This paper analyzes the emphatic function and pragmatic value of shizai (“really”) in speech act conditionals from an information-game-theoretic perspective. Through its veridical meaning, shizai implicates exhaustivity. In the antecedent of a conditional, it raises a new question, namely, how one should respond when all available means have been exhausted yet still prove ineffective. Raising this question increases the uncertainty concerning the consequent and makes it harder to predict. The consequent then provides a final solution, thereby removing the uncertainty brought about by the antecedent. Compared with conditionals without shizai, those containing shizai answer an additional question and contribute at least one extra bit of information. Speakers increase the informativeness of speech act conditionals in order to achieve either self-interested or altruistic pragmatic goals. The pragmatic appropriateness of shizai in speech act conditionals depends on game-theoretic payoffs. Its use in such conditionals reflects the speaker’s pragmatic strategy of obtaining higher payoffs through entropy reduction.

Identity metadiscourse in online debate programs reflects debaters’ metapragmatic awareness of highlighting pragmatic identity information. This paper takes the debate discourse from the Chinese program Qi Pa Shuo as the corpus, and analyzes the usage characteristics of identity metadiscourse and its metapragmatic manipulative functions. The study finds that debaters mainly use various types of identity metadiscourse to reflect their identity characteristics, which reflects their metapragmatic awareness in dimensions such as identity attributes, roles, and identification. Debaters will select various types of identity metadiscourse according to different communicative purposes, so as to achieve metapragmatic functions such as manipulating the argumentative angle of topics, evoking audience empathy, and highlighting the program’s humorous effect. This study provides implications for broadening the metapragmatic awareness dimension of pragmatic identity construction and enriching metadiscourse research in argumentative contexts.

With the rise of discourse linguistics, the object of English-Chinese contrastive studies has expanded from clauses to discourses. In recent years, substantial achievements have been made in contrastive studies of English and Chinese academic discourses. However, there are relatively few literature reviews on relevant research, and the research focal points and development trends in this field remain in need of clarification. This paper reviews the existing literature and discusses the current state of research, its major problems, and possible future directions. Contrastive studies on English and Chinese academic discourses concurrently consider macroscopic discourse pattern comparison and microscopic linguistic feature analysis, characterized by diverse research perspectives, increasingly rigorous research paradigms, and findings with practical value. Nevertheless, in establishing comparative criteria and interpreting results, some studies tend to privilege English academic discourse while paying insufficient attention to the distinctive features of Chinese academic discourse. In addition, the corpora used in contrastive studies of English and Chinese academic discourse need to be further expanded, and the findings of such research require more theoretical and systematic interpretation beyond empirically based generalizations.

International Language Service (ILS) was approved by the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China as a secondary discipline under Foreign Languages and Literature in 2021. To promote the development of the disciplinary system of ILS, it is necessary to study its theoretical foundation. From an interdisciplinary perspective, this paper focuses on the core issues of the theoretical foundation of the ILS discipline and constructs a theoretical framework of the ILS discipline that has both academic depth and practical explanatory power. The study finds that Translation Studies, Foreign Linguistics and Applied Linguistics, Computer Application Technology, Cross-Cultural Studies, Industrial Economics, and Service Trade Studies jointly constitute the theoretical foundation of the ILS discipline. Among them, Translation Studies and Foreign Linguistics and Applied Linguistics are the core theories, Computer Application Technology and Cross-Cultural Studies are the general theories, and Industrial Economics and Service Trade Studies are the interdisciplinary theories.

Government procurement of language services (GPLS) is an effective path to promote the transformation of government language management functions and optimize the supply of government language services. Over the past decade or so, some administrative institutions in China have carried out exploratory practices of purchasing language services from service organizations, and GPLS has been successively included in the guidance catalogues for government procurement of services by the central government and some local governments. Drawing on relevant research results in the fields of government procurement of services and language services, this paper firstly clarifies the concept and connotations of GPLS. Then, based on public data provided by channels such as the China Government Procurement Network/China Government Procurement of Services Information Platform and Tianyancha commercial data platform, combined with results of telephone interviews and field surveys, this paper summarizes the characteristics of GPLS in terms of subjects, procedures and contents. Furthermore, this paper summarizes the achievements of GPLS over the past decade or more in the areas of subject participation, market cultivation and resource integration, analyzes the existing problems in scope division, undertaking capacity and institutional construction of GPLS, and puts forward relevant suggestions.

