Ms Alice Yau, a PhD Candidate in the Centre for the Humanities and Medicine, has been given the Fawzia Braine Memorial Award for Best Journal Article Published by A Novice Scholar 2013/2014 for her co-authored publication entitled, “I don’t want to see my children suffer after birth: The ‘risk of knowing’ talk and decision-making in prenatal screening for Down’s syndrome in Hong Kong”. The Award is given annually by the Hong Kong Association for Applied Linguistics.

In her award-winning article, Ms Yau and co-author Dr Olga Zayts, Assistant Professor in the School of English, examine the ‘risk of knowing’ talk in prenatal screening for Down’s syndrome in Hong Kong. The ‘risk of knowing’ talk refers to the consequences of learning about a health condition, such as the psychosocial and interpersonal implications of testing, and the subsequent management of the condition. This study is part of a larger project on prenatal screening conducted in one Prenatal Diagnostics and Counselling Department of a Hong Kong hospital between 2006 and 2013. The authors examine the impact of the ‘risk of knowing’ on decision-making, and discuss specific discourse (linguistic and rhetorical) devices that the participants employed to negotiate three competing agendas: the health care professionals’ preference of diagnostic testing, clients’ concerns of having a baby with Down’s syndrome and the overarching professional goal of these encounters of facilitating the clients’ informed choice regarding further testing. The article was recently published in the Journal "Health, Risk & Society”, Volume 16, Issue 3.