Hailong Chen
PhD studentProfile
Hailong (MSc in psychology) is currently a PhD student at Lancaster University, funded by the LU-CSC Joint PhD Scholarship. His research interests lie within the fields of psycholinguistics and developmental psychology. He utilises comprehensive methodologies combining methods and theories from psychology and linguistics, which he acquired during his training in Chinese linguistics (BA), applied psychology (MSc), and psychology (PhD). Specifically, his research focuses on individual differences in language acquisition and the processing of syntax.
Research Interests
How do children and adults acquire Chinese grammar? How do the individual differences in children and adults affect language processing and performance? Does syntactic priming have pedagogical implications in a classroom-based setting? My research interests include fundamental mechanisms of human language development such as psycholinguistics, second language acquisition, bilingual sentence production and comprehension, and syntactic priming. I address these topics by adopting my training in psychological and linguistic research with multiple methodologies and innovative modelling approaches.
Current Research
My current research concerns syntactic priming effects among heritage language and L2 speakers. I conduct experimental research to explore the underlying mechanism of crosslinguistic influence and bilingual sentence processes in children and adults. In my PhD thesis, I am doing a comparative study to investigate how individual differences affect Mandarin Chinese acquisition and use, particularly syntactic priming in bilingual sentence production. I will be using interdisciplinary tools to explore these research interests.
Career Details
Since I worked as a Chinese language teacher in many countries, I have built my language-teaching experience around Chinese as a second/foreign/heritage language educational practice. During my master’s period, I was involved in the project ‘The features and cognitive neural mechanisms of emotion regulation in college students with internet gaming addiction’ and took the opportunity to learn relevant skills, such as data analysis, experiment design, and E-Prime for EEG.
Having started my PhD programme at Lancaster Uni in October 2023, I am excited to become a doctoral research student and have a great opportunity to further develop my scientific research skills for my ambitions of academic career.
Qualifications
Chinese Registered High School Teacher
Chinese Registered Counselling Psychologist/Psychotherapist
Outstanding Trainee Award of Pre-service Training for Chinese Language Teachers
MSc in Psychology, 2011-2014
- Awards: 2014 Outstanding Graduate of the Year / 2012 CPS Excellent Postgraduate Student Paper Competition Winner
BA in Chinese linguistics, 2007-2011
- Awards: 2011 Bachelor's Thesis with Distinction / 2009 China National Encouragement Scholarship / 2008 Merit Student of the Year
Current Teaching
Currently teaches the following undergraduate modules in the Lancaster University Psychology Department:
2023-2024
PSYC115 (Graduate Teaching Assistant)
PSYC112 (Graduate Teaching Assistant)
PSYC113 (Graduate Teaching Assistant)
Web Links
ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Hailong-Chen-15
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hailong-chen-700024204/
PGR Induction Session
Participation in workshop, seminar, course
Psychology Department Research Seminar Series
Participation in workshop, seminar, course
Developmental Psychology Group Away Day
Participation in workshop, seminar, course
Psychology Department Research Seminar Series
Participation in workshop, seminar, course
Introduction to Teaching at Lancaster
Participation in workshop, seminar, course
LU-CSC Joint-Funded PhD Scholarship Award
Prize (including medals and awards)
- Developmental Psychology