Nowadays, the world is undergoing changes unprecedented in a century, and this trend will continue in the future. In the meantime, with the accelerated development of a new round of scientific, industrial and educational revolution, accompanied by the further propelling of the fourth industrial revolution and the second machine revolution, disruptive technologies, such as Big Data,Cloud Computing, Artificial Intelligence and Gene Editing, are emerging and mushrooming. Thus, we now enter an era of intelligent society, which is Quaternion Society encompassing human beings, the physical world, intelligent machines and the virtual world. This is a virtualized and digitized societal model where humans coexist with ubiquitous intelligent machines. Apparently, the interaction between the virtual world and the physical world will bring unprecedented complexity to governance. It also poses challenges to global politics, economy, technology and national power. Meanwhile, there is an urgent need to reconsider bioethics, technological risks, legal regulations and so on. The scope and method of all these questions pertaining to governance should be addressed by a deepened strategic layout of digital governance on a national level. Digital governance means data-based governance and the deployment of digitized technology in social organization and operation. This paper puts forward some forward-looking suggestions for the construction of the digital governance system in Quaternion Society from the aspects of strengthening strategic research, promoting the building of the digital governance system, improving technology security and risk prevention mechanism, and exploring the construction of the international coordination mechanism of digital governance.

The rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) technology has made international communication more convenient and frequent. However, it also imposes new challenges on the current international legal system. First, the development of AI technology will challenge some basic principles of international law, such as the principle of sovereignty and the principle of state responsibility. The upcoming AI era might cause serious problems of algorithm monopoly and data monopoly, and even form the AI hegemony, which in turn will seriously threaten a nation’s sovereignty. As a result, it is necessary to put forward the concept of AI sovereignty to prevent the infringement of AI technological hegemony on national sovereignty. In terms of state responsibility, when acts of AI violate a state’s international obligations, these acts cannot be directly attributed to the state but to an individual or entity representing the state as the first step to establish state responsibility. This allows the state to use AI’s completely autonomous behavior to exempt state responsibility. Second, the development of AI technology also challenges many specific fields of international law, including the resident system of international law, international humanitarian law, international criminal law, international intellectual property law, international human rights law, international law of the sea, and international maritime law, etc. AI will continue to update its capacity of intelligence. AI acquiring legal personality also raises the questions as to whether the resident system applies to AI and how to apply it. These concerns require the active response of international law. At the same time, when AI becomes the main creator and defender of human interests, it may also need to be granted some human rights. However, the subjects of international human rights law are still limited to humans. At present, AI weapon systems are gradually getting out of human control. Its ability of decision-making, however, is difficult to meet the requirements of the principles of proportionality and attack prevention. When AI acts on behalf of individuals to commit acts of genocide and endanger humanity, new issues will arise, such as the identification of responsible subjects and methods of attribution. In addition, the application of AI technology has led to the invention of unmanned ships. Considering their special nature and potential danger, coastal states should be entitled to have some special jurisdiction over unmanned ships. In terms of marine compensation, accidents caused by completely autonomous ships will also trigger new issues on responsibility. It is worth noting that some objects generated by AI have important value and innovativeness, and should be protected by intellectual property law. However, there is no provision for this protection in international intellectual property law. In this respect, it is particularly important to properly manage the relationship between the development of AI technology and international law. States should strengthen cooperation with the goal of safe application of AI to guide the healthy development of AI technology. Although AI technology is at its early stage of development in many countries, the issue of AI security cannot be ignored. Its development thus needs to be regulated effectively. Because of this necessity, we may take the lead in formulating an international soft law to solve technical problems and certain ethical problems. Moreover, in order to deal effectively with new social problems and deep-level ethical problems, it is also necessary to develop a global risk prevention and control mechanism in the field which requires a stronger obligation through modifying multilateral international rules and developing new multilateral treaties. Meanwhile, in order to respond to the opportunities and challenges imposed by artificial intelligence on a global scale, it is advisable to set up AI-specific international institutions, which aims to focus on and formulate the rules of AI industry, to supervise the development and use of AI, and to promote the integration between the development of artificial intelligence and the existing international legal system.

Since big data products are essentially algorithmic products, they do not have qualified authors in the sense of copyright law, nor do they meet the requirements of originality of works, and thus cannot be endowed with copyright. Moreover, network operators can enjoy property rights over their big data products which are the result of their labor. Big data products have become market trading objects with commodity exchange value at present, which can bring commercial benefits to network operators. Finally, big data products should be given property ownership as they possess four powers. Judging from the production process and appearance of big data products, first, big data products are generated through a specific algorithm, which is independent of big data products and does not belong to the content of big data products. In fact, algorithms are to big data products are what machinery and equipment are to general industrial products. Second, the theory of intangible property rights can be applied to big data products. The discussion on the right exercise boundary of big data products is ultimately about the network operators’ right boundary to process the collected personal information data of users when producing and disposing of big data products. In the process of collecting and using personal information data, according to relevant regulations, it is legal for network operators to obtain and use the data according to the purpose, method and scope agreed upon in the regulations under the condition that the rules publicized by the platform are not invalid. If the network operator intends to dispose of the big data products processed from personal information data to others, there must be two requisites: First, the ″rules for providing personal information to others″ must be highlighted in the notes for users provided by the network operator while collecting information, and must have the consent of users. Second, the personal information data provided to other people are anonymized, and they no longer have one-to-one correspondence with users, cannot be identified as from specific individuals, and cannot be recovered. While the commercial value of big data products brings huge commercial benefits to network operators, there are also some commercial entities that violate laws, regulations and market rules, steal other people’s work for profit, and infringe upon the legitimate rights and interests of network operators. As the property ownership attribute of big data products has not been established, network operators can only request judicial relief according to the anti-unfair competition law or the tort liability law. However, in the long run, disputes involving data ownership and the ownership of big data products will increase day by day, and the issue of their rights attribute will become the focus of disputes that cannot be bypassed in judicial practice. The proposed theoretical assumption of property rights protection can better safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of big data product network operators and inject more vitality into the vigorous development of the big data industry. First of all, network operators can oppose anyone except themselves according to laws based on property ownership. The reduction of network operators’ burden of proof is more conducive to the relief of losses of their legitimate rights and interests. Secondly, network operators can exercise their right of claim in rem according to the characteristics of big data products and expand their right of claim base to the greatest extent. Finally, due to the active protection ensured by property ownership, network operators can further increase the commercial value of big data products.

