Xiaoming Tian

In many Chinese university English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classrooms, culture is still presented as a collection of factual information regarding festivals, foods, and other visible symbols. Students may recognize these items without being able to explain what they mean or to discuss Chinese cultural experience critically in English. This study develops and examines a localized Culturally Responsive Teaching (CRT) sequence designed to foster cultural self-awareness and cultural narrative competence through three stages: critically unpacking cultural representations, comparing local and foreign cultural practices, and producing multimodal narratives. A single-group pre-post mixed-methods case study was conducted with 29 first-year engineering students at a local university over a 16-week semester. Evidence came from Likert questionnaires, language tests, classroom worksheets and mind maps, oral presentations, and English vlogs assessed with a three-dimensional rubric for cultural self-awareness, linguistic performance, and multimodal production. The results show the largest gains in cultural self-awareness and multimodal storytelling, with more modest progress in linguistic accuracy. Classroom records suggest that comparative inquiry and hometown-based vlog work helped students move beyond naming cultural objects toward explaining their social and personal significance. These findings provide preliminary, triangulated evidence associated with the localized CRT sequence and illustrate how CRT can be operationalized through comparative inquiry and multimodal cultural narrative production in Chinese university EFL instruction. The study also offers an empirically grounded pedagogical model and a basis for further comparative research on culturally responsive EFL pedagogy.

Gaokao repeaters in mainland China are students who have completed senior secondary education (Years 10 to 12), which is typically undertaken between the ages of 15 and 18. They voluntarily spend a...

Introduction: Grassroots procuratorial hearings in China operate under nationally standardized procedural regulations intended to ensure consistency and procedural uniformity. Yet hearings conducted within the same institutional framework often unfold in different ways. Existing studies have primarily explained procuratorial hearings through institutional arrangements, procedural functions, and ritual authority, providing limited insight into the micro-level processes through which such variation emerges. This study examines how emotional dynamics shape the differentiation of grassroots procuratorial hearing practices. Methods: The study draws on immersive qualitative fieldwork involving 20 grassroots procuratorial hearings conducted across eight district-level procuratorates in a provincial capital city. Data include field notes, hearing transcripts, observational records, and anonymized case materials. Guided by a four-dimensional analytical framework consisting of emotional arousal, emotional expression, emotional negotiation, and affective empathy, the study employs abductive thematic analysis to identify recurring patterns of interaction. Results: The findings suggest that standardized procedures provide merely the institutional framework within which hearings unfold. Different forms of hearing practice emerge through distinct configurations of emotional processes. Three relatively stable interactional patterns were identified: assembly-line compliance, gladiatorial confrontation, and negotiated empathy. Among the four dimensions, emotional negotiation emerged as the key mechanism linking individual emotional experiences to collective interactional outcomes. The framework also explains variations in hearing officers’ participation, ranging from procedural detachment to active empathic engagement, as well as atypical cases that do not fully conform to dominant patterns. Discussion: This study develops an emotion-centered perspective for understanding grassroots procuratorial hearings and offers a unified explanation for hearing differentiation under a common procedural framework. Foregrounding emotional dynamics as a central component of judicial interaction, it contributes to research on judicial rituals and judicial emotions while providing practical insights for improving grassroots hearing practices.

China has experienced profound societal and economic transformations, which, coupled with globalization, have significantly impacted concepts of marriage, love, and mate preferences. A 2023 survey ...

This study investigates how female comedians on the Chinese talk show Stand-Up Comedy use humor to challenge entrenched gendered norms, combining performance analysis with audience reception research. Drawing on Butler’s theory of gender performativity, the research examines stand-up transcripts, Danmu (real-time on-screen bullet comments), and viewer discussions on Weibo, China’s leading social media platform, to explore how comedians employ satire, irony, and absurdity to critique patriarchal expectations surrounding marriage, chastity, and menstruation. Findings reveal that humor operates as a subversive strategy, exposing the normalization of gendered expectations through everyday speech, family rituals, and cultural taboos. Digital platforms further amplify these critiques, positioning comedy as a site of feminist discourse and cultural negotiation. While some male backlash underscores resistance to gender critique, the study argues that stand-up comedy functions as vernacular feminist pedagogy, using laughter and repetition to destabilize gender norms and foster collective reflection. These insights contribute to a deeper understanding of humor’s role in gender politics and its potential to generate broader social reflection and change.

