This paper explores some features related to the history of the development of English grammar. With regard to the simultaneity of grammar and language and their history, the paper holds the view that this is related to the process underlying the formation of the English language, the appearance of England as a country, and our position in discussing the topic. As for the beginning of systematic research of English grammar, it is commonly understood that the first grammar of modern English was published in the 16th century and therefore its history could be divided into three stages, that is, 16~17th century, 18th century, 19~20th century.This paper also touches upon the close relation between grammar and other disciplines,namely, logic, rhetoric, and philosophy.

Taking the most significant achievement in the field of Russia’s Sinology study in the first decade of the 21st century — Chinese Spiritual Culture: Encyclopedia as a sample, this essay provides a comprehensive and in-depth presentation of the characteristics, development and great achievements of Russia’s Sinology study on Chinese spiritual culture, so as to make an objective and complete comprehension and interpretation of the Chinese spiritual culture, and present the rich and profound Chinese spiritual culture through Russia’s Sinology prism, through systemic and concrete exposition of “the sample work of China and other countries’ dictionaries and interpretive works” —China: History, Economy, Culture, Fighting Courageously for the Independence of the Nation (1940), “the roadmap of Russia’s study on Chinese philosophy” — the encyclopedia Chinese Philosophy (1994), “recognizing China, strengthening and developing Russia’s Sinology tradition — multi volumes of Chinese Spiritual Culture: Encyclopedia (2006—2010).

  The research aims to make comparative analysis of the acoustic features of the stops in lettered-words and Chinese Mandarin, so as to discover if Chinese Mandarin stop system has been changed by the widely-used letteredwords.VOT (Voice Onset Time) and GAP (or Closure) are measured for the two groups of samples, the stops in lettered-words and the stops in two-character Chinese phrases. Analyzing the VOT of the samples, the research finds that, in lettered-words pronunciation, there is no voiced stop at all, and the original voiced stops in English have changed into unaspirated voiceless stops. Statistic analysis shows that there is no significant difference between the VOT of the stops in lettered-words and those in Chinese phrases. Moreover, the acoustic pattern figures of the stops are constructed, based on the averages of VOT and GAP. The figures show that the stops in the two groups of samples have the same acoustic patterns, which further proves that they are of the same class of sound. The result reveals that both the stops in lettered-words and those in Chinese Mandarin are voiceless stops with the distinctive feature of being aspirated or unaspirated. Though widely used for decades, lettered-words haven’t brought voiced stops from English into Chinese Mandarin, which keeps the important distinctive feature [±aspirated], so the stop system in Chinese Mandarin has not changed.

 In his latest collection of papers, Translation Changes Everything (2013), Lawrence Venuti put forward the hermeneutic model and revised his concepts of translation ethics and translation evaluation strategies, via which what he has meant by “foreignizing” in his early theory was expounded; this is a result of what he has continuously focused on in the contemplation of translation theory, therefore, advancing his systematic beliefs on translation. To comprehend Venuti’s latest thought about translation ethics and ideals, it is essential to explore the theoretical basis of the hermeneutic model and its differences from the traditional hermeneutic approach of translation studies. Then investigation into “inscription” and “interpretant”, the two prime concepts in the hermeneutic model respectively borrowed from Derrida and Charles Pierce, will offer us an insight into Venuti’s comprehension of translation as interpretation. And finally, comparison of “inscription” and “interpretant” with “remainder”, the core concept from Lecercle in Venuti’s former theories, will be conducive to perceiving the line of mutations in Venuti’s thinking, revealing the new model’s vantage point in explaining the universal nature of translation. Analysis of the hermeneutic model’s advantage over foreignizing theory and ethics of difference—Venuti’s former theories, will facilitate the probe into the correlation between his former thoughts and current thinking as well as his latest transition from foreignization to innovation, thus helping illuminate the translation universals—translation, as interpretation in essence, is bound to change the original material. In addition, Venuti’s line of exploration, his motivation and process of reasoning and investigation, have shed us more light on approaching what translation and its theory would finally come to be.

