Address
M8085, R R S Creative Media Centre, City University of Hong Kong
Phone
+852 34428732
Fax
+852 34420288
Email
Research Areas
Business and professional communication
Social semiotics
Multimodal discourse analysis
Corpus linguistics
Luxury studies
Marketing
Sustainability
Reputation management
Cultural Development
Artificial Intelligence
Qualifications
PhD - Applied Linguistics (The Hong Kong Polytechnic University)
MA - Languages for communication in international enterprises and organizations (Universita' degli Studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia)
BA - Language Mediation (Universita' degli Studi della Calabria)
Biography
Esterina Nervino is currently Assistant Professor holding a joint appointment at the Department of English and the Department of Marketing of the City University of Hong Kong, where she is also Associate Director of the Sales and Marketing Consulting Unit (SMCU). For both departments, she teaches subjects in the area of business and professional communication and entertains relationships with industry players for different purposes, including research, student internships, and career development. She is also Cultore della Materia (Junior Adjunct Professor) of Intercultural Communication and Language Variation at the Department of Studies on Language and Culture of the Universita’ degli Studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia (Italy) and invited External Member of the Research Centre for Professional Communication in English at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. She holds a PhD in Applied Linguistics from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University and her research interests include social semiotics, multimodal discourse analysis, corpus linguistics, business and professional communication, luxury studies in relation to digital transformation, art, space, sustainability, country of origin effect, reputation management, branding and retail experience.
Prior to CityU, Esterina was the Director of Retail in Asia (part of Bluebell Group) in charge of media brand operations including content selection, curation, edition, and commercial strategy. At Bluebell Group she also took on the additional role of Public Relations Lead for the Group working on both internal and external communication projects.
She holds a M.A. in Foreign Languages for Business Communication from the Universita’ degli Studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia (Italy), a B.A. in Language Mediation from the Universita’ degli Studi della Calabria (Italy), an Executive Education Certificate in Social Entrepreneurship from INSEAD (Singapore), and a certificate in Business Sustainability Management from the Centre for Sustainability and Leadership of the University of Cambridge.
Professional Qualifications
| Qualification | Certifying Organization |
|---|---|
| Certificate in Business Sustainability Management | Centre for Sustainability and Leadership of the University of Cambridge |
| Certificate in Social Entrepreneurship | INSEAD (Singapore) |
Awards
| Award Title | Institution |
|---|---|
| Teaching Excellence Awards | City University of Hong Kong(TED) |
| Outstanding Young Alumni Award 2023 of PolyU Department of English and Communication - Professional Achievement | The Hong Kong Kong Polytechnic University |
| RGC Award | Research Grants Council Hong Kong SAR |
| Faculty of Humanities Distinguished Thesis Award | The Hong Kong Polytechnic University |
| Faculty Delegate at WC2 Network Conference | The Hong Kong Polytechnic University |
| Hong Kong PhD Fellowship Scheme 2014/2015 | Research Grants Council Hong Kong SAR |
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Teaching Areas
Business and professional communication
Artificial Intelligence
Research Grants
PI: "Mapping sustainability in the luxury sector: A social semiotic analysis of environmental, social and governance multimodal discourse", Early- Career Scheme + RGC Award - Research Grants Council Hong Kong SAR, Amount: 662,000 (2022-2025), Dr. Esterina Nervino
PI: "Artificial Intelligence Action Research Project - The use of AI for EN2837 ‘Communicating Fashion Culture’ ", AI-TDG - City University of Hong Kong - TED , Amount: 35,904 (2023-2024), Dr. Esterina Nervino
PI: "Environmental, Social, and Governance Discourse in the Luxury Sector: A Social Semiotic Analysis of Social Media Posts", Start-Up Grant - City University of Hong Kong, Amount: 297,000 (2021-2023), Dr. Esterina Nervino
