As of early 2022, the “Library of Chinese Classics” series had translated and published 112 English versions of Chinese classical works. From a certain perspective, the domestic effort in translating Chinese classics into English could be considered to have reached a temporary conclusion. So, apart from continuing translations into other languages, what should be the next step for the translation of Chinese classics in China? This paper proposes four suggestions: historical documentation, comparative studies, expansion and in-depth exploration, and personnel training. Specifically, historical documentation involves examining and organizing the history of translating Chinese classics into foreign languages; comparative studies aim to enhance the quality of future translations through comparisons of different translations; expansion and in-depth exploration refer to continually broadening the scope of translated classics and deepening understanding and reflection of this scope; personnel training focuses on improving translators’ proficiency in Chinese, English, and cultural knowledge, particularly their ability to read classical Chinese. The author offers specific suggestions for each of these four aspects.

Evolutionary psychology attempts to explain human thinking and behavioral patterns from the perspective of adaptive evolution in natural and social environments. Previous studies have largely overlooked the perspectives of cognitive linguistics and evolutionary psychology, resulting in subjectivity and bias in the analytical process. This study considers the nutrition of pragmatics and relevance theory, combined with cognitive frameworks, to analyze the significant contributions of these theories in explaining and interpreting critical discourse analysis (CDA). Cognitive linguistic methods can reduce the subjectivity in CDA by providing more explanatory models that enhance the scientific and reliable nature of discourse analyses. Future CDA should focus more on the construction of cognitive representations by the addressee to verify the rationality and validity of the psychological modules or mechanisms proposed in evolutionary psychology.

ChatGPT, based on a wide range of pre-trained Internet text data, can assist in completing translations and creative writing. This study, however, is an experiment on writing a research paper with the help of ChatGPT. We selected a research topic and used ChatGPT to generate each section of the research paper — title, outline, introduction, literature review, methodology, results, discussion, conclusion, and references — according to the prompts provided. The results reveal that ChatGPT can successfully write an entire paper based on hypothetical data, generating high-quality text with appropriate content and language quickly and efficiently, which saves a significant amount of time and effort. The limitations are also obvious, including the use of outdated studies, inconsistent arguments, irrelevant and illogical explanations of the results, and incredible citations. We suggest integrating ChatGPT into academic writing courses offered at tertiary institutions. Teaching students to effectively use it could be made the core of the instruction. For instance, students may learn to ask questions, give correct and specific prompts, identify mistakes or problems in the generated texts, as well as ensure the texts’ accuracy, consistency, and credibility, and be knowledgeable about the topic selected for the paper. Students should learn to follow academic conventions and avoid plagiarism.

This study analyzes the “reality-cognition-language” and “interaction-conceptual metaphor-metaphorical expression” theoretical models of embodied linguistics based on “body and cognition”, with the help of Marx and Engels’ practical materialist perspective of language (including the material source of language production, the cognitive basis of language, and the practicability of the linguistic cognitive system in three aspects). In this study, we interpret and explain the practical materialist view of language in the context of embodied linguistics, which is the latest research on localized cognitive linguistics in China. We will also highlight the significance of the interaction between “body” and “cognition” in promoting the cutting-edge development of cognitive linguistics and further elaborate the significance of embodied linguistics for the contemporary development of the practical materialist perspective of language.

Toward the end of 2020, a novel online greeting construction, instantiated by “Good morning, Laborers!” went viral on Weibo or WeChat Moments of the young netizen group. Despite its superficial form of greeting, this construction serves both self- and in-group banter functions. As its syntactic and semantic features cannot be indicated from its components or from existing linguistic structures, it can only be stored as a construction in the speakers’ mental grammar. Classic construction grammar research has extensively explored grammatical constructions; however, emphasis on the constructional variations used by specific social groups is lacking, and the social information stored in these constructions has seldom been addressed. Drawing on insights from Embodied Cognitive Sociolinguistics (ECS), this paper begins by refining the embodied principles of linguistic structures from a socioecological perspective, encompassing the self in action, the audience in the virtual friends’ circle, and prevailing societal events. Subsequently, based on these principles, it systematically describes the constructional information stored in viral online greeting construction and explores the factors that contribute to its popularity and productivity. This study found that online viral construction mainly serves the purpose of temporarily constructing the speaker’s social identity. Its meaning-making mechanism can be attributed to four embodied-cognitive operations: the generic metaphor of split “subject-self”, scenario metonymy, the contrast of virtual-real situations, and the construal of audience roles. It also claims that ECS aligns with the foundational principles of the third wave of language variation research in terms of its theoretical underpins and research goals.

