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  • 2026 Volume 202 Issue 4
    Published: 25 August 2026
      
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  • Research approaches, frontiers and trends of cultural pragmatic studies in China (1994 -2023): A bibliometric and visual analysis
    LI Changhong & WANG Lifei
    2026, 202(4): 1.
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    This study presents a bibliometric and visual analysis of 591 cultural pragmatic studies published in the Peking University Core Journals and CSSCI databases between 1994 and 2023. The findings show that cultural pragmatic studies in China has undergone four stages of development, namely the initial stage, the developmental stage, theoretical saturation stage and the adjustment and transformation stage. Six major research themes have emerged, including pragmatic failure, speech acts and speech events, language ontology, interlanguage pragmatics, cultural context and interpersonal relationships. Four research approaches have also been identified, namely intra-cultural pragmatics, cross cultural pragmatics, intercultural pragmatics and emancipatory pragmatics. Qualitative empirical research predominates, while localized and interdisciplinary research has continued to develop. However, further efforts are needed to expand the scope of research and diversify research approaches and methodologies.
  • On the modal interaction in children’s verbal gestural refusals
    WANG Rongbin & SHAO Bin
    2026, 202(4): 13.
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    This paper utilizes videos of naturally occurring interaction as its corpus and, by adopting a Systemic Functional multimodal discursive analytic perspective, proposes a tripartite model for studying the modal interaction in verbal gestural refusals. It thoroughly examines the modal interactional characteristics of children’s verbal gestural refusals from the three dimensions of physical time, cognitive mapping, and semiotic fusion. It reveals that children under examination demonstrate a preference for modal cooccurrence in temporal conversational sequences, prioritize transitivity mapping in iconic projection, and exhibit a balanced form of reinforcement and complementarity in modal integration. The strategy of cross modal interaction in physical, cognitive, and semiotic dimensions represents a typical pathway for children in conducting verbal gestural refusals, showcasing the interactive communicative competence of Mandarin children in verbal gestural interactions.
  • A multimodal analysis of deliberate metaphorical scenarios in western political cartoons: Constructing Huawei’s corporate image
    LI Shuqing, CAO Zhihong & YANG Ning
    2026, 202(4): 26.
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    This study applies multimodal metaphor theory and Critical Metaphor Analysis to explore the cognitive mechanisms and discursive stance behind Huawei’s corporate image construction in Western political cartoons. The findings reveal that Western cartoons combine metaphor and metonymy to strongly associate Huawei’s corporate image with China’s national image. Four types of metaphorical scenarios are identified, namely war/ conflict, daily life, competitive gaming, and information surveillance, among which conflict and daily life scenarios predominate. Western discourse frames Huawei as a state affiliated political agent, a victim in international confrontations, a targeted opponent in technological contests, and a data intruder. These biased representations embody the stigmatization and marginalization of Chinese tech firms in global geopolitical competition. This study provides implications for the empirical application of multimodal metaphor theory and corporate image research.
  • Construction and validation of an AI TPEK competency framework for university EFL teachers’ digial literacy enhancement
    SUN Wei & DONG Xiaobo
    2026, 202(4): 38.
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    Grounded in the TPACK framework, this study developed and validated an Artificial Intelligence Technological Pedagogical English Knowledge (AI TPEK) framework and measurement scale for university EFL teachers and examined the structural relationships among its knowledge domains. Based on valid questionnaire responses from 415 university EFL teachers, item analysis and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA)were conducted using SPSS 27.0 and AMOS 26.0 to evaluate the scales reliability and validity, while Smart PLS 4.1.1.2 was employed to examine the hierarchical relationships among the AITPEK domains. The findings indicate that:(1)the refined 28 item AI TPEK scale demonstrated good reliability, validity, and measurement stability;(2 )the traditional knowledge domains showed relatively weak correlations with the AI integrated knowledge domains, suggesting insufficient integration of technology, content, and pedagogy in EFL education; and (3)the structural model supports a transformative perspective of AI TPEK, indicating that the autonomous capabilities of AI are reshaping teachers’ knowledge development, whereby core knowledge is transformed into higher order integrative competence primarily through the mediating roles of cross domain integrative knowledge. These findings suggest that universities should promote the systematic integration of professional knowledge and AI technologies to enhance university EFL teachers’ digital literacy.
