The linkage of individuals with obesity and COVID‐19 is controversial and lacks systematic reviews. After a systematic search of the Chinese and English language literature on COVID‐19, 75 studies were used to conduct a series of meta‐analyses on the relationship of individuals with obesity–COVID‐19 over the full spectrum from risk to mortality. A systematic review of the mechanistic pathways for COVID‐19 and individuals with obesity is presented. Pooled analysis show individuals with obesity were more at risk for COVID‐19 positive, >46.0% higher (OR = 1.46; 95% CI, 1.30–1.65; p < 0.0001); for hospitalization, 113% higher (OR = 2.13; 95% CI, 1.74–2.60; p < 0.0001); for ICU admission, 74% higher (OR = 1.74; 95% CI, 1.46–2.08); and for mortality, 48% increase in deaths (OR = 1.48; 95% CI, 1.22–1.80; p < 0.001). Mechanistic pathways for individuals with obesity are presented in depth for factors linked with COVID‐19 risk, severity and their potential for diminished therapeutic and prophylactic treatments among these individuals. Individuals with obesity are linked with large significant increases in morbidity and mortality from COVID‐19. There are many mechanisms that jointly explain this impact. A major concern is that vaccines will be less effective for the individuals with obesity.
In the context of globalization, Chinese enterprises’ cross-border communication involves both technological-product export and cross-context cultural symbol transmission. As a representative Chinese tech enterprise, Huawei integrates traditional Chinese cultural symbols such as myths, philosophical thoughts and natural imagery into its system naming, forming a unique brand cultural system. This study takes Huawei’s system names as the research object to explore effective international translation and communication of such cultural symbols. Based on cultural translation theory, it analyzes four English translation strategies adopted by Huawei: transliteration, free translation, phonetic-semantic translation and cultural image reconstruction. The results indicate that these diversified strategies balance cultural authenticity and overseas acceptability to some extent but face dilemmas like diluted cultural connotation transmission and cognitive barriers for overseas audiences. This study aims to provide theoretical references and practical guidelines for the international communication of Chinese cultural symbols, and facilitate the efficient external translation and global dissemination of Chinese culture.
This study investigates how cross-linguistic differences in spatial cognition affect Chinese learners’ acquisition of French in the conflict domain of page turning, which is encoded in opposite ways by French and Mandarin. Two hundred and sixty-one Chinese university students completed a video-based spatial task in both languages, comprising both comprehension and production components. The results revealed a marked asymmetry in spatial cognition between the first language (L1) and second language (L2): while learners consistently relied on stabilised Mandarin-based construals, their French responses remained strongly shaped by L1 frames of reference. We found no significant association between global French proficiency and success in the French spatial tasks, indicating that higher proficiency does not automatically entail conceptual restructuring in this domain. Meanwhile, a small to moderate negative correlation between French and Mandarin scores indicated a subtle L2-to-L1 influence, whereby adopting French-conventional spatial construals was accompanied by reduced alignment with Mandarin-conventional patterns. These findings contribute to research on bidirectional cross-linguistic influence in spatial cognition by documenting L2-to-L1 effects in late, classroom-based learners. They also point to the need for pedagogical approaches that explicitly target spatial conceptualisation—through contrastive reflection and embodied practice—rather than focusing solely on the formal properties of spatial expressions.
In the perspective of translation studies, metaphor translation has always been an important issue that combines theoretical depth and practical complexity. This study specifically takes English-Chinese metaphor translation as the start-ing point and systematically analyzes the difficulties it faces. Given that English and Chinese belong to different language families, there are significant differ-ences between the two in terms of cultural origins, language forms, and thinking logics. This makes English-Chinese metaphor translation encounter numerous difficulties in practice, which are specifically manifested in aspects such as the appropriate transformation of cultural images, the accurate understanding of metaphorical semantics, and the propriety of translation expressions. In re-sponse to the above difficulties, through in-depth theoretical sorting and case analysis, this paper puts forward targeted and feasible countermeasures, with the expectation of optimizing the effect of English-Chinese metaphor translation to a certain extent, enhancing the effectiveness of the translation in conveying the metaphorical connotations of the original text, and further making modest contributions to the theoretical expansion and practical improvement in the field of metaphor translation. Meanwhile, it is also hoped that this paper can provide valuable references for the vast number of professionals engaged in English-Chinese translation work.
