of society. During the COVID-19 pandemic, news media played a crucial role in not only promptly disseminating information on epidemic prevention and control such as wearing masks, maintaining social distancing, and receiving vaccinations but also facilitating effective communication between the government and the public regarding epidemic prevention policies and health guidance. With this significance, considerable scholarly attention has been paid to examining how news media outlets not only framed the pandemic but also modulated their affective valence of its coverage and deployed metaphorical language to interpret the crisis. Nonetheless, little systematic research has been done on these diachronic changes in the context of Hong Kong news media. Furthermore, prior media discourse studies on COVID-19 relied on manual content analysis which is time-consuming and prone to subjectivity. In particular, the use of natural language processing (NLP) technology which has been widely applied in the fields of social media and e-commerce remains unexplored in the field of news media. This study aims to fill these theoretical and methodological voids by investigating the diachronic evolution of topics, sentiments, and metaphor use in Hong Kong news media coverage on COVID-19 using NLP techniques. Specifically, it seeks to find answers to the following questions: (1) How do topics in the Hong Kong news media coverage of COVID-19 evolve over time during the pandemic? (2) How do the emotional tones of the Hong Kong news media coverage of COVID-19 fluctuate over time? (3) How does metaphor use in the Hong Kong news media coverage of COVID-19 change over time?
A total of 2541 reports related to COVID-19 from December 31, 2019 to August 16, 2024. were collected from the Hong Kong Free Press website. BERT was employed to compare the distribution of the topics covered by the Hong Kong news media during the COVID-19 pandemic and their similarities and differences across its different stages, whereas TextBlob was applied to determine and quantify news authors’ attitudes at different stages of the pandemic by classifying their tones as positive, negative, or neutral. The Metaphor Identification Procedure (MIP) and its extended form Metaphor Identification Procedure Vrije Universiteit (MIPVU) were also applied to detect metaphorical expressions.
The research found that eight relatively recurrent news themes were identified, including Country and official, Law and security, Test and health, Quarantine and travel, Hospital and infection, Mask and worker, City and restaurant, and Vaccine and biontech, which are in line with the complexity of Hong Kong's social and political situation. There are strong internal connections among dimensions such as government measures, medical systems, law enforcement and social security. These discussions not only respond to the public health crisis but are also influenced by Hong Kong's unique social and political landscape. The topic modeling framework tracks the structural changes in narrative focus, public concern and media priorities. In terms of emotional diachronic change, the initial stage was mostly characterized by fear and uncertainty, but as vaccines were rolled out and government strategies gradually improved, the tone of the news gradually turned neutral and even cautiously optimistic. However, when epidemic prevention policies sparked controversy or the infection rate rose again, negative emotions also rose significantly. The metaphor analysis revealed that the “war” metaphor (fight, threat, etc.) was prevalent across all stages of the pandemic, whereas “journey” metaphors (e.g., milestone, journey) surged during its middle-to-late stage. Overall, Hong Kong’s COVID‑19 news discourse is highly dynamic and appears to shape the public’s perception of pandemic risk, their judgment of the legitimacy of government public‑health policies, and their willingness to comply with prevention measures.
This research has multiple significances in the field of media discourse. Theoretically, this study demonstrates a clear causal chain: when Hong Kong news media adjusts their framing of the epidemic, the news frames alter public sentiment; these emotional shifts, in turn, pressure policymakers to recalibrate their responses, and the resulting policies ultimately reshape society’s overall understanding of the pandemic. Methodologically, the study weaves together BERT‑based topic modelling, TextBlob lexicon‑driven sentiment scoring, and the multi‑step MIP/MIPVU metaphor‑identification procedure into a unified corpus‑linguistic workflow that delivers high accuracy in tracking thematic shifts, sentiment polarity, and metaphor usage, while offering a systematic, replicable approach adaptable to large‑scale diachronic text analysis.