Driven by artificial intelligence technology, the digital economy has become a powerful driving force in world economy. In order to win the Economic Competitive Advantage, many countries have occupied the commanding heights of artificial intelligence technology, and our country has also actively deployed the infrastructure construction of artificial intelligence technology in the national strategy to enhance the competitiveness in the world digital trade. Cross-border data flow is bound to occur in international digital trade, and cross-border data in the era of artificial intelligence has its particularity. First, cross-border data transmission volume is large, high speed, more difficult to control. Second, AI technology has more unknown risks and we have little experience in dealing with them. Third, the global trend of AI data flow conflicts with the nationalization of data regulation. Therefore, it is difficult to balance data security and data flow at the international level. In the era of artificial intelligence, cross-border flow of data, data theft, data leakage and other security issues have become increasingly prominent. At present, there is no uniform international rule on how to balance the interests between digital economic dividend and data protection from data flow. This paper compares and analyzes the attitudes and legislative rules of data cross-border flow with typical economies such as the EU and the US. It is of practical significance to establish the rules of cross-border data flow in China and to enhance China’s voice in international rule-making. The European Union and the United States are the most influential countries and regions in the legal regulation on cross-border data flow. The EU has adopted the strictest policy of restricting cross-border data flow and attempts to push the strictest EU standards to the world, in order to obtain extraterritorial regulatory powers and ultimately to transform the EU standards into internationally harmonized standards. In order to protect the high-speed development of its Internet enterprises, the United States has adopted a relaxed policy on cross-border data flow, encouraged cross-border data flow, and supported the application of high and new technologies such as artificial intelligence technology, Internet of things, and big data, through the globalization of the Internet to promote the globalization of artificial intelligence and other high-tech, further accelerating the development of the digital economy of the country. China currently has relatively strict restrictions on the cross-border flow of data. After considering the current development situation of China’s digital economy and the development trend of digital globalization in the world economy, it is pointed out that China must carry out strategic layout at the national level to support the free cross-border transmission of data. This paper attempts to propose a Chinese scheme to support the free transmission of data across borders through rules and standards. First, rules guide the flow of data. Active participation in cross-border data rule-making at the international level will enhance China’s voice in international rule-making. Our legislation can draw lessons from the free foreign trade policy of the United States, the timeliness of EU legislation to speed up the legislative process, grasp the future trend of world economical development, so as to formulate good laws. In addition, at the standard level, by unifying the common standards and improving the ability to respond to data security incidents, we will form cohesion at home and improve the overall competitiveness of our enterprises in the international digital economy market, promoting the discourse power of our country in international rule-making.

University teachers are the key strength of university and academic development, who can promote the university's vitality and creativity. The evaluation and engagement system is the core element of the university system, which has a decisive influence on the prosperity or decline of a university. The evaluation and engagement also involves the personnel management, academic evaluation, governance system etc., which is the axis of the university and may cause all the parts to move if it turns. This is particularly true for Republican Chinese universities since the modern university concept was introduced into China. There have been various insightful discussions on this issue, but most of them were the presentation of facts, which lack systematic in-depth interpretation, and failed to make comprehensive analysis of the internal relationship between Chinese and foreign universities' evaluation and engagement. On the whole, the research in this area is extremely inadequate. What kind of course did the universities' evaluation and engagement system go through in modern China? What are the general form, internal logic, historical meaning and practical significance? These issues need to be further explored. Modern Chinese universities started in the late 19th century, and the evaluation & engagement system evolved with the universities' development. From the 1890s to the early time of the Northern Warlords, the evaluation & engagement system was deeply influenced by Japan, but teacher professionalism was not ideal and the quality of staff was uneven. The reform of Peking University led by Cai Yuanpei directed this system gradually on the right track, which, to some extent, resulted from absorbing the nutrients from European universities. Meanwhile, Southeast University introduced more ideas of American universities. Generally speaking, during the Northern Warlords time, the university president had considerable decision-making power on the issue of the evaluation & engagement. It seems that the evaluation and engagement of teachers were relatively rough and arbitrary, and the degree of institutionalization was relatively low. After entering the period of Nanjing National Government in 1927, a series of policies were issued and implemented in the whole country. The evaluation and engagement of university teachers became more standardized, mature and strict, and the standards were significantly improved. Especially after the 1930s, the level of evaluation and engagement for university teachers increased rapidly, while the number of returned overseas Chinese who got doctorates from famous foreign universities was greatly reduced. Both local scholars and returnees fully competed in an active academic market. The result was that the Chinese knowledge-community made great progress and better integrated into the world academic system. International exchanges became increasingly active, and China's academic autonomy was significantly enhanced. After the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War, the presidential autonomous evaluation & engagement system was diluted and the state power was more deeply involved in the university governance. It can be concluded from the above discussion that, after a long-term exploration, China formed a more reasonable evaluation & engagement system for university teachers, absorbed nutrients from other countries and was also in line with China's actual conditions. The university evaluation & engagement systems in Germany, France, Britain, the United States, Japan and other countries had their own characteristics. The Chinese intelligentsia made extensive reference, but mainly learned from the experience of the United States. By taking the American ″complete external employment system″ and ″up or out″ system as frame of reference, China formed the cumulative promotion and engagement system of ″no appointment and out″ , and prestigious universities also formed their own characteristics. This system started to take root in China and promoted the rapid development of Chinese academy. In this regard, the evaluation and engagement for university teachers in modern China was not entirely a product of human creation, but a system formed by the joint actions of the social environment, academic production, educational reform and international exchange, which was an important achievement of modern China's system construction. In this process, the system and personnel, ideas and interests, domestic and international factors interacted intricately, which finally formed a very complex network structure. To a certain extent, this process is a miniature of the evolution of modern Chinese academy and society, and reflected the process of modernization of Chinese academy and higher education.