What insights can be gleaned concerning the aesthetic underpinnings of Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien beyond the long take, long shot, static camerawork, and his affinity for neorealism? This article explores Hou’s departure from language since the turn of the new millennium and its interplay with the modern Chinese lyrical tradition contextualized within the contemporary milieu. The article begins by dissecting Hou’s methods of diminishing language and rendering it unfamiliar. It then addresses the collaboration between Hou and Zhu Tianwen, a Taiwanese writer who serves as a scriptwriter, shedding light on Hou’s postmillennial disengagement from history and preconceived narratives. The accompanying aesthetic strategy of reducing and estranging language, in turn, facilitates a more genuine manifestation of the individual personalities of the actors, empowering them to create fiction. Hou’s method also influenced Zhu’s evolution as a novelist, which is visible in her latest literary work. By examining the lesser-known perspective of Shen Congwen concerning cinema, the article illustrates the convergence between Hou and Shen in their shared aspiration to cultivate an atmospheric cinematic ambience. The article posits that Hou’s postmillennial cinema outgrows the detached observational style of his, Zhu’s, and Shen’s earlier works. Instead, Hou’s departure from language as an information medium transforms the narrative into a transgressive lyrical experience, traversing subjective and objective realms and blurring the lines between fiction and reality.
This study examines how language functions impact linguistic features in academic and entertainment registers. Using multi-dimensional analysis (MDA) and computing entropy values, we analyze a large-scale Chinese corpus consisting of over 19 million tokens from 1000 texts, including academic journals, dissertations, entertainment magazines, and novellas. We identify key language functions that shape linguistic features within these registers. Our results reveal five core dimensions of linguistic functional variation, narrative versus rational discourse, modification, reference, uncertainty, and prudence, which account for over 52% of the variance in language use. Certain linguistic features systematically co-occur in each dimension, forming language functions that underpin broader social networks. Entropy values further confirm the findings of multi-dimensional analysis. This study emphasizes the associations between linguistic features and language functions, offering a theoretical perspective for understanding how language functions impact linguistic features and shape different registers. The findings suggest a language variation perspective on social networks’ communication.
Background. Foreign language is essential for establishing and maintaining business contacts, expanding social networks, and training competitive specialists capable of exchanging knowledge with representatives of other countries and cultures. The current social order for learning English and Chinese languages shows the necessity for effective didactic tools, and one of them is authentic song. The authors prove that authentic songs boost the efficiency and quality of learning lexical and grammatical material and broaden cultural knowledge.
Purpose. Providing a theoretical justification and experimental validation of the didactic potential of authentic songs in teaching English and Chinese languages to linguistic students.
Materials and methods. The research uses a combination of complementary theoretical, empirical, and mathematical methods: analysis of psychological-pedagogical, linguodidactic, and methodological literature, review of advanced teaching practices, observation, surveys, experimental teaching, and testing. Mathematical methods were used to process the results obtained during the experimental training.
Results. Training of nowadays university graduates proficient in English and Chinese languages is a key objective of domestic linguistic education, which seeks effective forms, methods, and teaching tools. In this context, the usage of authentic songs, representing the target language in its natural environment, provides reliable examples of foreign speech communication and foster interaction with a different linguaculture, aligning with the requirements for developing students’ foreign language communicative competence. The linguodidactic potential of authentic songs is determined by criteria such as relevance, linguistic value, textual informativeness, and alignment with learners’ interest, providing the development of lexical-grammatical skills, broadening the cultural and linguocultural knowledge, improving speech abilities, and enhancing the cognitive motivation. Authentic songs serve as an effective didactic tool in the linguistic education of linguistic students, especially when they are used purposefully and systematically.
