School Profile
General Introduction
The School of Languages, originally known as the School of Languages for Foreign Trade, was established when Shanghai University of International Business and Economics (SUIBE) was founded in 1960. For more than 60 years, generations of faculty have forged ahead with perseverance, giving rise to a fine tradition of being rigorous, down-to-earth, and pursuing excellence. Among them, experts and scholars such as Huang Yuanshen and Ye Xingguo played a pivotal role in laying a solid foundation for the School and its disciplines.
In the 1990s, the School initiated the establishment of the International Business English Research Association under the China Association of International Trade and served as its chair institution. It is currently the chair institution of the Professional Committee on Business English of Shanghai International Studies Association, the vice-chair institution of Shanghai International Studies Association, a standing director unit of the Regional and Country Studies Branch of China Association of Higher Education, and a standing director unit of the Alliance for Regional and Country Studies Talent Cultivation and Discipline Construction in Universities.
Talent Cultivation
The School of Languages currently offers five undergraduate majors, including Business English, English (SUIBE-UCLan Joint Educational Program), English, Japanese (Business Track), and French (Business Track).Additionally, the School also has a College English Teaching Department responsible for English teaching for undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral students (non-English majors) across SUIBE.
The Business English program was approved as a National Level Characteristic Major by the Ministry of Education of China in 2009, and was recognized as one of the first National Level First-Class Undergraduate Program Development Projects in 2019.
The English program was approved as a National Level First-Class Undergraduate Program Development Project in 2021.
The Japanese major (Business Track) was approved as a Shanghai First-Class Undergraduate Program Development Project in 2021.
In 2022, a Bilingual Experimental Class for Translation and International Communication was established.
The School currently offers master’s degree programs for two first-level disciplines, Foreign Languages and Literatures, and Regional and Country Studies, as well as a Master of Translation and Interpreting (MTI) professional master’s program.
The first-level discipline degree program in Foreign Languages and Literatures encompasses four second-level discipline master’s programs: Foreign Linguistics and Applied Linguistics, English Language and Literature, French Language and Literature, and Japanese Language and Literature.
The MTI program includes three specializations, respectively English Translation, English Interpreting, and Japanese Translation.
The master's degree program in Foreign Linguistics and Applied Linguistics was established in 1986, as one of the second batch of master’s degree programs established after the reform and opening up. It was recognized as a key discipline by Shanghai Municipal Education Commission in 2007.
In 2010, the School was approved to offer a first-level discipline master’s degree program in Foreign Languages and Literatures and the professional degree program for Master of Translation and Interpreting. In 2021, the Foreign Languages and Literatures program was listed in a Special Cultivation Program for Doctoral Degree-granting Programs by Shanghai Municipal Education Commission.
In 2024, the School received approval to establish one of the first batch of first-level discipline master’s programs in Regional and Country Studies in China. The first-level discipline of Foreign Languages and Literatures has achieved good ratings in the third, fourth, and fifth rounds of National Discipline Assessment.
Meanwhile, the MTI program has made remarkable achievements in the National Professional Degree Program Assessment.
For decades, the School has adhered to the educational philosophy of student success as the foundation, fully implemented the fundamental task of fostering virtue through education. Rooted in Shanghai and guided by the principle of serving major national strategies and addressing the city’s socio-economic development needs, the School has continuously optimized its talent cultivation model, strengthened interdisciplinary research integrating liberal arts, business, and law as well as applied foreign language research, and is committed to cultivating high-caliber foreign language professionals with expertise in international business.
In recent years, the School has attached great importance to the diversified cultivation of foreign language talents in the new era, continuously advancing the development of new liberal arts. It has been vigorously nurturing foreign language professionals who can make a transition from being proficient in foreign languages to having in-depth knowledge of foreign countries and from mastering basic language skills of listening, speaking, reading, writing and translation to possessing global competence. These talents have a good command of country-specific knowledge, regional expertise, as well as international trade, and they also include the much-needed specialists in “regional and country studies,” “international organizations,” and international communication, collectively referred to as the “three internationals” talents.
Faculty
The School currently has 126 full-time faculty members, 62 of whom have senior professional titles (49.21%) and 69 are doctorate holders (54.76%).
The School has two distinguished professors under the Shanghai Major Talent Program, three scholars sponsored by the Pujiang Talent Program, one outstanding talent in Songjiang District, three Senior Translators and two Outstanding Young and Middle-aged Translators by the Translators Association of China (TAC), seven winners of the Baosteel Excellent Teacher Award, four winners of the Shanghai Excellent Teacher Award, one winner of Shanghai Famous Teachers for Ideological and Political Education, two winners of the Shanghai Youth Medal of Honor. Many faculty members serve as editors-in-chief or editorial board members of important academic journals at home and abroad.
The School has been awarded over ten Shanghai Municipal Teaching Achievement Awards, the Australian Government’s “Special Translation Award” and the Fu Lei Translation Award, the first-ever National Level Individual of Distinction for Textbook Compilation, and Shanghai’s Excellent Textbooks for Higher Education Institutions.
In the past five years, our faculty members have undertaken over 20 national and provincial social science fund projects, published over 200 papers in CSSCI and SSCI journals, and launched the serial publication Business English Teaching and Research.
Academic Platforms
The School currently hosts nine academic institutions, including the Research and Development Center for Business English, the Australian Studies Center, the Irish Studies Center, the Institute of Foreign Literature, the Center for Research and Teaching of College English, the Base for Research and Translation of International Trade Documents, the Institute of Country and Region Studies, the Center for Language Education and Assessment, and the SUIBE-Weishi Zhenghua Holistic Education Institute.
Of these, the Irish Studies Center is a cultivation base for regional and country studies at universities approved by the Ministry of Education.
International Cooperation
The School is committed to fulfilling the mission of foreign language disciplines in promoting cultural exchanges and mutual learning between China and other countries and building a community of shared future for mankind. To this end, it has been actively expanding channels for international cooperation in education.
In 2000, the School launched a joint education program with the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) in the UK, with the approval of Shanghai Municipal Education Commission.
It has established international exchange and cooperation programs with well-renowned institutions in the UK, the US, Canada, Australia, Japan, and France.
(Data as of September 2024)