Since its establishment, the People's Republic of China has made significant achievements in national language governance, especially in the standardization of Chinese language and its characters. In China, the standardization of language is an essential part of language planning and practice, and an fundamental part of national language practice. In this new era, Chinese language standards and norms are facing new challenges. The new era not only means the new historical period characterized by informatization, globalization and intellectualization that the human society has entered, but also refers to the age that the world is facing a significant change unseen by people over the past hundreds of years. The new era also means that China has built a well-off society in an all-round way, and that socialism with Chinese characteristics will make outstanding contributions in the course of the construction of a community with a shared future for humanity and global public governance. China has made significant achievements in national language governance because compared with the United States, it has distinct institutional advantages and a perfect administrative system in language affairs. China's language policy planning has a strong awareness of top-level design which is systematic, long-term and continuous. In the new era, a theory of national language governance with Chinese characteristics is based on a comprehensive study and summary of the practice of Chinese language governance from diachronic and synchronic perspectives, as well as a horizontal comparison with the practices of language governance in other countries. In the new era, norms should not be taken as compulsive in China. Although revisionism has a role to play, it is not the primary goal or purpose of language norms. Norms should follow the laws of language. They are the active choices of the Chinese government to clarify the ambiguities in language use to meet the social needs in real language life. Fundamentally speaking, the standards of language and the change of norms for characters should keep pace with the times. Differential norms should be accentuated, the concept of language norms updated, the old concepts such as norm romanticism and norm purity forsaken, and norms pragmatized. The Chinese language norms are not established to limit the development of language, but to better explore the law of language evolution. Positive guidance and intervention are needed in the Chinese social language when the independent evolution of language cannot be achieved, such as the non-standard public language, the confusion in the selection and change of place names, and the stigmatization of specific professions. Another example is the writing form of Chinese minority languages (transcribed through Latin), which not only involves the internationalization, standardization and informatization of the characters, but also involves the national sovereignty of the standard of the language and characters. Some minority languages use more than one type of characters at the same time, which is not only undesirable and unnecessary, but also increases the burden of the users of the characters and weakens the authority and practicability of the national characters. It is therefore urgent for the Chinese government to re-plan and standardize minority languages' scripts based on a comprehensive investigation. In general, there are no perfect standards of the linguistic script. In the development and implementation of standards, we need to allow for trial and error rather than being overly demanding. We need to constantly adjust and correct the norms with a developmental view. In the new era, the norms of Chinese language and script will mainly take the form of flexible guidance, and language and script standards will be set to achieve unity and guide usage rather than to restrict or enforce practice. In the future, our focus will be on strengthening the publicity of language and character policies, popularizing the common sense of language and character, improving the language and character literacy of the public, and establishing a dynamic view of language and character norms. We should actively cope with the language variants and the negative public opinion in language life.

Over the past half century, there has been a debate between the theory of description and the theory of direct reference in the philosophy of language, which began with Saul Kripkes modal argument. However, this debate is deliberately exaggerated, partly due to peoples unfamiliarity with or neglect of the theoretical achievements in demonstratives and indexicals, especially the work of David Kaplan. This article employs the theory of direct reference on indexicals to advance an approach of actualizing description to names, and argues that this approach is promising in rebutting the modal argument and reconciling both parties of the debate. This article holds that actualizing description is the most direct and convenient response that a theorist of description can make to the modal argument. As a context-sensitive indexical expression, an abstract actualized description type has only literal meaning of character; only in a context of use can its particular token obtain a complete content meaning. By returning to the world of context, an actualized description token can locate a unique object as its reference by virtue of its meaning of character and can designate it rigidly, referring to the content meaning of that particular token. Since the rigid designation has been established in the world of context, this article argues that there is no need to identify the referent of the actualized token description in any circumstance or any world of evaluation with the help of descriptive meaning since it directly refers to that object. This article boldly breaks through the strategy of rigidifying description proposed by John Searle, and locates the meaning of actualized description at the level of character, while there is no descriptive meaning but the direct referent itself as meaning at the level of content. Thus, the approach of actualizing description I advance is compatible with the theories of description and direct reference: the reference is determined by virtue of its meaning of character in the context of use, while the object as the referent is referred to directly in the circumstance or world of evaluation, and the referent is precisely restricted to its content meaning. Since an actualized token description has the same rigidity as a name, the modal argument that resorts to the distinction between rigid designator and accidental designator to rebut the new version of the theory of description is no longer valid. This article also focuses on the principle ″analyticity entails necessity″ which the modal argument relies on, and points out that the analyticity of context-sensitive sentence does not entail the necessity of the proposition it may express. I set up a criterion of identity for context-sensitive sentence token: any token belonging to the same sentence type and expressing the same proposition is identical to each other. Furthermore, a new definition is proposed for the analyticity of the indexical sentence, that is, the content (proposition) expressed by any of its tokens is true in the contextual world in which that token may occur, or, all its tokens are necessarily true. Thus, the traditional notion of analyticity is expanded. Based on this, I defend the analyticity of indexical sentences such that ″ιx@(x) is (x)″ in the article, for all its tokens are necessarily true. In the meantime, I emphasize that rigid designator, accidental designator, and direct referential term are all relative to the metaphysical meaning of content and cannot be used as reasons to determine the analyticity or syntheticity of a sentence at the level of linguistic rules. By the same token, this article argues that the analyticity of sentence at the level of linguistic rules does not entail the necessity of proposition expressed at the metaphysical level. The sentence that ″ιx@(x) is (x)″ involving an actualized description is analytic, whereas due to the accidental property that represents a singular proposition expressed by some of its tokens is not necessary or necessarily true. Since no ridiculous corollary follows from the analyticity of the context-sensitive sentence that ″x@(x) is (x)″, the trick of a modal argument to refute the rigidifying description strategy can hardly work. In summary, converting ordinary descriptions that are accidental designators into actualized descriptions that are rigid designators, the approach of actualizing description not only reconciles the theory of description with the theory of direct reference, but also deals with the accusations of analyticity from the modal argument at leisure, for analyticity of a sentence at the level of character does not entail necessity or necessary truth of a proposition it may express at the level of content.