EDN: LJCPAD
We develop a neutrosophic stochastic framework to evaluate innovative teaching models in Chinese Language & Literature under digital education. The state of teaching quality is represented as a neutrosophic triplet 𝑋𝑡 = (𝑇𝑡,𝐼𝑡,𝐹𝑡) ∈ [0,1]3, encoding benefit (truth), ambiguity (indeterminacy), and shortfall (falsity) in the sense of neutrosophic functions and calculus . We propose a three-equation neutrosophic SDE-each component a mean-reverting Ornstein-Uhlenbeck (OU) process-whose parameters are calibrated from observed weekly quality series. A neutrosophic Lyapunov function proves exponential stability (in mean) of the model's deterministic counterpart and yields interpretable sufficient conditions linking pedagogy variability to stability margins. A complete case study on three digital teaching models is presented with step-by-step calculations, uncertainty quantification, and a scalar Neutrosophic Teaching Innovation Efficiency score. The methodology is transparent, reproducible, and extensible to other humanities disciplines.
This study examines the developmental pattern of spatial frames of reference (FoRs) in Chinese preschoolers using the naturalistic data elicited from the Beijing <i>Early Childhood Mandarin Corpus</i>. Altogether, 2837 static spatial sentences were identified from the corpus, and 785 of them used FoRs; thus, they were analysed using the seven-class FoRs coding system developed from the literature review. The results indicated that: (1) six classes were produced by the Beijing preschoolers, including the direct reference (DR), geomorphic reference (GR), landmark-based reference (LBR), object-centred reference (OCR), relative reference (RR), and people-centred reference (PCR). But, the absolute reference (AR) frequently used by Beijing adults was not produced by the preschoolers; (2) significant age differences were found in the utterances with reference and demonstrative sentences and were also identified in the production of OCR, PCR, and RR; (3) there were no significant gender or gender x age effects in the production of FoRs, except for the no-frame sentences; and (4) there was a stable and consistent pattern of FoRs allocation by age, and the most frequently used was OCR. All these findings indicate interactions among language, culture, and cognition.
Yufeng Peng, Shouqiang Huang, Xiaotong Yang
et al.
<h4>Background</h4>Aphasia is one of the most common complications of stroke. Mirror therapy (MT) is promising rehabilitation measure for the treatment of post-stroke aphasia. Although some studies suggested that MT is effective and safe for aphasia, the effects and safety remain uncertain due to lacking strong evidence, such as the relevant systematic review and meta- analysis.<h4>Methods</h4>This study will search PubMed, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, EMBASE, Medline, China Knowledge Network (CNKI), WANFANG, China Biomedical Literature Database (CBM), from inception to 1th May 2023 to identify any eligible study. No language or date of publication shall be limited. We will only include randomised controlled trials of MT in the Treatment of poststroke aphasia. Two investigators will work separately on the study selection, data extraction, and study quality assessment. The western aphasia battery (WAB) and aphasia quotient (AQ) will be included as the main outcomes. Boston diagnostic aphasia examination method (BDAE), Chinese standard aphasia examination (CRRCAE) will be included as the secondary outcomes. The statistical analysis will be conducted by RevMan V.5.4 software. The risk of bias of included studies will be assessed by the Cochrane 'Risk of bias' tool. The quality of proof of the results will be evaluated by using the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation guidelines.<h4>Results</h4>The finding will be presented in a journal or related conferences.<h4>Conclusion</h4>This study will provide a basis for whether mirror therapy (MT) is effective and safe in the treatment of post-stroke aphasia.<h4>Trial registration</h4>Systematic review registration INPLASY registration number: INPLASY 202340054.
IntroductionThe stigma of not giving birth to children affects approximately 53. 08~64% of female infertility patients worldwide. This stigma not only causes harm to the mental health of these infertility patients, but also affects their quality of life, making them bear the adverse social consequences such as domestic violence, marriage breakdown, or even delay in receiving the treatment. Therefore, it is crucial to have a deep understanding of the patients' stigma and effective intervention in alleviating it.Aims/QuestionThis study aims to discuss and summarize the stigma in infertile women and its impact on patients, and to provide a theoretical basis for the clinical treatment and nursing intervention of disease stigma in infertile female patients.MethodsThe literature search used four English databases (Cochrane Library, EMBASE, Web of Science, and PubMed) and two Chinese databases (CNKI and Wanfang). The search time of the literature ranges from the establishment of the library to 2022, with no language restriction.ResultsThe review included 28 studies, with 20 cross-sectional studies and 8 qualitative studies. This study found that social support, living environment, education level, occupation, and fertility awareness were the major influencing factors of infertility stigma.ConclusionsInfertility stigma can bring heavy mental pressure and psychological burden to female infertility patients and affect their quality of life. Therefore, effective and targeted psychological interventions should be developed to reduce the patients' stigma and improve their quality of life.Implications for practiceHealthcare workers must develop targeted nursing interventions, provide professional counseling services to reduce the level of stigma in female infertility patients, alleviate fertility stress, and improve their quality of life.
