Abstracts of Papers in This Issue

30years’LangackeriancognitivegrammarstudiesinChina:Retrospectandreflection(p.1)

GUOFeng(Research Institute of Foreign Languages, Beijing Foreign Studies University, Beijing 100089, China; College of Foreign Languages and Cultures, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, China)

Langackerian cognitive grammar (CG henceforth) is one of the most classic theoretical frameworks under the paradigm of cognitive linguistics. It has gained considerable attention and remarkable achievements in the linguistic academia since its first debut in the middle 1970s. This paper aims to review the thirty years’ (1990—2020) research history of CG in China and to summarize the general characteristics and the highlights of CG studies in both theory and application. Moreover, the research weaknesses are pointed out. It is shown that CG studies are moving progressively in term of both theoretical speculations and application explorations, and particularly the case studies on Chinese language issues are abundant. However, at the same time some research inadequacies have been exposed that the theoretical speculations are not insightful enough or the application explorations are still in the bud, etc.

Areviewandfuturedirectionsontheempiricalstudiesofrefusalspeechactsabroad(p.10)

ZHANGFenghua(School of Foreign Languages, Jinling Institute of Technology, Nanjing 211169, China)

Taking the WoS (Web of Science) core collection journals as the source of literature corpus, this paper makes a comprehensive review of the international empirical research on refusal speech acts from six aspects: overview, research perspectives, research topics, research participants, research instruments and research data. The research findings are as follows. There are three lines of study: language one, language two and comparative studies. Existing literature mainly focuses on the description of the pragmatic strategies of native speakers and second language learners. Undergraduate students are the main research participants. Different types of research instruments are employed with the discourse completion test remaining the most commonly adopted one. The main type of data is the elicited one, but naturally occurring data accounts for a considerable proportion. Compared with the elicited data, naturally occurring data is on the rise. Among four types of refusal elicited speech acts, request-refusal is slightly more than the other three types. Based on investigation, in addition to the four types of refusal eliciting speech acts, more types of speech acts can initiate refusal. The above review provides research contents and perspectives for refusal and other speech acts at home and abroad: the longitudinal investigation on the development of pragmatic competence, the study of refusal pragmatic competence from the perspective of impoliteness, the investigation on the development of pragmatic competence of research participants other than college students, institutional discourse research, and natural-occurring data collection, etc.

Theanalysisofpragmaticfunctionsofhedgesinscientificspeeches(p.19)

ZHANGChenxiao(Department of Foreign Studies, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100081, China)

Research on hedges has focused on two main areas: first, issues related to propositional certainty, and second, issues related to the interactive or interpersonal aspects of language, especially politeness principles. The concept of modality has received considerable attention in the discussion of this paper, as the concepts of certainty and uncertainty take center stage in the nature of hedges. The purpose of this study is to investigate the cognitive, interpersonal and textual functions of hedges in scientific speeches, according to the three meta-functions of Halliday’s systemic functional grammar. On the one hand, through discourse analysis of selected discourses of TED Talk, the author discusses how hedges in scientific speeches express the speaker’s uncertainty about the proposition and the ambiguity of information, thereby reducing the contribution to the proposition (commitment). On the other hand, in a practical sense, through the analysis of hedges, the author points out several strategies on how to improve communication skills so as to achieve better communication.

AcomparativeanalysisofpragmaticfunctionsandcognitivefeaturesofthederiveddiscoursemarkersХорошо/hao(p.28)

GUANYawen(School of Foreign Studies, Minzu University of China, Beijing 100081, China)

Хорошо/hao are derived discourse markers, which evolved from the blurring of real words. Investigation shows that their commonality in pragmatic functions and mapping cognitive thinking is greater than individual difference. In commonality, both can play the functions of prompting the beginning, end, and transition, indicating appreciation, acceptance, and confirmation of receiving information, expressing polite response, indicating concessions, expressing consultation, and threatening. They can map the speaker’s mental process dominated by the strength of the speech process, the psychological state of positive or negative response, and the psychological activities that look forward to recognizing or implementing threats, characterize the cognitive psychology of paying attention to the position of the obedient person. In terms of individual difference. Хорошо has a higher degree of grammaticization, which can map the cognitive thinking of the speaker’s organizational language; hao can characterize the speaker’s psychological activities of satire or comfort, and it performs more interpersonal functions, which reflects that the Chinese nation attaches more importance to the cognition of “peace is valuable”.

