Pragmatic translation studies can be divided into ontological research and peripheral research. Over the past two decades, the translation community has focused on ontological research and has constructed the internal system of pragmatic translation studies. Although peripheral research has been discussed frequently, it lacks a systematic theoretical exploration. In this regard, in addition to clarifying the general and specialized theories of the internal system of pragmatic translation studies, the focus in this paper is on external system research, which has the four subitems of pragmatic translation history, pragmatic translation criticism, pragmatic translation teaching, and language services and the relationship between ontological research and peripheral research in pragmatic translation studies.

The tone of Chinese words has the function of distinguishing the meaning of words. The tone of Chinese verbs is often in the same direction as the action of the verb representation, and there is an iconicity between them. Three experiments were conducted to investigate the perceptual simulation of the iconicity of the tone orientation and the action direction of Chinese verbs in visual channels and motor channels. Experiment 1 revealed that the iconicity of Chinese verbs’ tone orientation and the action direction did not produce a perceptual simulation of spatial representation in the visual channel, but did produce a perceptual simulation of spatial representation in the motor channel. Experiment 2 showed that there was a spatial consistency effect between verb tone orientation and letter presentation position (arrow orientation). A pure tonal auditory file of a double-word verb was used in Experiment 3; it was found that the perceptual simulation was still generated after the pure tone orientation was separated from the action represented by the verb, and that spatial consistency effects appeared in both the visual channel and in the motor channel. The entire study showed that the intonation of Chinese verbs is not an arbitrary symbol, but reflects the inherent characteristics of the action itself. The use of tone in Chinese vocabulary revealed that people express cognitive results as iconically as possible.

Within studies of translator behavior, research focusing on extra-translation factors has emphasized human-centeredness. Among these factors, psychological factors are closely linked to translator behavior. Taking translation anxiety as a key extra-translation factor, this study used student translators’ subjective ratings to compare the cognitive load elicited by simple and complex tasks. It then examined, across translation phases, how cognitive load and translation anxiety affected student translators’ cognitive resource allocation and translation quality. The results showed that the complex task elicited a higher cognitive load than the simple task in both the high- and low-anxiety groups. Both cognitive load and translation anxiety significantly affected cognitive resource allocation, with effects varying across translation phases. Moreover, the association between cognitive resource allocation and translation quality varied across cognitive load conditions and translation phases. Overall, these findings highlight the necessity of phase-based analyses that integrate process and product data in studies of translator behavior and have implications for future research.

Translators are the primary agents in translation activities, and their behaviors emerge from the interaction between textual and extratextual factors. Taking Folding Beijing as a case study, this paper employed the double-centered evaluative system in translator behavior criticism to describe and explain Ken Liu’s translator behavior in rendering this Chinese science fiction novelette into English. The analysis revealed that Liu’s translator behavior prioritized target-culture reception, aligning more closely with a “society-centered” orientation. This orientation was influenced by Liu’s distinctive social identities within the target society. As a Chinese American with unique cross-cultural experience, Liu approaches translation as a means of facilitating equal dialogue and effective communication between Chinese and American cultures. Simultaneously, as an award-winning science fiction author, he negotiates flexibly between Chinese and Anglophone literary traditions, seeking fidelity to the source author’s original intentions while aiming for substantive literary effects. In this study, translator agency in the English translation of Chinese science fiction is foregrounded, the social motivations shaping such translations are elucidated, and suggestions for future research and translation practice are provided.

The “text-behavior-society” trinity evaluation system of translator behavior is applied in this paper to examine Pearl S. Buck’s translator behavior through her work All Men Are Brothers based on comparative studies with parallel versions based on textual, behavioral, and social dimensions. Influenced by her distinctive cross-cultural habitus, Pearl S. Buck’s translator behavior was further guided by her translation purposes, which were closely related to the target readership and to the reception environment. In addition, three pairs of ideological paradoxes contributed to her complex cultural positioning, which ultimately resulted in a certain degree of inconsistency in her translator behavior. Due to the combined influence of these multiple factors, Buck developed a translation style that was marked by truth-seeking pragmatism. The unique style and strategies of her translation provide valuable insights for the dissemination of Chinese images and culture.

