Newsletter No. 38

No.38 January 1993 CUHK Newsletter CUHK Membership on UPGC Research Grants Council Six faculty members have recently been appointedmembers of the UPGC's Research Grants Council (RGC) or its subject panels: Appointment Term of Office Prof. Kenneth Young (1) member of RGC (2) member of Physical Sciences and Engineering Panel 1st January 1993- 31st December 1994 Prof. Robert S.Y. L i member of Physical Sciences and Engineering Panel 26th October 1992- 31st December 1994 Prof. S.T. Chang member of Biology and Medicine Panel 1st January 1993- 31st December 1994 Dr. Julian Critchley member of Biology and Medicine Panel 1st January 1993- 31st December 1994 Prof. Ambrose King member of Humanities and Social Sciences Panel 1st January 1993- 31st December 1994 Prof. Liu Shu Hsien member of Humanities and Social Sciences Panel 14th August 1992- 31st December 1994 Universi ty Members Awarded CBE Two members of the University, Prof. Charles K. Kao, the vice- chancellor, and Dr. Victor K. Fung, member of the University Counc i l, have been made Commanders of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the Queen ’s New Year Honours List announced on 31st December Dr. Fung became a member of the University Council on 27th November 1991. Three Wei Lun Lectures Three public lectures were delivered on campus last month by Prof. Mary Snell-Hornby and Prof. Murray Weidenbaum as the University's Wei Lun Visiting Professors. Prof. Snell-Hornby, professor of translation studies and head of the Institute for Translation and Interpreting at the University of Vienna, gave two public lectures on 4th and 11th December respectively. Her first lecture entitled ‘Translation as a Cultural Shock: Diagnosis and Therapy' was about translation as miscommunication. In the lecture, she investigated authentic examples of failed translations that created distorted messages, analysed the factors involved in such distortion, and suggested translation strategies for rendering the originally intended message. In her second lecture entitled 'The Unfamiliar Image: Metaphor as a Problem in Translation', she explained why metaphors were always difficult to translate, and pointed out that metaphor as a translation problem should be seen as a cultural phenomenon and not merely as a lexical issue. Prof. Weidenbaum, Mallinckrodt Distinguished University Professor and director of the Center for the Study of American Business at Washington University, and chief economic adviser to former US President Ronald Reagan, gave a lecture entitled ‘The Global Marketplace: The Changing Balance between Business and Government' on 8th December. He stated that the global marketplace after the Cold War was tripolar in character, the major economic centres beingWestern Europe, the Asian rim, and North America. The global marketplace of the 1990s would be characterized by a dynamic tension between this regionalization and the pressures of globalization resulting from the rise of transnational enterprises. In the long run, he believed, government policies would be affected and the balance of power would tip in favour of the private sector. The full text of the three lectures will in due course be published in the Wei Lun Lecture Series, a supplement to the Chinese University Bulletin. 3