Though the western journalism has taken the doctrine ″Bad news is good news″ as a guideline for practice for a long time, constructive journalism is a new approach to how the journalists report news, which brings fresh wind into the academic community and the press circle. However, the concept of constructive journalism is not unchangeable. In the process of its development, similar concepts include positive journalism, peace journalism, restorative narrative, expected news, solutions journalism, etc. The academic community has not reached an agreement on the definition and operating principles concerning the above six categories of journalism, which will inevitably cause confusion in journalism practice and research, so they need to be sorted out, clarified, and defined. The analysis of constructive journalism from the perspective of mapping knowledge domain, based on the Web of Science core collection, shows that the study on the above six categories of journalism has gone through three stages from inactivity to activity, and to concurrent growth. Among the six categories of journalism, peace journalism, constructive journalism and solutions journalism are more likely be used and cited in bibliographical records. Although constructive journalism appeared later than others, it has attracted much attention because of its inter-disciplinary and practical value. The distribution of authors’ countries and cooperative researches in this field indicate that the emergence of different news concepts is closely related to the international situation and the political, economic and cultural factors of different countries. Although studies on constructive journalism research are growing fast, the variety of research institutions and their wide distribution have given rise to certain disputes and differences. Although a group of scholars have tried to construct a concept of journalism that can get rid of the influence of ″American Centralism″, the result has hardly changed. That means the concept of news generated from the United States is still the core of journalism, with European and American countries as the principal part and developing countries as the auxiliary in the academic community. When comparing the concepts of the six categories of journalism, researchers have attempted to employ positive psychology theories and methods to unify and cover the positive elements of all the other concepts and news categories in an effort to build their own systems, which, conversely, resulted in blurred boundaries, broader domains and weaker theoretical interpretability. In the process of switch from the old terms to new terms, constructive journalism researchers have tried to change the situation that the media ″enjoy power but bear no responsibility″. First of all, constructive journalism needs to be guided by positive psychology and simultaneously focus on the positive follow-through of negative news with an aim to cover a more diverse social background. Secondly, constructive news attaches importance to adopting multiple concerns and voices and promotes the active transformation of journalists from ″gatekeeper″ to ″promoters″. Thus, constructive news reconstructs the relationship between news and audiences, inspires and guides the public to participate in public affairs and promotes the formation of positive energy in promoting social development. Thirdly, constructive news provides an effective way for ″contextualized″ reports, which breaks the limitation of the regional conflicts of peace news and of community groups in restorative narrative, inspires journalism to expand its scope and pushes local news to gradually go global. Fourthly, constructive news combines the problem-solving orientation of planned news and the future orientation of expected news. It also connects the past, the present and the future and takes a positive stance to turn difficulties into prosperity, thus improving the effectiveness of news communication. As the saying goes, ″Stones from other hills may serve to polish the jade of this one″. The theories and practices of western constructive news can undoubtedly bring new thinking, positioning and cultivation to Chinese journalism theory and its practice. However, the reform of Chinese journalism and communication must start from China’s domestic situation a global perspective. It needs to find within Chinese traditional culture the theoretical resources on the communication of harmony and positive energy. It needs to find its own direction in the contemporary news practice under the guidance of ″positive reporting as main direction″. Chinese reform in news communication also needs to critically borrow ideas from the news research and practice of constructive news and even from the other five types and actively explore the theory and practice of constructive news with Chinese characteristics.

