According to universal grammar, in the process of children’s language acquisition, there are many deficiencies in language stimuli, but children are nonetheless able to develop grammatical abilities, indicating the existence of an innate language acquisition mechanism in the brain. This hypothesis has been challenged by cognitive linguists, who believe that children’s understanding and use of language is based on general cognitive abilities, especially memory, abstraction, and reasoning. In recent years, experiments have revealed that children have excellent memory, abstraction, and reasoning abilities. Abstraction helps children to grasp grammar rules and acquire constructions through daily exposure to language materials, while reasoning helps children to use existing knowledge to acquire new knowledge, thereby enhancing their expressive abilities. This paper examines the actual process of children’s language acquisition and suggests that the acquisition of children’s language abilities is closely related to the quality and quantity of language input. The sources of language stimuli that children receive are extensive, and their richness, specificity, and frequency far exceed the imagination of the general public. Moreover, children’s language abilities interact with their conceptual and thinking abilities. These conceptual abilities can promote the development of language abilities, which in turn can further promote the development of thinking abilities.

English Curriculum Standards for Compulsory Education (2022 Edition) postulates that cultural awareness is one of the key competencies for students. Although this is understandable, considering the critical role of scientific literacy in compulsory education, we suggest that the key competencies should include scientific literacy education, which is an active response to the government decision that the scientific literacy of young boys and girls should be greatly improved during the 14^th Five-Year Plan. Scientific literacy is the basis of cultural awareness and cross-disciplinary studies. Without the fundamentals of scientific knowledge and methodology, youths will lack the intellectual tools and social responsibility needed for true cultural awareness. After analyzing the causes underlying the dearth of attention paid to scientific literacy education in compulsory and even higher education, we suggest reforms are needed in the development of teaching materials, the methodology of English instruction, and the organization of various scientific activities.

Language education management refers to management behavior in which the country, society, individuals, and other entities coordinate the allocation of language resources, solve language problems, achieve language education goals, and meet national strategies and individual development needs. China’s language education management is currently based on the Chinese context with a global vision. The system is composed of the national language, foreign languages, minority languages, and Chinese as an international language and is aimed at contributing to the goal of common prosperity, the realization of national harmony and unity, and the construction of a global community with a shared future for mankind. Accordingly, this paper analyzes the characteristics of language education management, reviews the status quo of language education management in China and internationally, and proposes a focus on the studies of the following areas within language education management: environment, technology, talents, and evaluation. The implications for building a language education management system with Chinese characteristics are also explored.

Language management, a theory developed by Western scholars based on language planning and language policy practice, maintains that language planning is not only operated in a top-down manner by the government but also in a bottom-up manner from grassroots elements, the implications of which can affect the practical application of a language. Since ancient times, China has attached considerable importance to the planning and management of language. Although an official concept of language management has not formally been proposed in China, it has actually been employed in practice, which has promoted the advancement of China’s language issues. Starting from the connotations of the concept of language management, this paper briefly reviews the language management practice in ancient China, modern China, and in the era after the founding of People’s Republic of China (PRC) and characterizes the language management traits and functions across these different historical periods. In ancient China, language management was predominately implemented in a top-down manner without much involvement of grassroots elements. In modern China, multiple stakeholders jointly participated in the management of the language issues. After the founding of the PRC, language management was elevated to the national strategic level with both the top-down and the bottom-up approaches being adopted. These changes represent a gradual shift from organizational language management, to harmonious language management, and finally to ecological language management.

Research on academic history is necessary at a certain stage of theoretical study in order to move forward by looking back. In response to the demands of the further development of translation studies as a modern discipline, the history of Chinese translation theory has attracted increased attention in China in recent years. However, compared with the current flourishing research on translation history, the research on the history of Chinese translation theory is relatively underdeveloped. To conduct meta-research of the research model for the history of Chinese translation theory, this paper attempts to construct an integrated “one body with two layers” model for researching and writing the history of Chinese translation theory. The model is composed of a constitutive “body” with four elements—translation theory, translation practice, translation theorists and society, and two layers of interpretation—interior and exterior—which correspond to the two interdisciplinary perspectives of genetic epistemology and sociology of knowledge. The theoretical interpretation and illustrative argumentation are given in detail at both the macro and micro levels. Finally, several suggestions are put forward concerning research on the history of Chinese translation theory. In particular, this paper proposes establishing a branch of translation studies: the thought history of translation theories. The aim is to provide a possible approach to the study and writing of the history of translation theory in China and to help the further development of the history of Chinese translation theory.

