School of Languages and Cultures

2026 Summer Research Program

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Engage in a formal research project over the winter break with the UQ Summer Research Program.

The UQ Summer Research Scholarship Program offers scholarships to students wishing to gain experience working alongside a researcher in a formal research environment in their area of interest at UQ.

Each project will be offered for a period of four (6) weeks between 12 January to 20 February 2026.

Successful applicants will receive a $3,000 grant.

Participation is open to undergraduate (including honours) and master by coursework students who are currently enrolled and will remain at UQ for the entirety of the research program.

Applications will open soon

Check out some testimonials from previous scholars.

  1. Testimonies of torture in Indonesia
  2. Using Membership Categorisation Analysis (MCA) to explore family discourse
  3. More than Frills and Ribbons: Translating Essays on Japanese Children’s Literature
  4. Dingo Lingo – Building a database of Indigenous words for ‘dingo’
  5. Discourse analysis of regional dialects in Korean: Preserving cultural identities
  6. Health risk and benefit communication
  1. Professional conference interpreters’ use of interpreting strategies in real-life Chinese/English simultaneous interpreting at the United Nations
  2. A review of interactional competence amongst vulnerable university students
  3. Drawing language in action: Stimuli development for language experiments
  4. Up next for Djambarrpuyŋu texts: Creating a digital corpus of Djambarrpuyŋu from legacy materials
  5. Building Indigenous languages dictionaries and learning resources

6. Health risk and benefit communication

Project title: 

Health risk and benefit communication

Hours of engagement & delivery mode

The duration of the project is 6 weeks. Hours of engagement are 20 hours per week from Jan. 12 to Feb. 20, 2026. The project can be completed online via Microsoft Team. On-site attendance is not required.

Description:

This project examines how health risks and benefits are communicated in various settings, including travel clinics, press conferences, and research interviews. The primary data of the project include video/audio recordings made when health professionals provide health information to certain populations, such as international travelers, news reporters, and the public. We will study the recordings, along with other materials, including official documents and online discussions, by attending to details such as how language features combine to make health information accessible and circulate. The project will contribute to the fields of applied linguistics and public health communication by showing how values, beliefs, and attitudes about health are linguistically encoded to promote decision making and behaviour change. The project will also provide health professionals with research-based recommendations on how to overcome communicative challenges, repair misunderstandings, and mitigate conflicts in communicating health risks and benefits.

Expected learning outcomes and deliverables:

Scholars will:

  1. gain skills in transcribing video recordings, including speech and gestures;
  2. learn to use different technologies to code and present video/audio data (e.g. InqScribe);
  3. review relevant literature on health communication; and
  4. have the opportunity to co-publish and present research findings with the supervisor

Suitable for:

This project is suitable for students with a strong interest in studying sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, and applied linguistics.  

Primary Supervisor:

Dr. Sheng-Hsun Lee

Further info:

Please contact Dr. Sheng-Hsun Lee (shenghsun.lee@uq.edu.au) for any questions about the project.