About Shuangyu

I am always very passionate about languages. I did my first degree in English language in Yunnan University, one of the major universities in China.  After that, I started my career as a professional conference interpreter and language teacher teaching Chinese and English to non-native speakers at different universities. This turned out to be a very good opportunity for me to explore the difference between Chinese and English, which enables me to see deep into the difficulties that Chinese students have in learning English, and vice versa. Three years later, I thought it was time I come back to university. I was lucky to have won one of the two Patrick Stewart Scholarships from the University of Huddersfield, with which I was able to come to the UK to do my master's in Modern English Language. This course has provided me with in-depth  knowledge on linguistics with which I could better address many interesting language issues and wrote the dissertation investigating the underdeveloped discoursal ability of Chinese students in the higher education in the UK. However, my interest has always been in how one language is translated into another, either verbally or in writing. It has driven me to apply to this PhD position funded by NHS Bradford & Airedale PCT to look at the education of communication skills in GP consultations in which ad hoc or professional interpreters are involved. I am using the methodological approach of conversation analysis to improve our understanding of interpreted discourse in the context of medicine and develop the education of communication skills of medical students and professionals. Throughout the research my understanding of human verbal interaction, especially in the interpreted discourse, has deepened. I am very happy to share with students of foreign languages my knowledge in language learning and human linguistic behaviour in multilingual contexts.

About your class

I am teaching the Chinese Drills for the first year students in the East Asian Studies. I always try to build up students' knowledge about Chinese by comparing it with English, which shares similarities in many ways. My own experience in learning a language is also a good contribution to the class.

I am also teaching medical consultations to senior medical students. This is where I have got the chance to talk a lot about my current research. I also supervise an SSC project in which I guide a small group of students to use linguistic methods to investigate medical issues.

Modules Teaching

• Chinese Drills
  
• Medical Consultation Skills
  
• Conversation analysis & discourse analysis in qualitative research (MBChB SSC year 1)