Dr Sheng-hsun Lee

I am an applied linguist specialized in studying intercutlural communication and public health communication. I am deeply engaged in using multimodal discourse analysis to understand how language, gestures, eye gaze, and material objects co-create meaning in social life. I investigate the processes of language and cultural learning during studying abroad and in classroom settings.

My recent work focuses on communication during the COVID-19 pandemic and food-safety discourses. My research on public health topics, including mask wearing as well as reporting and narrating pandemic events, has been published in international journals. The COVID-19 project received the 2021 Humanities Traveling Fellowship from the Australian Academy of the Humanities. I have a forthcoming monograph, Health crisis communication: Multimodal classification for pandemic preparednes, which explores multimodal classification’s role in promoting pandemic preparedness and offers a list of ready-to-use strategies for explaining pandemic categories to public audiences.

My new project explores the communication of food safety crises, such as the mushroom poisoning in Australia and the rice-noodle poisoning in Taiwan. I aim to use my research to help health professionals effectively communicate public health and update health communication guidelines.

I am available to supervise PhD/MPhil/Honours projects on the following topics: health discourses, intercultural communication, and language learning and teaching. Please contact me to discuss your proposal.