PI: "Environmental, Social, and Governance Discourse in the Luxury Sector: A Social Semiotic Analysis of Social Media Posts", Top-Up Start-Up Grant - City University of Hong Kong, Amount: 100,000 (2021-2023), Dr. Esterina Nervino
Teaching Activities (past 2 academic years)
| Academic Year | Level | Title |
|---|---|---|
| 2024-2025 | Bachelor's Degree | Fundamentals of Public Relations |
| Internship | ||
| Professional English Final Year Project | ||
| Postgraduate Degree | Special Topics in Business II | |
| 2023-2024 | Bachelor's Degree | Communicating Fashion Culture |
| Communication Strategies in Business Projects | ||
| Fundamentals of Public Relations | ||
| Internship | ||
| Professional English Final Year Project |
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Supervisory Experience
| Period | Nature |
|---|---|
| 9/2023 | PhD - Department of English |
| 9/2023 | PhD - Department of English |
Administrative Assignments
| Period | Name | Position |
|---|---|---|
| 2/2024 - Now | Digital Learning Co-ordinator (Department of English) | Co-ordinator |
| 1/2022 - Now | Sales & Marketing Consulting Unit (SMCU) | Associate Director |
| 2022 - Now | Research Seminar (Department of English) | Co-ordinator |
| 2021 - Now | BA in Business and Professional Communication (Department of English) | Committee Member |
| 2021 - Now | EN3593 Internships (Department of English) | Co-ordinator |
| 2021 - Now | Departmental Career Development (Department of English) | Co-ordinator |
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External Academic Activities
| Period | Organizer | Country / Region | Role |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 - Now | Research Centre for Professional Communication in English (The Hong Kong Polytechnic University) | China (Hong Kong) | Invited External Member |
| 2014 - Now | Universita' degli Studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia | Italy | Cultore della Materia (Junior Adjunct Professor) |
Selected Publications
Journal Publications and Reviews
Nervino, Esterina; Wang, Jiaying; Ma, Chaojun / Self-mentions and stakeholders in climate change discourse: The case of banks. February 2025; In: Language and Dialogue. Vol. 15, No. 1, pp. 56-80
Nervino, Esterina; Lan, Ge; Cheung, Joyce Oiwun / Sustainability as a business opportunity: a corpus-assisted discourse analysis of sustainable finance discourse. January 2025; In: Applied Linguistics Review.
Nervino, Esterina; Cheung, Joyce Oiwun; Chen, Jiayi / Charting the path of sustainability discourse research: A systematic review of applied linguistic studies. August 2024; In: International Journal of Applied Linguistics. Vol. 34, No. 3, pp. 862-883
Lu, Jialiang; Zheng, Xu; Nervino, Esterina; Li, Yanzhi; Xu, Zhihua; Xu, Yabo / Retail Store Location Screening: A Machine Learning-Based Approach. March 2024; In: Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services. Vol. 77
Nervino, Esterina / Translating Business Agility into Language for Specific Purposes Teaching: An Exploratory Study on Digital Tools and Genres. June 2023; In: Iperstoria . Vol. Spring/Summer 23, No. 21, pp. 67-84
NERVINO, Esterina / JONATHAN FRAIERS and WESTERMAN BULGARELLA (eds), Colors in Fashion. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2017. August 2021; In: Visual Communication. Vol. 20 , No. 3, pp. 437-438
Wells, Victoria; Athwal, Navdeep ; Nervino, Esterina; Carrigan, Marylyn / How legitimate are the environmental sustainability claims of luxury conglomerates?. February 2021; In: Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management. Vol. 25, No. 4, pp. 697-722
Rossini, Francesco; Nervino, Esterina / City Branding and Public Space: An empirical analysis of Dolce & Gabbana’s Alta Moda event in Naples. December 2019; In: Journal of Public Space. Vol. 4, No. 4, pp. 61-82
Conference Papers
Nervino, Esterina / The role of discourse in building brand positioning and value: a social semiotic analysis of multimodal artefacts in digital media. October 2023; 10th Anniversary Forum and International Symposium on Business English Linguistics, 13/10/2023 - 15/10/2023, Beijing , China.
NERVINO, Esterina / Creating shared value: a social semiotic analysis of ESG discourse on social media. July 2023; AILA 2023 20th Anniversary AILA World Congress
, 17/07/2023 - 21/07/2023, Lyon , France.
, 17/07/2023 - 21/07/2023, Lyon , France.
