Professor Gladys Tang received her Doctoral Degree in Applied Linguistics at the University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom. Her research interests are language acquisition and language pedagogy. Her interest in sign language research also led her to embark on a series of research projects in recent years on the linguistics of Hong Kong Sign Language, the acquisition of sign language, and the development of deaf literacy by deaf children. 

She has published on second language acquisition, second language pedagogy, sign linguistics, sign language acquisition, and deaf education. She is the Director of the Centre for Sign Linguistics and Deaf Studies, Asian liaison of the International Sign Linguistics Society, and a member of the Advisory Board of Sign Language Linguistic Society.