126 pages

The present study draws on an extensive dataset of 1,057 authentic online reviews of Hong Kong Ocean Park collected from popular travel platforms between 2012 and 2024. These reviews capture diverse visitor experiences, attitudes, and language use, providing a rich resource for analyzing visitor feedback and perceptions relevant to the park’s tourism performance. Using a genre-based approach within the systemic functional linguistics (SFL) framework, focusing on generic stages and structural patterns in the reviews in relation to visitors’ attitudes and collective identities. The results suggested that both Hong Kong locals and non-local visitors move through similar generic stages in their reviews, but they differ in their openings and summarizations due to variations in motivations and language features. Additionally, visitors tend to primarily express their feelings and attitudes through appreciation resources, especially within the reaction subcategory, followed by affect and judgement resources, which are used less often. Locals and non-locals differ in their comments regarding staff service, admission prices, and available facilities. Particularly, non-local visitors often mention their disappointment with attractions being closed and the limited English proficiency of staff members, which are issues that are absent in local visitors’ reviews. In addition, non-local visitors praise Ocean Park’s unique features, such as the sea view during the cable car ride, its distinctive Hong Kong-style designs, and the opportunity to see both land and marine animals within a single theme park. Furthermore, the present study identified shared memories, family connections, and community bonds as crucial factors shaping the collective identities of visitors. It thereby extends the theoretical discussion on identity formation in theme park tourism and offers insights into lexicogrammatical realizations, helping the theme park tourism industry enhance tourists’ experiences.

127 pages

While textual narrative is conventionally considered the primary form of communication, it is evident that other communication models are also gradually gaining recognition and are being studied more extensively. In the context of fairy tales, the genre has evolved through various means of transmission, starting with oral storytelling, followed by print works and multimedia and, later, transmedia. In this age of technology, media and cultural convergence, the interpretations of fairy tales have diversified and expanded across different artistic and literary platforms. This research explores musical narratology and its expansion in transmedia stories. Through examining Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s “The Sleeping Beauty, Op.66” (1889) and “The Nutcracker, Op.71” (1892), and the presentations of these musical pieces in the adaptations of Charles Perrault’s “Sleeping Beauty In The Wood” (1697) and E.T.A Hoffman’s Nutcracker and the Mouse King (1816), this research investigates the role of romantic music in fairy tales, and how romantic music, lyrics and visual images represent the fairy tales collaboratively. This research argues that Tchaikovsky’s music has the power to shape and represent fairy tales by collaborating with visual scenes, concretizing characterization and plot, and incorporating cultural motifs in the representations. The remaking of Tchaikovsky’s music in the selected adaptations: Sleeping Beauty (1959) and Maleficent (2014), Barbie in the Nutcracker (2001), The Nutcracker: The Untold Story (2010), and The Nutcracker and the Four Realms (2018) have explanatory and expansionary functions to appropriate and reappropriate corresponding fairy tales. That is, while the adapted musical pieces inherit elements from Tchaikovsky’s composition and stay loyal to Tchaikovsky’s narratives, their intonation and musical arrangement are adjusted for the production purposes of the works. Collaborating with other narrative models in the ballet, animations and films, Tchaikovsky’s musical narratives revise and expand the representations and interpretations of fairy tales. In the world of technology, media and cultural convergence, the understandings of “Sleeping Beauty” and The Nutcracker no longer rely on their original texts but integrate the narratives in adaptations, forming a multifarious yet coordinated transmedia narration of the stories.

133 pages

This study conducts a comparative analysis of gendered verb choices in two Chinese translations of Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex, using syntactic dependency relations as the analytical framework. Verbs were extracted from subject-verb and verb-object dependencies involving gendered referents in the translations by Zheng Kelu (鄭克魯) and Qiu Ruiluan (邱瑞鑾). A corpus-based approach identified statistically salient verbs associated with male and female referents, along with notable divergences between the two translations. These quantitative findings are complemented by qualitative analysis, which reveals that Zheng’s translation often links female referents with passivity and emotionality, while male referents are associated with agency and dominance. In contrast, Qiu’s translation presents more empowered and diverse representations of both genders, particularly portraying male referents with emotional complexity and female referents with autonomy. These findings highlight the translator’s mediating role in feminist texts and contribute to broader discussions on gender representation in translation.

88 pages