FoodsharingandcolonialdiscourseinIvanhoe(p.37)

ZHANGXiuli(School of Foreign Languages, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200444, China)

As a Scot, Sir Walter Scott’s attitude towards the British Empire was very obscure. This article attempts to revealIvanhoe’s hidden colonial discourse through its representation of food. The symbolization of food breaks and restructures the original social relationships, achieving the commercialization of food through arbitrariness, which conceals the essence of swallowing and expropriating the natural resources of the conquered. Scott criticizes the greed of some Norman nobles, who have violently occupied Saxon resources, reflecting his criticism of the naked colonial conquest. However, he also affirms Richard the Lionheart’s food sharing behavior, implying his acquiescence to a gentle, shared colonial conquest, especially under the leadership of a virtuous king. The dual identities and positions of the conquered within the empire and the beneficiaries of the empire’s interests have limited Scott’s criticism of colonial expansion to colonial methods rather than colonization itself.

Adorno’sbackgroundofthecreationofCultureIndustryTheory(p.46)

MAXiaojing&PENGYue(Henan University Library, Kaifeng 475001, China;The University of New South, Sydney, Australia)

Adorno’s creation of the Culture Industry theory is closely related to his personal experience. He received elite education since childhood and consequently rejected the popular culture. Furthermore, anti-Semitism in Europe at that time forced him to be disgusted with political monopoly and the life in the U.S.A. provided him with a personal experience to learn about the American culture industry. Therefore, he started to reflect on the Enlightenment and began to criticize the control and enslavement from the production and consumption of capitalism culture industry.

OnthegothicnarrativesinTheEndofEastbyJenSookfongLee(p.51)

LILiangbo(College of Foreign Studies, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou 510640, China)

The intersection of the Gothic and ethnic narratives emerges due to their mutual labeled nature of marginality and otherness. This kind of link is present inTheEndofEastby Chinese Canadian author Jen Sookfong Lee. By creating a racialized and gendered Gothic narrative, this novel exhibits Chinese Canadians’ unique experiences in Vancouver Chinatown under the racialized-gendered Canadian political and social context during the twentieth century, and constructs an achieved citizenship with an alternate narrative of Chinese-Canadian identity.

Fromethicalchoicetoscientificchoice:TheDaVinciCodeintheageofscience(p.58)

WANGHongyujia(School of Humanities, Shanghai Normal University, Shanghai 200234, China)

At the symbolic level, Dan Brown reinterprets the conventional religious symbols in the heirloom paintings, reversing the established symbols and disrupting the “established patterns” of interpretation within language, thus breaking down the solid and self-imposed religious discourse and incorporating scientific elements into it. At the level of the characters, the author further turns the opposition between religion and science into unity through the lineage and social identity of Sophie, the ethical paradox of Aringarosa and Silas, as well as the religious belief and scientific creation of Da Vinci and Newton. Through the reversal of symbols and characters, Dan Brown reassesses the status of “man” and “God” in the new context of the times, advancing natural choice into ethical choice; and when the battle between man and God falls into the dispute over humanity, in the face of the many changes in technology, modern man’s awareness of time and space has changed, which in turn poses a problem for the ancient religious beliefs and brings new thoughts to the relationship between religion and science, inspiring further reflection on human destiny and ethical standards in the age of science.

TheRelexicalizationofeventsofcausedstatechangeinChinese-Englishtranslation:Acomparativestudy(p.65)

LIJiachun(School of Western Studies, Heilongjiang University, Harbin 150080, China)

LIYuecong&LIANGBonan(School of Applied Foreign Languages, Heilongjiang University, Harbin 150080, China)

This article is based on Talmy’s lexicalization type theory, with the encoding of events of caused state change as the research object. After comparing and analyzing the encoding of semantic elements such as cause, manner, and state change in Chinese novels and their English translations, we found that there are significant differences in the encoding of caused state change between Chinese and English: 1) when encoding events of caused state change, native speakers of Chinese often use satellites to represent [state change], with a tendency towards a satellite-framed language. The description of events of caused state change is richer, more detailed, and dynamic; English, on the other hand, often uses dynamic words to represent changes in state, with a tendency towards verb-framed language; 2) through comparative analysis between the original text and the translated text, it is found that semantic elements such as [cause], [manner], and [state change] can be translated by using strategies like equivalence, generalization, ellipsis, and adjustment according to the needs of the text. In addition to being translated into typical V-structures or S-structures, they can also be translated into other forms such as modal verbs and phrase structures; 3) the process of translating events of caused state change is actually a process of relexicalization, with significant changes in the saliency of some semantic elements.