The State Translation Program (STP) concept system provides a “state” perspective for translator behavior criticism. The STP represents the mainstream of translation history; therefore, exploring translator behavior criticism from the “state” perspective is both reasonable and necessary. Based on the re-examination of translation practices, including Xuanzang’s translation of Tao Te Ching, the study finds that translation can be regarded as a “state-initiating act” that encompasses not only an interlingual practice but also a discourse and political practice. The subject of translation behavior can be understood as an integration of state, translation institution, translator community, and individual translator, and the attributes and types of translators display “three-dimensional” characteristics. From a state perspective, the translator’s behavior is focused on the state’s interests; the interaction between the two categories of individual translator’s behavior and translator community behavior reflects the trinity of the state will, collective will, and individual will. The state perspective inspires translator behavior criticism to probe the interaction between language, society, and the state, giving full play to the critical function of the STP theory.

How can translator behavior/act be well defined? Can we develop an operable analytical framework of translator behavior/act, based on a certain theory or paradigm, to produce new knowledge through systematic research? This study provides a preliminary reflection on these questions from the perspective of Cognitive Translatology. Specifically, it explores the levels and embodied attributes of translator behavior/act to further clarify the goals, dimensions, problems, analytical categories and methods of cognitive research on translator behavior/act, and to identify the aspects that distinguish the embodied cognitive approach from previous studies.

This study examines the Records of the Three Kingdoms in Plain Language rendered by sinologists Wilt L. Idema and Stephen H. West based on the Translator Behavior Criticism Theory. The study findings demonstrate that scholarly translators seek truth at the linguistic level within the target text, reshaping the narrative style of the source text. The academic space is explored using prefaces, annotations, and references to attain academic utility. As a model of academic translation, this rendering provides an opportunity for equal dialogue between Chinese and Western academics and the multiple dissemination of literature and art related to the Three Kingdoms stories.

Translators play a pivotal role in translation activities, which has received much attention in translation studies both in China and across the world. This study employs a bibliometric approach to examine journal articles related to translators’ behavior in the Web of Science Core Collection database. The research findings reveal that (1) sociological concepts, the Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) paradigm, and empirical-experimental methods are utilized by the international translation studies community to delve into translators’ behaviors in classical text translation, self-translation, slang translation, web search for translating, and translation revision, as well as to investigate the correlation between translator behavior and psychological cognition; (2) the international community does not regard “translators’ behavior” as a distinct field but addresses it as an object in translation sociology, translation process research, translator competence research, and cognitive translation studies. International studies on translators’ behavior are scattered across various fields of translation studies, whereas domestic studies on translator behavior has developed into a mature research field characterized by practical terms, a systematic theoretical framework, and diverse topics. Nevertheless, frequently used methods in international studies, including corpus-assisted methods, ethnographic methods, experiment-based methods, and triangulation, can also offer valuable insights into China’s translator behavior studies.

The attitude of the Government of Japan (GoJ) toward the Belt and Road Initiative has gone through three stages, namely, the “questioning stage”, the “wait-and-see stage”, and the “stage of limited areas of cooperation with China”. Aiming at representing the GoJ’s attitude changes in discourse, the present study adopts the critical metaphor theory into the analysis of Japanese news discourse and builds a corpus based on the topic of the Belt and Road Initiative by the Asahi Shimbun. The analytical results suggest that the metaphors adopted in the three stages have shifted from conflict metaphors to journey metaphors and building metaphors, which implicitly represents the diachronic change in the GoJ’s attitude toward the initiative from conflict to cooperation in limited areas. Critical metaphor analysis is an effective construal operation for objectively reproducing the real attitudes, intentions, and values of social actors in news discourse.