School Profile

The School of Foreign Languages (SFL) offers four undergraduate programs: English Program, English (Education) Program, English (Sino-US Credit Transfer) Program, and Japanese Program, as well as two postgraduate programs: a master degree program under the First-category Discipline of Foreign Languages and Literature and a professional master degree program in Translation and Interpreting (MTI). The English Program is ranked among the National First-Class Undergraduate Majors in Construction. The six teaching departments at SFL are English Department, Japanese Department, European Languages Department, Basic Department of College English Teaching, Expanded Department of College English Teaching (Center for International Language Courses), and Postgraduate English Teaching Department. SFL is also home to Language Learning Center (a University-level laboratory), Clinic for Foreign Language Learning, and Jiangsu University's Center for Sino-German Language and Culture (in collaboration with Austria’s Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz).

SFL boasts more than 150 faculty members and employees, among whom 134 are full-time teachers, comprising 10 professors, 46 associate professors, and 29 PhDs. Of the full-time faculty members, one is funded by the Social Science Excellent Youth Project in Jiangsu Province, two are candidates for “Famous Teachers”of Jiangsu University, two are candidates for the Youth Academic Pacesetters of Jiangsu University, one is a candidate for Top Ten Teachers in Zhenjiang, and seven are awarded the title of Top Ten Most Popular Teachers of Jiangsu University. SFL perennially employs more than 10 foreign teachers and specialists, and houses excellent instructional facilities and equipment, as well as plentiful books and periodicals. The School also owns over 20 multifunctional language labs and one library.

SFL now houses one international research institute, namely the International Learned Institute of Argumentation Studies (formerly located in the Netherlands); three University-level research institutes, namely Jiangsu University Institute of Discourse, Argumentation and Global Communication, the Corpus-based Translation Studies Center of Jiangsu University, and the Center for Pearl S. Buck Studies of Jiangsu University; seven School-level research institutes, namely the Institute of Applied Linguistics, the Institute of English Literature, the Institute of Foreign Language Education and Instruction, the Institute of Pragmatic Theory and Application, the Center for Studies on Intercultural Communication, the Institute of Japan Studies, and the Center for Studies on Modern Japan.

SFL advocates fortifying its academic research on the basis of quality teaching. Through strict teaching administration, SFL has made outstanding teaching performance. A number of our faculty members have won a “grand prize” or a “first prize” at the National College English Teaching Competition. Students taught by the School faculty have been at the forefront of China’s colleges and institutions of the same category in TEM-4, TEM-8, CET-4, and CET-6 over the years. Our graduates are commonly commended by their employers for their solid academic foundation, strong capability of language practice, all-round professional quality and conscientious work. Around 42% of 2019 English graduates were accepted to postgraduate programs in China and abroad. Among them, 12 students were admitted to prestigious international universities like King's College London, University College London, University of Edinburgh, McGill University, University of Sydney, University of Pennsylvania, University of British Columbia, and University of Melbourne. 17 students were admitted to prestigious Chinese universities like Shanghai International Studies University, Sun Yat-sen University, Nanjing Normal University, Soochow University, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, Tianjin Foreign Studies University, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, South China Normal University, Central South University, and Hong Kong Baptist University.

More than 10 Japanese graduates of the year 2019 studied on one-year exchange programs at Japanese universities. The postgraduate English teaching of the School takes lead in Jiangsu province in teaching reform, which has achieved remarkable results. SFL has won one first prize and one second prize of the Provincial Teaching Achievement Award, one second prize of the National Postgraduate Education Achievement (Practice) Award, and one award for Provincial Excellent Postgraduate Teaching Materials. The School keeps abreast with the international frontier researches by maintaining its vantages and features. In the past five years, the School faculty members have undertaken 9 projects sponsored by the National Social Science Foundation of China and 12 provincial-level research projects. In addition, the School faculty members have published nearly 40 articles in periodicals indexed by SSCI, A&HCI, and CSSCI under the category of foreign languages, as well as 15 monographs and translations. We have also won three research achievement awards at the provincial or ministerial level.

Besides maintaining vantages and features in the fields of discourse analysis, especially in academic discourse analysis, empirical research on second language acquisition, corpus-based translation research, and women's literature studies, SFL has become nationally and internationally influential in pragma-dialectical studies and has successfully attracted the International Learned Institute of Argumentation Studies to wholly settle at the SFL. The ILIAS edited two issues of an international journal and got one book of collected papers by international authors published by John Benjamins Publishing House of Netherlands in 2017. The Discipline of Foreign Languages and Literature housed by SFL comes out sixth in "2022 Shanghai Ranking’s Best Chinese Subjects Ranking".

The faculty and students of SFL are striving collectively to build a nationally prestigious teaching and research-oriented school coming out in comprehensive strength among the best in Jiangsu province and enjoying high academic reputation in China, with its featured teaching and research achievements, a balanced development of its majors and disciplines, excellent teaching quality, and universally commended interdisciplinary highly-qualified graduates.