Upholding fundamental principles and breaking new ground are vital to the high-quality development of foreign languages as a discipline. What is tradition, why and how to uphold fundamental principles? What is innovation, why and how to break new ground? By clarifying these questions and grasping the dialectical relationship between tradition and innovation, we will be able to make innovation through tradition. We should strengthen the disciplinary concept of foreign language education, adhere to its nature, and confidently improve its development. Meanwhile, we should break new ground across the spectrum of the discipline, so as to give full play to the advantages of foreign languages as a discipline and make unique and irreplaceable contributions to Chinese modernization.