The introduction of the generative artificial intelligence technology, has had an immediate and substantial impact on the mode of work of those involved in language content services, sparking a massive proliferation in its potential applications. In order to evaluate the performance of the Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT) language model in translation practices, a translation quality assessment experiment combining automatic machine evaluation and manual evaluation was conducted. The results showed that the GPT language model does not constitute an iteration of machine translation technology in the field of translation but that it does provide a noticeable degree of quality improvement in Chinese-English translation, terminology translation, and literary translation, among other tasks. On this basis, some suggestions on how to respond to the changes brought by artificial intelligence technology to translation education are put forward.

The concept of metaverse has recently seen wider application in the innovation of various fields. However, it remains unclear how foreign language teaching research within the context of the metaverse would be carried out. This paper mainly explores this issue by outlining what the metaverse is and how it can be applied to foreign-language teaching research with the aim of stimulating further discussion on this subject. Other specific issues that are discussed include the origin and definition of the metaverse concept, the evolution of the human activity space, the development of the Internet, and the new form of foreign language teaching research in the context of metaverse.

ChatGPT, which reflects the level of language intelligence, integrates information searching, machine translation, and dialogue production with its powerful generation ability, potentially representing a technological revolution. Foreign language teaching is related to the cultivation of language ability and knowledge transfer and is bound to be directly affected by the rapid development of language intelligence. On the basis of introducing the functions and characteristics of ChatGPT, this paper analyzes the applications and challenges of ChatGPT in foreign language teaching. As a response to these potential problems, this paper proposes several general strategies. As the integration of humans and artificial intelligence intensifies, foreign language teaching should adhere to its fundamental goal of educating students, reform its teaching paradigm, seek to innovate, strive to improve language intelligence literacy, enhance language intelligence ethics awareness, and cultivate more high-quality foreign language talents.

The question of identity is important in the study of ethnic literature. Characters’ roles in the matriarchal family system rather than their lineage have become significant markers of identity construction for Native Americans. Taking Louise Erdrich’s novel The Beet Queen as an example, this paper provides an in-depth textual analysis and interpretation of Native Americans’ view of family in the dual contexts of indigenous history and culture while exploring Native American women’s survival strategies in response to the changing times. The novel describes how three generations of Native American women contribute to the process of developing the open family structure, the matrilocal family structure, and the reticular family structure, highlighting the dynamic feature of Native American women’s identity. These indigenous elements are passed down from generation to generation in the process of identity construction, exerting a positive influence on White culture. Within the context of multi-culturalism, Erdrich outlines the possibilities and hopes for both Native American and White individuals to build an ideal homeland through the medium of family.

From a systemic functional perspective, this paper investigates the disciplinary nature, approaches, research subjects, and contents of ecolinguistics. A brief review of the discipline and a few comments on it are first provided. Then, the elements involved in ecolinguistics are reexamined within the stratification-instantiation matrix of the social semiotic system. It is concluded that these two dimensions can provide a reference system for the elements of ecolinguistics, which is defined as a kind of “appliable linguistics”, with the “appliability” of systemic functional linguistics being extended in its breadth and depth.

This study employed semantic fluency task and complex network analysis to investigate the lexical structures of late Chinese-English bilinguals. By obtaining network visualization and network parameters, including average nodes, average degree, average clustering coefficient, average shortest-path length, small world index, and modularity index, this study characterized the lexical structure from the perspectives of structural features and structural diff erence. First, it was found that the bilinguals’ lexicons were small-world and modular in nature. Second, compared with the L2 lexical network, the L1 counterpart was better organized, which may be attributed to the influence of L2 proficiency and the age of L2 acquisition. Third, the results concerning how words within the network are connected supported the hypothesis of the spreading activation model. Based on the study’s fi ndings, the strategies recommended for teaching English vocabulary in China include emphasizing alignment with learners’ developing mental lexicon and using methods that directly connect L2 vocabulary with images or real objects to enhance dynamic L2 vocabulary growth.