  • Listening to children’s voices:a new paradigm in researching children’s foreign language learning
    GONG Weizhao & Annamaria Pinter
    2026, 202(4): 58.
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    Children’s foreign language learning research under traditional research paradigms is often designed, implemented, and interpreted by adults, with children merely serving as objects and data sources. Such research paradigms often fail to genuinely reflect children’s real learning needs and experiences. This paper systematically examines an emerging new paradigm little adopted in China—the childparticipatory research paradigm. It aims to demonstrate how participatory research redefines children’s roles in foreign language learning studies, what unique advantages the new paradigm offers compared to traditional approaches, and key considerations for implementing child participatory research in authentic contexts. The article first introduces the new paradigm’s theoretical foundations and core concepts. Then the advantages of the paradigm along with popular research methods and practical approaches to integrating it into primary school English teaching in China are provided. The article further discusses the real world challenges and ethical considerations while conducting child participatory research. Exploring these issues can provide new theoretical perspectives and methodological references for children’s foreign language learning research in China.
  • A think aloud cognitive study on English learners’ responses to ChatGPT 4o paraphrasing feedback
    ZHANG Zhenghou, PENG Yi & DONG Fangjie
    2026, 202(4): 67.
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    Based on the think aloud method, this study examined the acceptance attitudes and psychological responses of 15 English learners from different backgrounds toward ChatGPT 4o’s English paraphrasing feedback. The results showed that learners generally demonstrated a high level of acceptance of the paraphrasing feedback, with an average acceptance rate of 81.85% across the three groups; ratings for writing style and content were 4.63 and 4.58,respectively. ChatGPT 4o provided diverse types of feedback, mainly involving lexical substitution, main clause rewriting, phrase replacement, and lexical addition. The findings suggest that ChatGPT 4o’s paraphrasing feedback may help learners reflect on language expression and content organization, offering insights for AI assisted English writing instruction.
  • The relationship between task value,peer support,and blended foreign language learning satisfact on:the mediating role of learning engagement and knowledge sharing
    ZHANG Yunqing & ZHONG Lin
    2026, 202(4): 85.
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    Based on Biggs’s “3P Model”(Presage Process Product),this study conducted a questionnaire survey among 692 university blended foreign language learners. Using structural equation modeling (SEM), the study investigated the mechanism by which task value and peer support (presage factors) influence satisfaction (learning outcome) with MOOC based blended foreign language learning through learning engagement and knowledge sharing (process factors). The findings indicate: (1) Both task value and peer support significantly positively predict learning engagement, knowledge sharing, and learning satisfaction. (2)Learning engagement and knowledge sharing both played a partial mediating role between task value, peer support, and learning satisfaction. More importantly, the study revealed a chain mediating effect in the path from “task value / peer support → learning engagement →knowledge sharing → learning satisfaction,” indicating that learning presage factors and learning process elements jointly influence learning satisfaction. The dual mediating mechanism of learning engagement and knowledge sharing highlights the positive effects of affective cognitive engagement and collaborative knowledge construction on learning outcomes.
  • The dialectical analysis of the translation epistemology and translation practice theory of Marx and Engels
    YANG Mingxing, HE Kangning & KANG Yaowen
    2026, 202(4): 98.
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    Translation epistemology and translation practice theory are essential components of Marx and Engels’ philosophy of translation and Marxist philosophy. In advancing the cause of human emancipation and the international workers’ movement, they offered classic interpretations and undertook successful practice in Marxist theory of translation studies. Grounded in their original texts and adopting an interdisciplinary perspective encompassing philosophy, political science, and translation studies, this paper systematically establishes the four epistemological dimensions of their translational thought namely, the political, communicative, scientific, and artistic—and examines the corresponding four aspects of translation practice theory. Their revolutionary translation philosophy highlights the dialectical unity between the epistemology and practice of translation within the framework of Marxist philosophy.
  • From “preserving substance” to “balancing style”:how media change drove the wen zhi shift in translating Buddhist scriptures in medieval China
    XIE Haochuan, LI Dechao & TAO Youlan
    2026, 202(4): 109.