In many books such as The New Ecological Order, What is the Good Life and The Wisdom of Myths, the contemporary French scholar Luc Ferry analyzes the ecological thoughts of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Rene Descartes, Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Michel Foucault and Martin Heidegger in detail. He also expresses his own further reflection on “Deep Ecology” and “Ecological Feminism”. His anxiety, inquiry and positive attitude to environmental issues are consistent with a lot of Doris Lessing’s works. This paper tries to draw on the perspective of Ferry’s ecological philosophy in interpretation of Doris Lessing’s novels. At the same time, Lessing’s discussion on the relationship between human beings and the nature conversely provides contemporary ecology the fresh material and reflecting path in her works. The paper synthesizes contemporary western ecological doctrine and literary text practice on the basis of close reading Ferry and Lessing’s common concern. It argues that more and more intellectuals among the western middle class such as Luc Ferry and Doris Lessing reflect “what is the good life” and search for a “crack bridge” of human beings and the nature in the bewildering splitting times. This is the more important motive force than harsh reality for the contemporary ecology development.

 “Motherlove” has long been bound to motherhood as its most important parameter and becomes an important ethical criterion for mothers’ existence. However, contemporary American writer Mary Gordon, questioning such a criterion, demonstrates the ethical limit of motherlove and its constructiveness most truthfully in her novel Men and Angels, which gives voice to mothers’ various forms of existence. This paper discusses the ethical limit of motherlove from the perspective of the ontological existence of motherlove which emphasizes that mothers are not just the givers of love but also the subjects of love who are able to love themselves at the very beginning; the dislocation of motherlove which means that motherlove may be oriented to other children instead of their own ones—this can be a huge ethical challenge for traditional concept of motherlove; and the heterogeneity of motherlove which accepts negative feelings like “hatred” as part of motherlove so that the ethical limit of motherlove may be negotiated and the pressure mothers suffer may be relieved. Understanding these three aspects will help readers see the possibility for mothers to thrive in the process of becoming the subjects of love and eventually turn the ethically limited motherlove into the realm of infinite motherlove.

With the development of world Englishes, English teaching experienced a paradigm shift and accordingly, intercultural teaching, as one of the major objectives of English language education, is facing new problems and challenges. Mastering only the knowledge of communicating with English native speakers will not meet the needs of intercultural communication in the globalized world. How teachers perceive intercultural teaching is an important factor leading to successful implementation of intercultural teaching in practice. With the mixed method of a questionnaire survey and qualitative focus-group interviews, this study aims to explore English teachers’ beliefs towards intercultural teaching in Chinese tertiary institutions in the perspective of world Englishes. We find that the English teachers are fully aware of the significance of intercultural teaching and challenges with the development of world Englishes, and they have also increased their awareness of the significance of learning and understanding the Chinese culture in learning a foreign language. However, most of the teachers still believe that language is the focus of foreign language education, and knowledge is the most important element in intercultural teaching. Being able to communicating with the so-called native-speakers is still the target of the students’ intercultural competence development. Moreover, how to implement the intercultural teaching in practice in the globalized world needs further in-depth exploration in the future.

English for Academic Purposes (EAP) is currently an area that has received much attention in the reform of college English teaching. However, studies on academic listening have not received enough attention in our country, among which technology-assisted academic listening is the least researched area. In light of the research gap, the present paper attempts to integrate mobile technology and internet technology with classroom teaching to design a “Wechat + Classroom + TED-Ed” blended learning model based on existing literature and the difficulties encountered by students in the academic listening classroom. Such a model is grounded in social constructive learning theory, which integrates three types of knowledge and two processes in listening comprehension with important factors in academic listening, such as structural features and note-taking skills of lectures. Meanwhile, the facilitative effects of multimodal inputs and multimodal transformations in improving academic listening proficiency are also taken into consideration in the process of model design. The present study explores an innovative means of improving academic listening comprehension with the assistance of educational technology. It is expected to complement previous studies on academic listening in our country in terms of research content and perspective, as well as encouraging further studies in this area.