Abstracts of Major Papers in This Issue

s of Major Papers in This Issue

The Beginning, Evolution and Development Trend of Business English Teaching in China, by YE Xingguo, p.1

This paper reviews the evolution of business English teaching in China, introduces the causes and effects of the establishment of Business English as a specialty, expounds the relationship between the development of the international business of China and Business English education, describes the current situation of Business English as a specialty and the role the China Association of International Business English of CAIT played, and lays stress on the consideration of the economic globalization and quick development of international business of China in drafting The National Standard of Teaching Quality for Foreign Language Programs.The paper ends with the following ideas: the train objective of the specialty should be upgraded and the internationalized talents should be trained by leading universities, the term Business English should be redefined in accordance with the changed situation, the focal point of the specifications of talents should be changed from trade-in-goods-oriented to trade-in-services-oriented, consideration should be given to both specialization and compoundness of students’ knowledge and skills, the niche need of the society should be searched out by each university and students should be trained to have distinguishing features.

Review of Jackendoff’s Parallel Architecture, by GAO Xiuxue & YANG Lianrui, p.7

Jackendoff insists on mentalism, combinationality and acquisition of mainstream generative grammar and at the same time he points out the problems of generative grammar of Chomsky, that is, deep structure determining meaning, syntactocentrism and distinction between lexicon and grammar.All these problems make mainstream generative grammar isolated from other cognitive science.By contrasting with syntactocentric architecture, Jackendoff puts forward parallel architecture, which integrates linguistics and cognitive neuroscience.Parallel architecture modifies and develops generative grammar, which represents the new development of generative grammar.However, parallel architecture has some problems: simpler syntax is not very operative, conceptual structure is questionable, and simpler syntax is not very predictable.

The Construal of Li Yu’s Poetry in the Perspective of ICM Theory, by ZHONG Shuneng & MA Xinxin, p.12

As a greatCiwriter, Li Yu has a far-reaching influence on the Chinese literature with his uniqueCistyle.From the perspective of cognitive linguistics, the present paper makes an attempt to probe into the cognitive process inherent in the language and writing style of LI Yu’s works based on the theory of Idealized Cognitive Model (ICM) , aiming to construe Li’s poetry and provide a new way to approach the Chinese classical poetry.

A Comparative Study of the Use of Metadiscourse in English News Reporting and English News Commentary, by HUANG Qin & GONG Mengnan, p.16

Metadiscourse plays a vital role in both English news reporting and commentary, which makes news reporting more coherent and fluent and at the same time helps news commentary writers to better project themselves into their writing and build a good relationship with their readers to make their voices more acceptable and persuasive.This paper is based on a corpus of metadiscourse in 30 English news reportings and 30 news commentaries to explore the similarities and differences of the use of metadiscourse in them.It is hoped to shed some lights on the practical research on metadiscourse as well as the reading,writing and translation of English news.

A Frame Semantics Approach to the Mechanism of Conversational Humor, by SHAN Xinrong & XIAO Kunxue, p.20

As a common linguistic phenomenon in human being’s social life, humor is characteristic of internal solemnity and external banter.With respect to form of representation, humor falls into two categories: linguistic humor and non-linguistic humor.This paper is designed to explore the mechanism of realizing humorous effect in conversations from the perspective of frame semantics.It is held that humorous effect in conversations results from the fact that a particular word used by both parties is related to two different frames, i.e.frame shit, leading to two meanings that clash semantically and logically in the same context.The study is of help for comprehending the humor in conversations and for achieving humor when necessary in communication.

On the Development of Business English Teachers in Higher Vocational and Technical Colleges in View of the Requirements of the Professionals’ Cultivation, by GAN Li, p.29

This article discusses the standards for business English teachers in higher vocational and technical colleges by analyzing professional knowledge, professional capabilities and professional qualities in the business English professionals’ cultivation.Based on the research of the business English teachers’ development in the present situation, the present paper put forward a creative view that the business English teachers’ development in higher vocational and technical colleges should focus on the objectives of the professionals’ cultivation, and then it suggests strategies for business English teachers’ development.

A Study on the Cooperation between Chinese and International Teachers in the Elite Program Classes, by QU Xin & WANG Chenglin, p.33

The internationalization of China’s foreign language education gives impetus to the cooperation between Chinese and international teachers.The present research explores the teaching team and model in the College English classes of the Elite Program in a key national comprehensive university, focusing on how to maximize the resources of the international cooperation, improve the international co-teaching, and build the international teaching team.Based on the teaching practice and data collected in the Elite Program classes, this article demonstrates that the teaching team of Chinese and international teachers have contributed to the improvement of the students’ English language proficiency and cultural literacy.