Zhao Yizhen (?–1382) was one of the most important figures in the history of Daoism in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties. His master, Zhang Tianquan (1275–?), was recorded to be a disciple of Jin Pengtou (?–1341), a famous master of inner alchemy in the late Yuan, in the poems written by Zhao Yizhen himself and in the biography of Zhao Yizhen written by Zhang Yuchu (1359–1410), the 43rd Heavenly Master. According to these records, we know that the Method that Zhao Yizhen learned from Zhang Tianquan was only about inner alchemy, inherited from Jin Pengtou. But this story does not include all the facts. Since we have found the biography of Zhang Tianquan, which is preserved in rare editions of <i>Lishi Zhenxian Tidao Tongjian</i> collected in the libraries of Beijing and Taipei, we can determine that what Zhang Tianquan was aware of and famous for was indeed the Thunder Method of Hunyuan. With the evidence found in <i>Daofa Huiyuan</i>, we can conclude that Zhao Yizhen was also very familiar with the Thunder Method of Hunyuan, which must have been inherited from Zhang Tianquan, and he tried to merge it into his own ritual system of the Qingwei tradition.
PurposeThis research explores the standard language ideology in Chinese foreign language education policies. The most substantial in relation to language policy and management in regard to language ideology are beliefs associated with the values on the named language and its varieties (Spolsky, 2009). In the standard language ideology, the standard is treated as being valuable linguistic capital and possessing prestige as well as authority. Mandarin is the most well-accepted standard Chinese, and similarly, UK English or US English is the most popular and Standard English (SE) in China.Design/methodology/approachThe theoretical framework in this research is critical discourse analysis (CDA) and discourse-historical approach (DHA) to guide the data collection and data analysis. This research will review recent and seminal literature obtained from the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) on language policy in China in relation to standard language ideology. The literature also investigates Chinese state's English language ideologies using official language education policies (FLEPs).FindingsThe results show that standard language ideology is a common mindset found within official state policies in regard to SE. The authors argue that the Chinese trust on the ideology of standard language appears to not be aligned to recent worldwide trends such as globalization and multilingualism.Originality/valueThis research can provide insights into future language planning and language policy in China and shows that the future research could do more on language planning in China.
To manage the undesirable effect of anxiety on students, a wide scope of research has been dedicated to determining the triggers of anxiety and pedagogical interferences that can assist students with mitigating anxiety. Mindfulness is a relaxation strategy that has been related to constructive impacts when utilized as a managing technique for stress and anxiety. Originating from the construct of mindfulness, there is a multidimensional conception acknowledged as resilience as one of the notions in the Positive Psychology (PP) literature, which highlights the organizations and individuals’ strengths and self-control to comply with accidental states. Given the eminence of mindfulness and resilience in learning situations, the present study sets forth to examine the role of these constructs in alleviating English as a foreign language (EFL) learners’ anxiety. To meet this objective, 502 Chinese EFL learners took part in this research. They were asked to respond to the three questionnaires, namely resilience, mindfulness, and anxiety. To answer the research question of the study, a linear multiple regression was run and the findings demonstrated that mindfulness and resilience together could significantly predict anxiety. Consistent with the findings, some recommendations are presented concerning the implications of the present research.
A growing body of localized Chinese as a Foreign Language (CFL) textbooks are produced in various
worldwide regions. Local education policies, influenced by a trend towards multicultural education,
have shaped Chinese cultural representation in these textbooks to discursively include groups
of overseas Chinese and Chinese ethnic minorities. However, a scarcity of studies have critically
investigated the cultural representation of diverse Chinese-speaking groups in CFL textbooks.
This paper critically examined the cultural representation of Chinese-speaking groups in CFL
textbooks produced in regions including the United States, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Russia,
and Italy. Analysis and discussions are offered with respect to three interconnecting cultural
themes, i.e. character setting; context of conversations; selection of cultural products. Our findings
have demonstrated ample examples of strategical representation of Chinese-speaking Others.