There has been a rich storage of cross-disciplinary research on Chang'an, the capital of the Sui and Tang Dynasties, among which the study from the perspective of urban history has begun to pay attention to the relationship between Chang'an as the capital of the Empire and the local culture of the city. However, no research has been done on the impact of Jiangnan (Yangtze River's south) on Chang'an's urban and cultural life. Although scholars have showed their interest in this important economic and cultural area of the Empire and its macro impact on the fate of the Tang Dynasty, they have not yet studied the elements of Jiangnan embodied in the good taste in the locals' daily life and their cultural pursuit. This paper will focus on the above two points. In the grand territory of the Tang Empire, Chang'an, located on the Guanzhong Plains in the northwest, was its capital city. Jiangnan, the former political center of the Six Dynasties, located in the southeast of the Empire and far away from Chang'an, was gradually growing into an important economic center. Before that, the Grand Canal initiated by Emperor Yangdi of the Sui Dynasty had connected the Guanzhong Plains, the political center, and Jiangnan, the economic zone. Following the same political and geographical pattern of the Sui Dynasty, the rulers of the Tang Dynasty transported the wealth in the form of tax revenues from Jiangnan to Guanzhong through the Grand Canal. In the middle and later period of the Tang Dynasty, Jiangnan became the only economic supplier of the Empire, and the transportation and communication between Jiangnan and Chang'an determined the fate of the Tang Empire. The political and geographical structure of the Tang Empire inevitably led to the integration of the elements of Jiangnan into the multi-cultural life of Chang'an. This cosmopolitan capital accommodated the coexistence of diverse cultures at that time. In addition, the royal families, ministers and powerful clans of the former Liang and Chen Dynasties moved to Chang'an (Daxing in the Sui Dynasty) after the Sui pacified the South, and southern scholars and officials who were active on Chang'an's political and cultural stages in the Tang Dynasty moved to Chang'an. Their presence carried the fresh elements of Jiangnan. The former brought a touch of the romantic customs of the Southern Dynasties, while the latter, with deep affection for their hometown and cultural confidence, blew a breath of fresh air into Chang'an. As a result of Emperor Yangdi of the Sui's infatuation with the southern culture and Emperor Taizong of the Tang's trust and promotion of the southern literati, the latter had such a profound influence on the cultural life of Chang'an that the late Tang Dynasty had a so-called ″Southernization trend″ . Scholars have mostly discussed the Southernization trend from the perspectives of political, academic and cultural history. This paper attempts to examine the Jiangnan elements in Chang'an's urban and cultural life in the Tang Dynasty from the perspectives of its social history and urban history to enrich the study of the capital Chang'an and the regional history of Jiangnan. Although Jiangnan's Fair at Guangyun Tan, the western terminal port of the Grand Canal, showed the prosperity of the heyday under the Kaiyuan reign, the luxurious and elegant Jiangnan elements embodied in clothing and diet, as well as in tea drinking fashion, etc., were still mainly practiced by the royal and bureaucrat families. The Jiangnan elements which were fully embodied in the cultural life of Chang'an, such as calligraphy and painting, music played in the court and taught at the institutions of the court, court poetry and literati's anecdotes, showed that the people's inner value orientation of the Tang Dynasty lay in pursuing the culture of the Southern Dynasties, that is, the culture developed in Jiangnan. The distant shadow of the lonely journey from Chang'an to Jiangnan became a poetic image in Tang poetry.

Since the end of World War II, the study of classical Chinese literature in the United States has developed rapidly. The normalization of diplomatic relations between China and the United States and China's Reform and Opening-up policy propelled this field towards unprecedented prosperity. Since the mid-1980s, many mainland scholars have studied in the United States, which has greatly changed the background composition of scholars and students in this field. Since the 1990s, American academic institutions have gradually established online accesses to Chinese textual resources, which has made it possible for Chinese and American scholars to exchange their academic achievements in a more timely fashion. After a brief survey of the general state of the study of classical Chinese literature in the United States, this paper discusses the following basic characteristics of the field: First, American scholarship on Chinese literature puts emphasis on the translation of Chinese literary texts and considers it an integral part of literary research. Second, most Chinese literature scholars in the US have received training in English and American literature, comparative literature and Western critical theories, which enables them to study Chinese literature with interdisciplinary approaches and in dialogue with scholars on Western literatures. Third, scholars in the US tend to concentrate on studies of individual Chinese writers, works and genres. Most of their research is not conducted in the form of literary history. Fourth, the study of Chinese women's literature has become a popular trend and a fruitful subfield in the past two or three decades. Fifth, the study of Chinese literature in the US focuses on the interconnection between literature and religion, social history and cultural history, situating literature scholarship in a broad context of social environments. With the increasing exchange of information and personnel between China and the United States, Chinese literary studies in both countries are becoming more and more integrated. The differences are increasingly in individual approaches only. Finally, this paper envisions possible future developments of Chinese literary studies in the US. First, more American scholars will publish in Chinese so as to reach a larger audience and communicate with their Chinese counterparts more directly; for the same purpose, a larger number of studies originally published in English will be translated into Chinese. Second, the research field of classical Chinese literature will be further expanded. Third, the number of American students who are interested in modern Chinese literature, films and popular culture is likely to increase dramatically, while the number of those interested in classical Chinese literature might decrease. Fourth, Chinese officials and individuals will be more proactive in seeking to introduce Chinese literature and other cultural products to the US and the Western world at large. Fifth, the Unite States will be increasingly concerned with China's social developments. Finally, the augmented accessibility to Chinese information resources will not only facilitate American scholars' work but also, quite ironically, make sifting and screening of the materials a more difficult process.