Interactive Classroom Teaching Model for College English Teaching: Problems and Solutions, by GAO Yang, p.36

The communication and cooperation between teachers and students in classroom is promoted by the multiple interactive English teaching mode based on the Constructivism theory.Through the diverse aspects of the multiple interactive English teaching mode analysis, it is found that, as a party involved in teaching activities, teachers are lack of flexibility of their ideas and forms of organization, lack of corpus input and output, and apply the unreasonable evaluation mechanism, which leads to the poor teaching effectiveness.Teachers preconstruct corpus before classroom, optimize language learning environment, reasonably arrange teaching segments, flexibly organize teaching activities, cleverly pass on teaching contents, improve students’ interest in learning.Students actively participate in teaching activities and digest knowledge after school.Effectiveness of the multiple interactive English teaching mode can be enhanced as well as the learning capacity and enthusiasm of students.Meanwhile, students’ learning motivation is stimulated by appropriate evaluation of teachers.Positive interaction between teachers and students and among students is achieved.

Language Switching Cost in Chinese-English Bilinguals at Different Proficiency Levels, by MA Hengfen, WANG Chunmei & GENG Feng, p.43

Bilingual researchers found that language switching cost existed commonly in language switching.This study employed picture naming paradigm to investigate the language switching cost and its difference in Chinese-English bilinguals of different proficiency.The results showed that there was language switching cost in Chinese-English bilinguals; the less proficient bilinguals demonstrated switching cost asymmetry while the highly proficient bilinguals did not.This suggests that the proficiency of the second language is one of the important factors affecting switching cost asymmetry.It supports the language-specific selection threshold hypothesis.

Translation Strategy and Canonization of Literary Translation, by WANG Enke, p.47

In this paper, four books of literary translations have been compared in terms of story types, social condition of their publications, translation strategy, their reception, and translators’ language and literary ability.The findings are that those books share similarity in all the above aspects except translation strategy, and their reception would be poorly accepted by readers if the translators failed to choose the appropriate translation strategy, and that those books whose translators chose a suitable translation strategy but had no superiority in other aspects would be greatly accepted by readers, or even be canonized in the end.Results of such a comparison lead us to believe that translation strategy, among a variety of factors which help a literary translation to be canonized, is very important and should never be ignored.

Reflection on Some Notions in Professional Training of BTI, by HE Sanning & JIANG Yunmei, p.51

Since the founding of Bachelor for Translation and Interpretation (BTI) in China in 2006, its training models have already profitably discussed and researched by many scholars.However, such notions as translation and interpreting, foreign language and literature, foreign language teachers and dual-qualification teachers, translation faculty and translation craftsmanship, specialists and generalists are indistinctly analyzed.This paper attempts to analyze and probe into the distinctions of these notions, further reflects on the training models for BTI and put forward some constructive suggestions.

Narrative Realism and Mechanical Metaphor inTess, by LUO Jieying, p.55

Narrative realism in traditional literary theory is an important content of Hardy’s aesthetic thought of literature and art.This paper reexamines the monumental work,Tess, from the perspective of post-modernism by connecting mechanical metaphor with humans to distinguish Hardy’s narrative art of novels from established patterns.It contributes to highlighting poetic power in literary ethics and revealing its hidden meaning from contemporary aesthetic consciousness to instruct open interpretation of classic novels’ narrative view.It intends to expand research horizon from a new dimension, warning defects of industrial civilization in modern life.

“Heterogeneity” ofAtonementin the Light of Deconstruction, by LU Qi & ZENG Yisuan, p.60

Atonementhas been highly concerned since its publication, with critical focus on the narrative ethics, meta-fictional and historical significance, psychological and post-modernist characteristics.The essential attributes of “heterogeneity” in the novel haven’t been given enough attention.This paper attempts to disclose and analyze the “heterogeneity” inAtonementfrom four respects: the contradiction of the identity of the narrator, the complexity of narrative lines, the ambiguity of reality and fiction in the plot, and the “parasite” condition of inter-texts.To analyzeAtonementfrom the view of “heterogeneity” is to discover the essential attributes ignored in the literary works.It is hoped that such an analysis may open up infinite and boundless space of structure and meaning, and contribute to a more creative and multiple understanding and interpretation of language and literature.