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    Drawing on the theory of media bias, this paper reexamines the evolution of the “wenzhi” debate in the Chinese translation of Buddhist scriptures amidst the popularization of paper during the Han and Jin dynasties. Before the widespread adoption of paper, time biased oral media dominated communication, emphasizing interpersonal transmission and accurate reproduction; as a result, the reciter’s personal memory constituted authority, leading to a translation orientation of “rejecting wen and preserving zhi”. After paper became prevalent, the space bias of written media became prominent, and the communication structure was increasingly subjected to public reading and individual intellectual scrutiny; the written source text and its doctrinal meaning became the authority, leading to a “balance between wen and zhi”. This demonstrates that media are not merely tools for translation; rather, their physical properties and inherent bias constitute a force shaping reflections on translation.
  • xploring methods for evaluating the translation quality of literary works based on BERT:a case study of the Chinese translation of The Razor’s Edge
    XU Jie
    2026, 202(4): 121.
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    The evaluation of the translation quality of literary works has always been a challenging issue in translation studies. Both manual evaluation and traditional single index automatic evaluation have certain limitations. This paper uses the BERT deep learning model and a publicly available large scale corpus pre trained corpus to evaluate and analyze the English novel The Razor’s Edge and its Chinese translations from the perspectives of text similarity, sentiment scores, and the consistency of imagery and themes. Quantitative indicators are used to represent the translation quality. The research shows that the selected two Chinese translations faithfully reproduce the content of the original text and demonstrate a high level of translation quality. The study also confirms the feasibility of using BERT based word vector technology to quantitatively evaluate and analyze the quality of literary translation.
  • Translation education in the age of generative AI: transformational logic, practical dilemmas and paths
    LIU Song
    2026, 202(4): 132.
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    Current generative artificial intelligence is deeply intervening in translation practice, driving translation activities from a relatively closed process of bilingual transfer to a complex practice involving the collaborative participation of humans, models, corpora, tools, and contexts, and thereby reshaping the competence objectives, teaching processes, assessment criteria, and ethical boundaries of translation education. At present, translation education faces challenges such as the weakening of learners’ agency, increasing pressure on teachers to transform their roles, declining validity of final product evaluation, rising risks of academic integrity, and blurred boundaries of translator responsibility. Translation education should be restructured around competence objectives, curricular content, teaching models, assessment systems, and ethical norms, and should build a translation competence cultivation framework centered on human machine collaboration competence, translation diagnostic competence, process management, and responsible ethics, so as to develop a new generation of translation professionals equipped to adapt to the intelligent language service ecosystem.
  • From “state subject” to “shared future subject”: A study of legal translation during the law refrm in the late Qing dynasty based on Actor Network Theory
    2026, 202(4): 140.
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    Drawing on Actor Network Theory (ANT), this study takes the legal translation during the late Qing law reform period as a case study and adopts a close reading method to identify translation actors and reconstruct the actor network of state subjectivity in legal translation. The findings reveal that the state subjectivity of legal translation is essentially a “shared future subjectivity” constructed by human actor groups and non-human actors, that is, Qing government, law revision institution and its operation mode through translation. Within this shared subjectivity, there exist three hierarchical levels, namely, high-level, mid-level, and low-level subjects, interwoven with complex inter subjective relations, including power, interests, and cooperative relations. Theoretically, this paper enriches the theoretical discourse of legal translation studies and supplements the conceptual system of state translation studies; practically, it provides valuable references for the institutional operation and quality control of contemporary state sponsored legal translation.
  • How does the water of western theory flow east: polysystem Theory’s localization in China and the development of Chinese translation studies
    DU Lei
    2026, 202(4): 150.
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    The localization of Western translation theory has been a significant driving force in the development of translation studies in China. As an innovative translation theory originating in the West, polysystem theory has exemplified how Western translation theory has been appropriated, adapted, and developed in China over the past two decades. In its early stage, the theory gained wide circulation because it responded to the urgent need for Chinese translation studies to move beyond the constraints of linguistics and pursue theoretical innovation. In the new era, the research and application of polysystem theory have contributed to the “rewriting of translation history”, given rise to the concept of “translator’s cultural attitude” and deepened scholarly understanding of fundamental issues such as translator subjectivity. In recent years, the theory has also fostered new directions for localized development through its contributions to the exploration of the nature of translation and the expansion of its theoretical framework and applications. Overall, the dissemination and localization of polysystem theory in China offer a valuable perspective on the localization of Western translation theories and serves as a benchmark for future research, providing valuable insights into intellectual exchange and mutual learning between Chinese and Western translation studies.