In the 21st century, ″reading images″ has become a dominant cultural phenomenon, triggering an increasing number of cross-semiotic dialogues between language-based and non-verbal semiotic resources. The phenomenon goes along with so-called intersemiotic translations, that is, the transfer of meanings across different semiotic systems. As an independent type of translation, it differs from traditional intrasemiotic translation across languages. Based on an extensive collection of 47 foreign translations of the well-known Chinese novel Luotuo Xiangzi, this paper analyzes the different modes of book cover design and the cultural phenomena these covers reflect. Using van Leeuwen's framework for analyzing the visual representation of social actors, the paper adopts a social semiotic multimodal approach. Our focus is on the motivated selection of non-verbal semiotic systems in social contexts. Each book cover, itself functioning primarily as a visual synthesis of the novel's content, is designed in accordance with the principle of transferring meanings from the verbal to the visual aspect. Therefore, a given cover implies an intersemiotic translation from a language-based to a pictorial mode. During the intersemiotic translation process from language to image, designers will choose a book cover's specific pictorial elements based not only upon the meaning of the verbal aspect; their choice is also constrained by the pictorial mode's different semiotic affordance. In fact, when tracing ″similarity of meaning″ with linguistic counterparts, pictorial resources allow for distinct ways of representing what experiences the original novel depicts. Additionally, by drawing on a rich inventory of visual devices such as color, line, shape, gaze, shot length, etc., these resources serve to establish social relations between the reader and the cover.  In essence, the 47 book covers are a product of multimodal intersemiotic translation. This makes it insightful to explore their designers' (similar or diversified) patterns of perceptions and attitudes when practicing intersemiotic translation in the course of conceiving how such key images as the main protagonist, for instance, shall be represented pictorially. The three major concepts in multimodal intersemiotic analysis are ideological meaning, interpersonal meaning, and compositional meaning. As for ideological meaning, the 47 cover designs fall into two categories: low image and high image. They also present a series of visual continuum features. As for interpersonal meaning, cover designs display a variety of viewing modes. As for compositional meaning, finally, the designs convey a specific informational value by means of typographic design and visual weight. Specific cover designs thus weave meaningful elements into coherent texts, creating new meaning through a particular pattern structure. By analyzing the covers of foreign translations of Luotuo Xiangzi from the perspective of multimodality, we find that—even though some degree of misreading must have occurred in the translation process—most cover designs stay objectively true to an intersemiotic translation and thus convey the novel's realistic concern loyally.

Beijing local-color literature is the literature of Beijing city and people, and has an important place in the 20th century Chinese literature schools. The narrative of Beijing local-color literature is characterized by “Beijingness”, and is a reservoir of rich Beijing local culture. A number of Beijing Local-Color writings have been translated into English and published at home and abroad, which started the translation studies on language and translation strategies of its English versions. Since the 1990s, the cultural turn of translation studies has initiated the multi-dimensional research by integrating linguistics, literature and cultural studies with translation studies, and helped formulate the cultural focus in the translation studies of Beijing local-color literature. In the context of cultural translation studies, a literary work is a kind of cultural product. The narrative, style and space in Beijing local-color literature are invested with profound Beijing local culture. The accurate representation of the cultural Beijingness embedded in Beijing local-color literature is an important standard to evaluate the translation. Whether the translated version conforms to the literary tradition of the audience determines its readability. Therefore, the cultural affinity of literary traditions, styles and narrative techniques in the English version of Beijing local-color literature is the focus, for it judges the accurate representation and acceptability in audience’s culture. The stylistic and narrative affinity is the equivalence of discourse in translations, and functions as the important strategies in the reproduction of cultural Beijingness. With the cultural globalization, loanwords from Chinese into English offer a new translation strategy for literary translators. Moreover, Beijing local-color literature is also the literature of cities, and the spatial writing functions both as narrative and as a way of spatial production. The landscape setting and the spatial narratives in Beijing local-color literature are a silent discourse of Beijingness, presenting a peculiar Beijing local culture. The narrative point of view and the spatial coherence in the spatial writing as a significant way to reproduce the Beijingness are the core of the translation studies of Beijing local-color literature. Therefore, the spatial writing in literary translation needs to acquire a coherent equivalence between “the signified” and “the signifier” to attain the accurate reproduction of spatial Beijingness in English versions. Additionally, as national identity is the soul of Beijing local-color literature, the translator’s decolonized strategies in translation may facilitate the accurate re-creation of national culture and eliminate the cultural misreading stemming from Orientalism. The translators’ precise representation of national culture and national trauma in Beijing local-color literature manifests their cultural awareness, which boosts the “going global” strategy for Chinese culture in literary translations. The translators’ cultural awareness and precise re-creation of national identity are, therefore, of vital importance in the translation studies of Beijing local-color literature. To sum up, in the context of cultural translation, the translation studies of Beijing local-color literature have integrated literature, translation and cultural studies to explore the multi-dimensional cultural representation in translation studies, and to further broaden the horizons of literary translation studies.