In the era of digital intelligence, the potential applications of generative artificial intelligence (GAI) in foreign language education have become increasingly significant. In this context, understanding how teachers can leverage ChatGPT to provide personalized feedback remains an urgent issue requiring further investigation. This study examined teacher feedback texts and ChatGPT-generated feedback texts as case studies, analyzed their respective characteristics, and explored students’ perceptions of these different types of feedback through interviews. The findings indicate that teacher feedback is characterized by indirectness, richness, pertinence, and personalization, whereas ChatGPT feedback exhibits clear procedural features. Students demonstrated understanding and appreciation of both types of feedback, with their expectations and needs influencing their perceptions. Accordingly, when using ChatGPT to support writing feedback, teachers can draw on their human-AI negotiation competence and feedback literacy, assuming multiple roles: “screener” of feedback content; “polisher” of feedback language; “excavator” of language teaching affordances; and “educator” in the feedback process. This study offers practical guidance for foreign language teachers on integrating ChatGPT into personalized feedback practices, thereby enhancing the quality of foreign language writing instruction.

Argumentation competence is a critical factor affecting the overall quality of college students’ English argumentative writing. Nevertheless, research on its personalized diagnosis and intervention remains limited. Dynamic Assessment (DA) advocates the integration of ability diagnosis and instructional intervention, and its models are characterized by process-orientation, gradualness, and individualization. However, the existing DA models lack a systematic design specifically tailored to argumentation competence. Against this background, the present study aims to develop a DA model for argumentation competence in second language writing to facilitate the development of such competence among college students. First, a DA model was established based on an argumentation rating scale. Then, the experimental group received personalized intervention based on the DA model, whereas the control group was provided with traditional holistic feedback. After 10 weeks of experiment involving four writing tasks, the experimental group outperformed the control group in multiple dimensions, including overall argumentation, sub-claims, evidence, and rebuttal. The experimental group’s argumentation ability demonstrated a trend of significant initial improvement followed by steady development, with differences and imbalance in the development of different dimensions. This study has important implications for the teaching and assessment of argumentation in English argumentative writing, and also has value in the cultivation of college students’ higher-order critical thinking abilities.

From the early 20th century to the eve of World War II, the United States witnessed a rapid expansion of industry and capital, where the pastoral ideal gradually declined under the dual pressure of technological logic and pragmatism. Adopting the perspectives of the philosophy of technology and cultural criticism, this paper conducts a close reading of E. L. Doctorow’s novel Loon Lake, focusing on the conflicts and interactions between “the natural world” and “industrial civilization”, “idealism” and “reality”, as well as “poetic sensibility” and “the machine”. The study finds that technology is not a neutral tool but is deeply integrated with capital, becoming an ethical practice that reshapes nature, individuals, and social relations. In the course of modern American industrialization, the pastoral ideal characterized by harmony, innocence, and spiritual redemption was gradually replaced by pragmatic values that prioritize efficiency, control, and profit, leading to a fundamental transformation of American national identity. This research not only expands the techno-cultural research dimension of Doctorow’s works but also offers a new perspective for understanding the pragmatic tendency and its spiritual predicaments in contemporary American society.

The 20^th National Congress of the Communist Party of China proposed to “promote the high-quality development of the joint construction of the ‘Belt and Road’”. In this context, the number of international information and communications technology (ICT) projects participated in by Chinese enterprises and institutions is increasing, which puts forward higher requirements for ICT translation talents. At present, there are many problems in the cultivation of ICT translation talents in universities in terms of training objectives, curriculum and teaching system, students’ translation practice, and multi-subject collaborative training. To address these issues, this study strives to construct a “six-in-one” collaborative training model for ICT translation talents by exploring the six-party linkage mechanism involving universities, colleges, teachers, enterprises, institutions and students. Based on this model, this study proposes reform countermeasures including jointly formulating talent training programs, optimizing curriculum resources and content, improving students’ translation competencies, and strengthening teachers’ practical capabilities. It aims to cultivate high-quality ICT translation talents who are capable of meeting the needs of the high-quality development of the joint construction of the “Belt and Road”.

News value is the lifeline of news reporting. Although it is inherently objective, the realization of news values is heavily influenced by various social factors, particularly the discursive practices of journalists. Taking news reports on China’s economy from 10 British newspapers in the post-financial crisis era as the corpus, adopting Bednarek & Caple’s discursive analysis framework of news values, and using corpus technology, this paper conducts a comparative keyword analysis of the news value elements focused on by different news organizations when reporting the same news events, so as to reveal how relevant media use language to construct and highlight different news value elements. The study finds that both British broadsheets and tabloids regard importance and negativity as important news value elements when constructing the news value of “China’s economy”, but there are significant differences between them in judging which facts possess the above-mentioned attributes. By analyzing the differences in the selection of news value elements, reporting themes and linguistic resources among different media, this paper reveals their value orientations and positional biases, providing useful references for the in-depth study of news values from a linguistic perspective.