Dr. Feng-hsi Liu, Professor Emerita in the Department of East Asian Studies and longtime director of the Chinese Language Program, passed away in March.
She joined the University of Arizona faculty in 1991 as an Assistant Professor and Director of the Chinese Language Program. Over the past three decades, she has played a pivotal role in shaping and expanding the Chinese language curriculum, fostering a rigorous learning environment for generations of students, said Wenhao Diao, Head of the East Asian Studies Department.
Throughout her long and distinguished career, Liu demonstrated an unwavering commitment to scholarship, teaching and service, leaving an indelible mark on the institution and the field of Chinese linguistics.
The author or editor of four books and numerous articles and book chapters, Liu was a renowned scholar in Chinese language, linguistics and grammar, with a particular focus on the syntax-semantics interface. Her research reshaped the study of Chinese word order by demonstrating how aspect, event structure, specificity and quantification determine syntactic distribution and interpretation.
Dr. Hang Du, John D. Berninghausen Professor of Chinese and Greenberg-Starr Chair of the Chinese Department at Middlebury College, worked and studied with Liu for six years while pursuing her Ph.D. in the Second Language Acquisition and Teaching program.
“I took her Chinese Linguistics class, worked as a graduate teaching associate for her in multiple classes, and used her theoretical framework for my dissertation on the acquisition of the Chinese ba-construction,” Du said. “She was a brilliant linguist, an effective teacher, an inspiring mentor and dissertation advisor, and a kind human being. She will always live in my heart."
Liu led the Chinese language program from 1991 until her retirement in 2024. Additionally, she served as Director of Graduate Studies from 2019 until 2024.
“Leading a language program is not just about classroom teaching, but mentoring instructors and graduate students who work within the program, as well as organizing cultural events to bring that authentic experience and cross-cultural understanding outside of the class,” Diao said.
Beyond her scholarly work, Liu consistently led various cultural initiatives that greatly supported student retention and program development. The most recent example is a $210,000 Huayu BEST grant Liu received in 2024 from Taiwan’s Ministry of Education, funding major Chinese holiday celebrations in the department and providing critical financial support for our students to study abroad in Taiwan.
Liu received her Ph.D. in Linguistics from UCLA in 1990, her M.A. in Linguistics from the University of Iowa in 1979, and her B.A., Foreign Languages and Literature from National Taiwan University in Taipei in 1977.