″Graphemics″ is the study and analysis of a writing system in terms of graphemes. In this paper it refers to all parts of a page, including the whole text, characters, arrangement, spacing, margin, layout, graphics, color, and so on. In general written language, the written (printed) form of the text is often unnoticed, but in literary language, it sometimes can play a subtle role in giving rise to a unique aesthetic effect. Moreover, Chinese characters are ideograms, which are completely different from Western scripts. For the above reasons, the aesthetic function of Chinese characters deserves further exploration. The charm of Chinese characters is generally considered to come from their pictographic nature. Ezra Pound, who first publicized and put to use the aesthetic function of Chinese characters, held this view. Ernest Fenollosa believed that Chinese characters are composed of pictographic patterns and that the structure of the Chinese characters would enrich the meaning of an entire poem. Yet the view that most scholars adhere to, attributing the poetic expression of Chinese characters to the pictographic nature of Chinese characters, is actually wrong. There are only around 300 high-frequency single characters in Chinese that are a visual combination of character and meaning. The parts of the characters very reguarlyconstruct ″pictophonetic″ characters and ″associative compound″ characters. With the repetition and change of visual markers, the user's experiences, sensations, feelings, emotions, and thoughts are accumulated in his mind. More than 95 percent of Chinese ″pictophonetic″ characters and ″associative compound″ characters visually combine the meanings of single component characters that constantly accumulate in the readers' memories and experiences through frequent repetition. The memories and experiences of the 300 visual markers (the single characters) and their combined associations (the global system) stand in stark contrast to the view that phonetic words are understood through auditory impressions. The biggest difference between Chinese and Western languages is that Chinese lacks grammatical morphology. For this reason, the words in a Chinese sentence can be disassembled and rearranged very freely. The extreme freedom of ″image juxtaposition″ that is free from logical constraints is in itself the most important means of poetic expression in Chinese. Based on the relationship between what is internal and what is external to the text, the graphemic function can be divided into four types: intra-word, inter-line, within-page, and character-form. Split of character, character homophony, acrostic, palindrome, adhesion, anadiplosis, etc., all use the graphemic structure of characters or the colocation relationship between characters to create artistic effects. When Jonathan Kahler answered the question ″What is literature″, he suggested that any sentence can be either a practical text or a literary text, but he did not make it clear how a practical text can become a literary text. The secret is that the practical text and the literary text have overlapping aspects. What does not overlap is that a literary text uses a special language structure with a single signifier corresponding to multiple references, thus proving itself a literary text, while a practical text uses a single signifier corresponding to a single meaning to achieve its practical functions. The implicit text in the overlapping part must rely on a certain context or pre-set conditions (for example, graphemes), so that people can use it as a literary text and experience its unique artistic charm.

This paper aims at exploring the dependent clause phenomena (DCP henceforth) that is found within some Chinese prepositions. DCP is defined with reference to two aspects. Synchronically speaking, DCP refers to the phenomena that in the independent clause, a morphosyntactic category α exhibit the characteristics of a different category β but the same behavior cannot be detected in the main clause. Diachronically speaking, the degree of the language change from the source category β to the target category α is not homogeneous. Some members in α demonstrate all the morphosyntactic behaviors of β, and therefore can be viewed as has been fully evolved into B. However, some others still retain the syntactic distributions of their source category when embedded in the dependent clause. DCP reflects the heterogeneous nature of a language. It is crucial in that it facilitates the understanding of the process of grammaticalization from verb to preposition and contributes to the diagnostics of the grammatical status of some prepositions. However, little attention is paid to this phenomenon. To fill in this gap and to further illustrate this concept, we present a case study. Using Chinese prepositions anzhao (according to) and jianyu (considering) as an example, we show how certain prepositions syntactically reflect the characteristics of verbs and how these verbal properties can only be permitted in dependent clause, as required by DCP. The examination of anzhao shows that DCP exists in Modern Chinese. More specifically, according to Modern Chinese Dictionary (7th edition 2016), anzhao only has one part-of-speech, i.e. preposition; however, our investigation reveals that it can behave as a verb, as is evidenced by the fact that (1) it can function as a predicate independently; (2) it carries aspect markers; (3) it can be negated independently; and (4) it can be modified by adverbs. However, all of these obey DCP, i.e., they can only be permitted in dependent clause, but not in main clause. The investigation of jianyu supports DCP from a diachronic perspective. The prevalent view (Lü 1999; Modern Chinese Dictionary 7th edition 2016) takes this preposition as a functional word (preposition and conjunction); however, our study shows that up till the 1930s, jianyu still exhibits verbal properties: it can function as a predicate independently and take an external argument. Interestingly, these verbal properties can only be permitted in dependent clause, but not in main clause. Since the late 1940s, the DCP of jianyu has disappeared gradually, leading to the categorical shift of jianyu from verb into preposition. Based onthe two case studies, it is argued that: (1) DCP can be detected in modern synchronic period as well as historical period in Chinese. The clausal structure should be taken into consideration when distinguishing prepositions from verbs. Taking the perspective of DCP, syntactic structures where verbs can appear should be divided into two levels: main clause level and dependent clause level. The so-called verbs that have DCP are still verb, which are dependent clause verbs. (2) Decategorized features, in the process of grammaticalization from verbs into prepositions, take place initially in the main clause, and then extend to dependent clause. (3) DCP emerges through the synergy of the de-categorization effect of grammaticalization and the structure-preserving effect of dependent clause. The structure-preserving effect of dependent clause is a crucial factor that lead to the diachronically preservation of the characteristics from the old language. (4) DCP can be taken as a syntactic degradation, primarily due to the fact that Chinese lacks verbal morphology. Compared to languages that have verbal morphology such as English, Chinese is more likely to exhibit the characteristics of DCP and syntactic degradation.

The Fable of the Bees is a controversial literary work in the Eighteenth-Century England. Bernard Mandeville the author pointed out that it was the pride regarded as the primary vice by Christians that became the origin of the virtue, while luxury considered to cripple social morality turned out to be consistently motivating social progress. His contentious opinion had formed the hot topic of the public opinion at that time. Mandeville aimed to construct a comprehensive social theory on the basis of his philosophical thinking in his work, whose purpose was to rectify the prejudices caused by the cognitive limitation of the traditional Christian thinking, and to enable people to recognize the agency and creativity of the human self-interest. There is an inherent continuity between Mandeville’s opinion and those great thinkers of the Enlightenment, such as Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. Mandeville considered self-interest as the basis of his own theory. Within the Eighteenth-Century context, self-interest could be equal to the personal freedom sought after by those great thinkers, which was the confirmative attitude towards the individual subjectivity. Mandeville indicated that the acts of self-interest/private vices formed the public benefits, which made the social publicness to happen. On the basis of his key notion “Private Vices, Public Benefits”, Mandeville elaborated on two topics, namely “Pride” and “Luxury”, and creatively revealed the process of integrating individual subjectivity into social publicness in the practical discourse of his work. In The Structural Transformation of Public Sphere, Habermas expounded on the process of how public opinion managed to become a means of the bourgeoisie to construct the rational cognition, the political participation and social transformation amid the interaction between literary works, reading market and society in the Eighteenth Century. It is by virtue of public opinion that the rationality of the Enlightenment laid the foundation for the modern civilization, and constructed the modern society amid various opinions. Since public opinions were usually sparked by the inspiration or controversial literary works in this period, Habermas specified a term “literary public sphere” to describe this process. To some extent, the public opinion caused by Mandeville’s work has presented a concrete case of the literary public sphere in the Eighteenth Century. This paper aims at reconstructing the process of the formation of literary public sphere through Mandeville’s book. The paper expects to explicate that “it is in the aspect of textual transmission, i. e. the interaction between literary work, reading market and society, that the rationality of the Enlightenment is constructed, in which modernity is formed as well.