We also provided realistic suggestions that will contribute to future design of CFL textbooks in
collaboration with diverse Chinese-speaking groups around the world for a more diverse portrayal
of the Chinese linguistic and cultural communities.
Home language (HL) effects on academic language literacy have been extensively discussed. However, previous research has mostly focused on Indo–European languages. This study extends the literature by using data ( n = 17,600) collected in a diversified language area: Guangxi, China. We examined the effects of four HLs and four socioeconomic factors by using modern standard written Chinese literacy as an outcome across three developmental levels (ages 10.45, 12.31, and 14.72). School clustering effect existed and adding the predictors of HL and socioeconomic status did not change the variance proportion in literacy performance accounted for by the school groupings. The findings indicate that (a) Putonghua-only speakers performed poorest in school Grades 5 to 6 and 7 to 8, (b) dominant Putonghua speakers performed best in Grades 7 to 8, (c) heritage-only speakers performed best in Grades 5 to 6, and (d) the contribution of the parents’ socioeconomic factors depended on the participants’ developmental levels. Our study supports the bilingual literacy advantage and explains why a heritage-only acts as a type of bilingualism.
History of scholarship and learning. The humanities, Social Sciences
Mandarin Chinese tones are known to be difficult for second language learners. A large body of research has examined non-native perception of tones, and may provide useful and interesting insights about the sources of tone learning difficulty for Chinese teachers and learners. However, much of the literature is in journals that may be difficult to access or written in technical language that may be hard for non-specialists to understand. This review article aims to summarize key findings from this research in an accessible fashion. I will draw on the research to answer five broad questions: (1) Why are tones more difficult for some learners than others? (2) Why are some tones more difficult than others? (3) Why are tones in words more difficult than in meaningless syllables? (4) Why are tones in context more difficult than in isolation? (5) What can we do about tone learning difficulties?
This study is situated in a newly emerging EMI setting in China where an Anglophone high school curriculum is taught by predominantly foreign teachers through English to local Chinese students. These teachers are termed ‘monolingual teachers’ in the sense that they cannot use the students’ L1 as a resource in their teaching should they wish to, as opposed to the typical bilingual teachers commonly explored in the existing EMI literature. Through quantitative and qualitative analysis of 30 video-recorded EMI science lessons taught by 15 monolingual teachers we identified and explored the language-focused-episodes (LFEs) where students’ attention was explicitly diverted from the content plane to the language plane. We found very limited explicit language instruction, with non-technical vocabulary being the main type of LFEs, and only a narrow range of grammatical features being attended to. The implications for this lack of focus on language are discussed in the context of monolingual teachers but also with reference to the potential for bilingual teachers to use both L1 and L2 for LFEs.
ABSTRACT In response to the increasing literature on transnational higher education in host countries, this paper aims to identify prominent factors affecting the quality of transnational higher education in China, as perceived and reported by Chinese host universities. A qualitative data analysis was conducted on 122 self-appraisal reports on transnational higher education programmes submitted to China’s Ministry of Education in 2017 by 112 Chinese host universities. The analysis identified and examined relationships between four interrelated factors: low foreign language proficiency among students, shortage of a sustainable supply of highly qualified teachers, low quality of curriculum design and implementation and deficiencies in institutional regulations. The findings are discussed in the context of the literature, revealing two issues in transnational higher education in China: using local Chinese teachers to teach the imported foreign courses and outsourcing foreign language teaching. The paper concludes with some limitations of the study and implications for future research.
This book is a corpus-based description and discussion of how Modern Mandarin Chinese encodes motion events, with a focus on how the distribution of verbal motion morphemes is closely associated with the meanings they lexicalize. The book is not only the first work that proposes a finer-grained classification and diagnostics of Chinese motion morphemes from the perspective of scale structure, but also the first to more comprehensively account for the ordering of Chinese motion morphemes. The findings of this study will not only enrich the literature on motion events, but more importantly, further our understanding of the nature of motion events and the way motion events are conceived and represented in the Chinese language. The major proposals and the cognitive functional approach of this work will also shed light on studies beyond motion. The book will be a valuable resource for scholars interested in motion events, syntax-semantic interface, and typology.