Introduction: How individuals negotiate marginalized identities within restrictive sociopolitical environments remains a critical question for understanding the dynamic relationship between culture and the self. This study investigates why and how Chinese professional translators engage with materials related to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and other sexual and gender minorities (LGBTQI+) in a sociocultural context where queer identities are frequently marginalized or silenced. Methods: Conceptualizing translation as a process of cultural and identity negotiation, the study draws on semi-structured interviews with 23 professional translators who have experience translating queer-related literary, academic, or community materials. Results: Thematic analysis identifies four translator positions that reflect different strategies of engagement with cultural constraints: visibility-seekers, who leverage sociocultural trends for professional or commercial gain; cautious negotiators, who adapt queer content to meet censorship and market norms; insider advocates, queer translators who use their lived experience to affirm cultural identity and empower their community; and allied activists, non-queer translators who engage in ethical solidarity and social justice through translation. These positions reveal how translators mobilize professional resources, personal experience, and ethical commitments while navigating political regulation, cultural stigma, and market expectations. Discussion: The findings highlight translators as socially situated agents whose practices mediate the circulation of marginalized cultural meanings and demonstrate how identity and cultural expression are co-constructed within structures of ideological constraint.

This study investigates translated film titles as ideological sites in contemporary Chinese media discourse, where gender identities are erased, objectified, misrepresented, or reclaimed. It examines how such paratextual choices trigger cultural conflict and negotiation during cross-cultural circulation. Guided by paratext theory and feminist approaches to media discourse, this study employs thematic analysis to examine how institutional translation strategies and networked audience responses jointly shape gendered meanings in translated film titles. Drawing on over 400 user-generated commentaries from three major Chinese social media platforms, Weibo (Microblog), Xiaohongshu (Red Note), and Douyin (TikTok), this study identifies four dominant patterns in public responses to film title translation. First, some translations erase feminine subjectivity through lexical omission. Second, some translations reduce female characters to objects of desire by employing sexualized or aestheticized language. Third, even when women are visible, their presence is frequently reframed within heteronormative or romanticized tropes that distort or dilute the original film’s feminist or gender-critical intent. Finally, networked audiences mobilize discursive resistance by offering ironic commentary and alternative translations that foreground feminist agency and media literacy, thereby articulating vernacular strategies of cultural integration and mutual intelligibility. These findings challenge the conventional view of translation as a neutral transfer. Instead, they highlight translation’s role as a publicly contested cultural act, shaped by social scrutiny and identity politics. This has important implications for intercultural communication and the management of cultural differences. The study advocates for increased attention to gendered representation in paratextual translation and supports participatory models that integrate audience feedback as a pathway to more inclusive and equitable cross-cultural narratives.

Color words present a persistent translation challenge because they function as both perceptual descriptors and carriers of conceptual meaning, and translators must decide which dimension to foreground across genres. Grounded in conceptual metaphor theory, this study investigates how 21 Chinese postgraduate students majoring in translation, many with strong technical backgrounds, translate color words in technical, promotional, and literary contexts, and what cognitive and cultural considerations drive their strategy choices. Participants, recruited from six universities in Shaanxi Province with strong technical profiles, were all experienced in translating technical texts. The findings reveal that students’ treatment of color words varies according to the text type: in technical texts, they predominantly draw on the metaphorical schema of COLOR AS PHYSICAL ATTRIBUTE, prioritizing visual precision and literal meaning. In contrast, in literary or promotional texts, they tend to activate the schema of COLOR AS CONCEPTUAL ATTRIBUTE, focusing on cultural and symbolic meanings. Their translation strategies, ranging from literal rendering to free translation and selective annotation, are shaped by the communicative function and symbolic significance of color words. This study demonstrates that color words serve both as perceptual phenomena and carriers of culturally embedded conceptual meanings, and that translators must actively navigate these dimensions to produce functional and culturally appropriate translations. These results contribute a schema-based explanation of genre-sensitive metaphor regulation in color-word translation and inform translator education by recommending differentiated training that balances precision with cultural resonance.

This article provides a critical examination of the evolution, application, and methodological implications of thematic analysis (TA) within language services research. Drawing on the principles of reflexive thematic analysis (RTA) as both an organizing and interpretive framework, the study reviews and synthesizes existing literature across six key domains: national language planning, urban governance, emergency language services, language economics, talent development and technological integration, and meta-level methodological mapping. Through this synthesis, the study identifies several recurring methodological challenges, including ambiguous epistemological positioning, limited interpretive depth, insufficient reflexivity, and low analytical transparency. Across these domains, TA demonstrates significant potential to illuminate both micro-level professional practices and macro-level structural dynamics. It enables researchers to uncover gaps in policy implementation, inequalities in resource allocation, and emerging tensions related to technological integration in language services. At the same time, the analysis reveals the need for greater methodological clarity and reflexive engagement in order to strengthen analytical validity. In response to these challenges, the article offers reflective insights and practical recommendations aimed at enhancing methodological rigor and conceptual innovation. The study concludes by outlining future directions for the field, including the integration of TA with emerging artificial intelligence tools, the refinement of analytic frameworks, and the advancement of theoretical, methodological, and ethical robustness in language services research.