The Department of English at City University of Hong Kong has an outstanding international faculty and research student graduates, with world-renowned scholars in the fields of applied linguistics and language education, discourse analysis, literary and cultural studies, professional communication and sociolinguistics. Many of our PhD graduates have gone on to hold important positions at various tertiary institutions in Hong Kong, mainland China and overseas.
According to the Academic Development Proposal 2016-19 of CityU, four papers from He Deyuan and Li Yongyan, PhD graduates from the English Department are ranked as top 10 most cited papers in journals produced by CityU research degree graduates in the social science, arts and humanities discipline.
| Rank | Student | Article title | Journal |
| 1 | HE Deyuan | Language attitudes and linguistic features in the 'China English' debate | World Englishes |
| 2 | Li Yongyan | Negotiating knowledge contribution to multiple discourse communities: A doctoral student of computer science writing for publication | Journal of Second Language Writing |
| 5 | He Deyuan | Native speaker norms and China English: From the perspective of learners and teachers in China | TESOL Quarterly |
| 9 | Li Yongyan | Multidimensional enculturation : The case of an EFL Chinese doctoral student | Journal of Asian Pacific Communication |