“Creativetranslation”:XuYuanchong’stranslationdiscourseonShakespearetranslation:AstaticanddynamicanalysisofhistranslationmanuscriptofRomeoandJuliet(p.76)

ZHANGMi(Foreign Languages College, Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang 330022, China)

The translation of Shakespeare has experienced a history of more than a hundred years in China and retranslations are still being carried out. Recently, Xu Yuanchong translated Shakespeare’s plays and put forward his translation discourse of “creative translation”, but few studies on it have been conducted. Consequently, with Xu’s translation manuscript ofRomeoandJulietas the case study, this article explores the presentation of “creative translation” in Xu’s translating practice of Shakespeare from the static and dynamic aspects: the former is shown via the comparison between the source text and the final version of the translation manuscript while the latter is presented based on the revisions on Xu’s translation manuscripts. It is found out that “creative translation” comes from Xu’s previous literary translation experience and is endorsed in his translation of Shakespeare, and the consistency between his translation discourse and translation practice exists in the process of Shakespeare translation.

Adaptation+translation:AneffectivedualpathforChinesefolkloreliteraturetodisseminateabroad(p.84)

LIUBilin(School of English, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong 999077, China)

Frank Chin, the Chinese American writer, once questioned Maxine Hong Kingston’s adaptation of the story of Mulan’s military service in place of her father inTheWomanWarrior(1976), arguing that she faked Mulan and reinforced the stereotypes of the ethnic Chinese in the mainstream American society, so he took it upon himself to literally translate “The Ballad of Mulan” to counter Kingston’s tampering with Chinese culture. Contrarily, Kingston claimed that she had no intention of representing Mulan and believed that the legends should be “played with”. Their “real-and-fake-Mulan debate” lasted for over a decade, which has also drawn the attention of numerous literary researchers. If we put aside their identities as Chinese-American writers and consider them as transmitters of Mulan’s story in the anglophone world, the “Mulan debate” becomes a contest between adaptation and translation during the out-going dissemination of Chinese folklore literature. From the perspective of crosscultural rewriting, this article intends to re-examine Kingston’s and Chin’s reproductions of Mulan, extends the case to construe the distinct functions of and interactions between adaptation and translation in the process of translating Chinese folklore literature, and explores the feasibility and necessity of adopting “adaptation+translation” as a dual-path dissemination mode.

Human-centeredness,nationalsignificance,dialogicalvision:ReviewonATBCApproachtotheEnglishTranslationofChineseFolkLanguage(p.92)

PENGBaiyu&DANGZhengsheng(The Center for Shaanxi Cultural Translation and Dissemination Xi’an Internatinal Studies University, Xi’an 710061,China)

ATBCApproachtotheEnglishTranslationofChineseFolkLanguageby Zhou Lingshun is nourished by the three-dimensional framework of Translator Behavior Criticism from the perspective of the agent, the behavior and the textural phenomenon. Based on the self-build corpus of the Chinese Folk language translated by Howard Goldblatt, it unfolds with the human-centered approach for the dialogical vision and the dissemination of the national folk significance wrapped by the multi-layered, systematic, and descriptive translation criticism.

TheresearchturnfromLinguisticRelativitytoScriptRelativity:AreviewofScriptEffectsastheHiddenDriveoftheMind,Cognition,andCulture(p.97)

ZHENGChuyue&LUZhijun(College of Foreign Languages, Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou 510006, China)

The bookScriptEffectsastheHiddenDriveroftheMind,Cognition,andCulture(Pae 2020) introduces the concept of Script Relativity as a new paradigm in the study of linguistic relativity. It has led the research in linguistic relativity towards new directions and inspired scholars in related fields to explore new research perspectives. This research has significant implications for the study of linguistic relativity and has played a role in promoting further advancements in the field.