The Department of Middle Eastern and Asian Languages and Cultures, within the Faculty of Arts at the University of Malta, is responsible for all undergraduate and postgraduate degrees and diplomas in Arabic, Chinese, Hebrew, and Near Eastern Studies. We promote an interdisciplinary approach, and different staff members are expert linguists, philologists, literary and cultural critics, historians, and archaeologists. All degree programmes balance these various specialities, and thus we offer students the opportunity to learn the language of their choice from scratch with our BA programme, to become conversant with a number of diverse subjects and disciplines, and to acquire critical skills for data analysis and interpretation.
Since its introduction in 2011, Chinese has become one of the Department’s flagship programmes, with options including a three-year BA, a one-and-a-half-year MA by research, a Diploma, and a Certificate in Language Proficiency in Chinese. A PhD programme will be introduced very soon.
The BA in Chinese offers courses in Chinese language from the beginner’s level, together with modules in related fields such as Chinese history, literature, linguistics, and methodologies in Sinology. The programme develops students’ proficiency in Chinese, strengthens their intercultural communication skills, and cultivates valuable research and analytical competences.
The MA in Chinese is largely a research programme, designed to foster creative and critical engagement with Chinese language, literature, and culture. Under the supervision of a designated tutor, students develop an original research project through which they must demonstrate a high level of linguistic proficiency in Chinese and advanced knowledge of Chinese literature, history, culture, and/or philology.
The Department’s programmes in Chinese are enriched through our cooperation with the Confucius Institute, which offers our students a wide range of scholarship opportunities, as well as study-abroad and exchange programmes, including with our partner university in Xiamen.