Nervino, Esterina / Green is the new black: re-purposing corporate narratives across genres. July 2023; Green Stylistics: Exploring Connections between Stylistics and the Environment (Pala 2023), 12/07/2023 - 16/07/2023, Bertinoro, Italy.
Nervino, Esterina / Communicating ‘shared value’: a social semiotic analysis of ESG discourse on social media. June 2023; 21st Annual Conference of the European Association of Languages for Specific Purposes (AELFE2023) and 7th Conference of the Asia-Pacific LSP & Professional Communication Association (LSPPC7), 27/06/2023 - 30/06/2023, Zaragoza, Spain.
Nervino, Esterina / Redefining luxury: a social semiotic analysis of luxury branding narratives in the social media. June 2023; 6th International In Pursuit of Luxury Conference (IPOL 2023), 01/06/2023 - 03/06/2023, London, United Kingdom.
NERVINO, Esterina / Creating shared value: A social semiotic analysis of ESG discourse on social media. May 2023; CityU-PolyU Joint conference: Talking Across the World & Business and professional communication in a changing world, 16/05/2023 - 18/05/2023, Hong Kong, China.
Nervino, Esterina / Communicating Sustainable Luxury: A Social Semiotic Approach to the Discursive Construction of Environmental, Social and Governance Claims in the Social Media. April 2023; 5th Monaco Symposium on Luxury 2023, 04/04/2023 - 06/04/2023, Monte-Carlo, Monaco.
Nervino, Esterina / Creating shared value: a social semiotic analysis of ESG discourse on social media. March 2023; Discourse, Authority and Manipulation in Multimodal Perspective (DAMMP 2023), 16/03/2023 - 17/03/2023, Lyon, France.
Nervino, Esterina / Creating shared value: a social semiotic analysis of ESG discourse on social media. January 2023; Association for Business Communication (ABC) Europe, Africa, and Middle East Regional Conference 2023, 12/01/2023 - 14/01/2023, Naples, Italy.
Nervino, Esterina; Lan, Ge / Framing sustainability as a business opportunity: a corpus-driven approach to sustainable finance discourse. January 2023; Association for Business Communication (ABC) Europe, Africa, and Middle East Regional Conference 2023, 12/01/2023 - 14/01/2023, Naples, Italy.
Nervino, Esterina / #CEOCarbonNeutralChallenge: a social semiotic analysis of collective sustainability leadership. November 2022; 17th Conference of the Latin American Association of Systemic Functional Linguistics (ALSFAL 2022), 23/11/2022 - 25/11/2022, , Argentina.
Nervino, Esterina / Diversity & Inclusion: How a Fashion Campaign Shook the Entire Fashion System. November 2022; Research Symposium: The Spillover Effect of Crises
, 11/11/2022 - 11/11/2022, Rotterdam, Netherlands.
, 11/11/2022 - 11/11/2022, Rotterdam, Netherlands.
Nervino, Esterina / Diversity and Inclusion in the Exclusive World of Luxury: A Social Semiotic Analysis of 2020’s Luxury Branding Discourse. October 2022; 87th Association for Business Communication (ABC) Annual International Conference, 03/10/2022 - 08/10/2022, Tampa, United States.
Nervino, Esterina / #CEOCarbonNeutralChallenge: a social semiotic analysis of collective sustainability leadership. September 2022; 6th International Conference on Ecolinguistics (ICE-6), 21/09/2022 - 24/09/2022, Graz, Austria.
Nervino, Esterina / Creating shared value: a social semiotic analysis of ESG discourse on social media. August 2022; 31st European Systemic Functional Linguistics Conference (ESFLC2022), 24/08/2022 - 26/08/2022, Odense , Denmark.
Nervino, Esterina / From the “happy few” to the “happy many”: a social semiotic analysis of luxury branding discourse in the social media. July 2022; 47th International Systemic Functional Congress (ISFC-47), 25/07/2022 - 27/07/2022, Shenzhen , China.