Theoretically underpinned by the “Participants-Processes-Products” washback model (Hughes, 1993) and based on Dong’s (2020) conceptual washback model, the aim in this study was to seek both quantitative and qualitative evidence to explore the BEC Higher exam’s washback mechanism on test takers from three perspectives, namely, their perceptions of the BEC Higher exam (test validity, test importance, and test use), learning practices (skill-development learning, drilling, and memorizing), and learning outcomes. The findings revealed that test takers’ perceptions of test validity, test importance, and test use of the BEC Higher exam had different types and degrees of effects on their learning practices. Specifically, the perceptions of test validity generated negative washback effects with moderate intensity; the perceptions of test importance had a positive washback effect with moderate intensity, and the perceptions of test use generated both positive and negative washback effects with relatively strong intensity. Drilling had a positive effect on learning outcomes, while memorizing and skill-development learning had little effect on learning outcomes. The results shed light on the washback mechanism of BEC Higher exam from test takers’ perspective. The findings verified the theoretical framework of washback and broadened the scope of washback research. Some suggestions for test takers, test designers, and administrators are provided.

As artificial intelligence (AI) continues to develop rapidly, the Master of Translation and Interpreting (MTI) program in China is experiencing multiple challenges, including responding to the national strategy of cultivating high-level translators and interpreters of Chinese into foreign languages, further improving students’ translation and interpreting competence to meet the requirements of the language service industry, and exploring the human-machine collaborative model in both translation practice and education with the assistance of translation technology. With years of practical exploration, Fudan University has developed an innovative training model for professional translators. Under the guidance of “the unity of knowing and doing, of translation practice and thinking” philosophy, a “government-industry-teaching-research” system based on the four dimensions of “work ethics, critical thinking, expertise, literature and culture” with the multidimensional integration of government policy and translation teaching, the translation industry and teaching, as well as translation practice and theory, has been designed. Grounded in rationales, a comprehensive analysis of typical cases, which is further supported by relevant employment data, is presented in this paper. The outcomes prove that, by directly addressing the challenges in the age of AI, the training model can cultivate translators and interpreters who are aligned with both the national strategy and with professional market demands, thus promoting the prosperity and development of professional translators’ education.

Social media platforms offer new channels for intercultural communication and relevant studies are emerging consistently. In this article, we review 272 relevant studies that were published in SSCI journals from the four aspects of disciplines, theories, topics, and methods. The findings showed that the number of scholarly publications contributed by various disciplines in this field has increased since 2008. The underpinning theories included intercultural communication, sociology, and information science, and the trendy research topics in the past decade included social media intercultural instruction, intercultural corporate communication on social media, cross-cultural differences in social media and privacy concerns, multilingual communication on social media, cross-cultural differences in social media users’ behaviors, and the role of popular culture in transcultural communication on social media. Furthermore, the popular research methods included online surveys, qualitative analyses, content analyses, and discourse analyses. The study’s findings have academic, practical, and pedagogical implications for domestic researchers and practitioners.

A text-mining approach was used in this study to investigate the thematic research areas, developmental trajectories, representative theories, and methodological features of 725 business English papers that were published in SSCI journals between 2001 and 2024. The findings revealed that research on international business English centered on five major thematic areas, namely business English teaching, corporate external discourse, corporate internal communication, English as a lingua franca, and the linguistic and quantitative analyses of business discourse. Research on international business English has experienced five major developmental phases: discourse strategy in business contexts (2001-2005), cross-cultural business communication and need-based business English teaching (2006-2010), English as a lingua franca and corporate discourse governance (2011-2015), transnational corporation discourse and specialized business English teaching (2016-2020), and digital and data-driven business discourse and business English teaching (2021-2024). In addition, the representative theories of international business English research were cross-cultural business communication theory, intertextuality and genre analysis theory, and rhetorical theory. Empirical research methods occupied a dominant position, and nonempirical research methods mainly pertained to viewpoint synthesis and theoretical construction. The investigation into the trajectory of research on international business English will enable domestic business English academics to trace international trends; it sheds light on and has implications for research on and the teaching of domestic business English.

The concept of finiteness has complex connotations in contemporary linguistics. The morphology-based traditional approach, the syntax-based generative approach, and the form-meaning-based functional approach present markedly different interpretations of finiteness within different theoretical frameworks. This paper adopts a cross-linguistic perspective to review and prospect previous studies on finiteness in Chinese, finding that: (1) research on Chinese finiteness has generally followed three major lines of inquiry, namely structuralist, generativist, and functionalist approaches, each of which involves internal debates and controversies; (2) in current studies, insufficient attention has been paid to imperative clauses when exploring the functional foundations of finiteness, and the research scope has largely been confined to putonghua; (3) future researchers should adopt a cross-linguistic perspective, and a more comprehensive and in-depth understanding of finiteness in Chinese is expected to be achieved through large-scale cross-linguistic, areal-typological, and cross-dialectal comparisons.