On the afternoon of March 15, 2005, at the invitation of the Cross-Culture Communication Research Centre at Zhejiang University, Professor Tony T.N. Hung , Head of the Language Centre at the Hong Kong Baptist University, successfully delivered us a lecture entitled "Pygmalion: From Greek Legend to My Fair Lady" at Room 303, Classroom Building East 6 on Zijingang Campus of Zhejiang University. Pro.Hung's lecture is vivid, interesting, and informative, integrating literature with linguistics. At first, he introduced the Greek legend about Pygmalion in brief, which aroused the audience's interest most. Then he took the plays and movies based on or related to this legend as a good example to illustrate his point: English is a global language and therefore variety is its very essence . English speakers everywhere , including the speakers in plays or movies will always speak English with an identifiable local accent, which sometimes even causes linguistic prejudice. Some of the English learners (e.g. Australians , Taishan who are from Guangdong , etc.) couldn't distinguish the difference in some vowels. The best solution to this problem was to train hearing in a proper way. What he pointed out
interested the audience greatly and aroused their enthusiasm for pronunciation , so they even took an active part in practicing those vowels. After the lecture, Pro. Hung answered the questions which were put to him by those earnest teachers and students. His wonderful lecture was thought highly by all the audience present.