Nervino, Esterina; Veloso, Francisco O. D. / Love in the 21st century: a social semiotic analysis of 'About Love' by Tiffany & Co.. June 2022; 4th International Conference on Semiotics and Visual Communication (SVC 2022), 17/06/2022 - 19/06/2022, Limassol, Cyprus.
Nervino, Esterina / #CEOCarbonNeutralChallenge. May 2022; 1st Ceivindico International Conference: Challenges to European Identities and Values in Digital Communities (Ceivindico 2022), 12/05/2022 - 13/05/2022, Madrid , Spain.
Nervino, Esterina / Marketing luxury goods in a post-covid world: ESG is the new glam. May 2022; "Talking Across the World" Symposium 2022, TAW2022, 20/05/2022 - , , Hong Kong.
Nervino, Esterina; Athwal, Navdeep ; Carrigan, Marylyn ; Wells, Victoria / A discourse analysis of sustainable luxury reporting. May 2018; LVMH-SMU Luxury Research Conference 2018 (2018 LVMH - SMU), 10/05/2018 - 11/05/2018, , Singapore.
Nervino, Esterina / Luxury 3.0: defining luxury in the new media age. June 2016; LVMH-SMU Luxury Research Conference 2016, 20/06/2016 - 21/06/2016, , Singapore.
NERVINO, Esterina / Manufacturing luxury discourse in the social media: A social semiotic approach. June 2016; 6th Hong Kong Association for Applied Linguistics Conference (HAAL 2016), 11/06/2016 - , , Hong Kong.
Nervino, Esterina / Digital (hi)storytelling: branded stories in the social media. April 2016; 3rd International Conference of Semiosis Research Center (ICSRC 2016), 29/04/2016 - , Seoul, Korea, Republic of.
Nervino, Esterina / Luxury fashion brands online: when language matters. Facebook posts and brand identity. June 2015; 8th International Conference in Discourse, Communication and the Enterprise (DICOEN 2015), 11/06/2015 - 13/06/2015, Naples, Italy.
Nervino, Esterina / Luxury fashion brands online: when language matters. A linguistic analysis of Facebook posts. February 2015; The Spaces of Luxury, 04/02/2015 - 07/02/2015, London, United Kingdom.
MANCUSO, Costanza; NERVINO, Esterina / Culturally competent teaching and learning in the global age: meeting the challenges. May 2014; 20th National Seminar AICLU 2014, Innovations in learning technology, methodology, and creativity for foreign language teaching, 29/05/2014 - 31/05/2014, Turin, Italy.
Chapters, Conference Papers, Creative and Literary Works
Talukdar, Nabanita; Yu, Shubin; Nervino, Esterina / Eco-friendly versus polyester Gucci handbags: the effect of matching green claims and temporal frame on product evaluation of self-enhancement brands. August 2022; 2022 AMA SUMMER ACADEMIC CONFERENCE: Light in the Darkness: Marketing’s Role in Driving Positive Change. pp. 371-374
Talukdar, Nabanita; Yu, Shubin Lance; Nervino, Esterina / Eco-Friendly Versus Polyester Gucci Handbags: the Effect of Matching Green Claims and Temporal Frame on Product Evaluation of Self-Enhancement Brands. 2020; ACR 2020 (PARIS) OCT 1-4: FIRST EVER VIRTUAL CONFERENCE: PROCEEDINGS. pp. 1228
Nervino, Esterina; Athwal, Navdeep ; Wells, Victoria; Carrigan, Marylyn / Communicating sustainability: The cases of LVMH and Kering. May 2018; The Mystique of Luxury Brands - Singapore Conference - 2018: Conference Proceedings. pp. 29-30
NERVINO, Esterina / Luxury fashion brands online: when language matters. Facebook posts and brand identity. 2018; Discourse, Communication and the Enterprise: Where Business Meets Discourse. pp. 49-67
MANCUSO, Costanza; NERVINO, Esterina / Culturally competent teaching and learning in the global age: meeting the challenges. 2017; Digital Resources, Creativity and Innovative Methodologies in Language Teaching and Learning. pp. 390-409
Nervino, Esterina / Luxury and social media: crafting brand identity through Facebook posts. June 2015; 2015 Global Fashion Management Conference at Florence Proceedings. pp. 506-509
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