The academic capitalization in higher education has aroused much public attention with its impact on every aspect of universities. To survive in the market, universities in Hong Kong have been striving to build desirable images among stakeholders in public communication. Drawing upon critical genre theory and the notion of interdiscursivity, this study examines the annual reports of six universities in Hong Kong from academic year 1994/95 to 2015/16. Analysis shows that the genre of university annual reports is a hybridity of management discourse, reporting discourse, and public relation discourse. Such hybridity reflects the multi-facet nature of academic capitalization influenced by corporate values of managerialism, public accountability, promotionalization, and stakeholder orientation. The diachronic analysis indicates an increasing awareness of branding and public relations in university public communication. The study contributes to the previously overlooked research on university public relations communication, as well as to the understanding of academic capitalization and its development in Hong Kong. © 2021 National Institute of Education, Singapore.

Addressing the needs of students with learning difficulties in the mainstream English classroom in Hong Kong is a major challenge for a range of reasons, including a lack of research into the topic. This narrative suggests that such students are likely to be experiencing difficulty in a number of subject areas, and that a collaborative approach is an effective way of designing strategies to help them. This narrative further reports on an action research project, which has begun the task of developing strategies to meet the needs of this group of students and their teachers.
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