The term Ju Yan, not only highly inclusive in the academic sense but also rich in connotation, was widely used in literary and art studies, especially in the field of literary criticism and the appreciation and collection of works of calligraphy and painting. But scholars have not paid enough attention to Ju Yan except in the studies of painting and calligraphy and even worse, few interdisciplinary studies of this term can be found. The term Ju Yan originated in the Buddhist scriptures of the Tang Dynasty, and its earliest connotations were ″root″ and ″consciousness″. This connection point lies in the most basic function of the eye, that is, its function of identification. The term then became a pronoun for wise vision in religion. From the Tang to the Song dynasties, the literati-bureaucrats learned Buddhism, hence the transformation between Buddhism and Confucianism. Ju Yan had the functions of evaluation as well as identification, incorporating its religious connotation and literary and artistic meanings. On the one hand, Ju Yan was used both in literary and art criticism with different emphases. In literary criticism, the term was mainly used to comment on literary works as well as theories, while in calligraphy and painting criticism, it was often used for art appreciation and comments. Critics used it to discuss the style and taste of artistic works. The most famous critic was Li Dongyang, who formulated the relationship theory of Ju Yan and style, Ju Er and tone, which echoed his ″literary style theory″. The term functioned well both in literary theory and calligraphy and painting theory even though by different means. On the other hand, for the appreciation and collection of art works, ″recognition″was essential. In both literary and art theory, Ju Yan referred to evaluation and aesthetic appreciation, as was reflected in the following two aspects: First, outlining the basic methods of evaluation and of selecting and reading literary works; Second, identifying the authenticity of a piece of works and its style. However, with the spread and influence of different experiences and methods, some connoisseurs also became the leaders of the culture of the times, e.g. the so-called Ju Yan Men who enjoyed great honor and prestige. Ju Yan gradually developed a utilitarian function in art connoisseurship. In terms of the subject and object of art works, Ju Yan referred to its inherent Zen philosophy and the insight of evaluation, a clear mental state as well as superb aesthetic vision with which the subject evaluates the works. When applied to the object of creation, Ju Yan refers to the purpose of the work as well as its taste, style and form, authenticity and standard. The subject of creative work finally came back as a man with Ju Yan. Ju Yan was transferred from a Buddhist term to one of art evaluation and appreciation. It blended into poetry, calligraphy, painting and Zen, and spanned many academic realms such as literary criticism and the connoisseurship and collection of calligraphy and painting. It not only showed the traditional literati-connoisseurs' acknowledgement of traditional art and their progress, but also reflected the philosophical characteristics in the integration of literary and artistic criticism in ancient China. Ju Yan was an approach with which the Chinese people understood art and the world. They tried to perceive and understand time and space with their senses, even life. This approach was figurative and unitary. It not only shows the uniqueness of different art categories, but also the connection and inner unity among different academic realms.

With the rapid development of information technology and social media, it becomes easier and more frequent for social network members to contact each other. College students are able to obtain information and acquire knowledge through social network learning in a more convenient manner. Does social network learning have an impact on graduates’ employability? Previous literature has primarily focused on how to improve their employability in undergraduate programs or the influence of social networking on the employment of graduates, but there has been little research concerning whether social network learning can help the formation of graduates’ employability. College students’ employability includes professional knowledge and skills, vocational perception and personality traits, which are gradually formed in the course of their college studies to cater to the needs of their future employers. In most Chinese literature, employability is measured by breaking it down into several dimensions, such as communicative skills, teamwork spirit and professional quality, and taking them as potential variables in a questionnaire. This approach fails to measure employability in a direct way, so its result is generally inadequate. The study carries out a direct measurement of new graduates’ employability by their perception of the specific requirements for a particular position. This measurement rules out such interference factors as majors, family backgrounds and the macro-environment. Existing literature has not yet defined the social network learning mode. According to the ways of communication between college students and social network members, this paper divides social network learning into two categories: an interactive learning mode based on two-way instant or delayed communication and an imitation learning mode based on one-way learning. Based on the data collected from a questionnaire survey of 1，966 fresh graduates, the study applies hierarchical regression analysis to verify the positive impact of professional knowledge and skills, vocational perception and personality traits on employability, as well as the positive influence of imitation learning and interactive learning in the social network on employability. The path analysis of structural equation model reveals that interactive learning in social networks can improve the graduates’ professional knowledge and skills, vocational perception and personality traits, thus promoting their employability while imitation learning in social networks can improve their vocational perception and personality traits, thereby boosting employability though it has no significant impact on professional knowledge and skills. The results show that social network learning has become a crucial avenue to foster graduates’ employability. This paper provides a fresh perspective to the study of the development of graduates’employability in the era of social media and introduces a social network theory into the research field of graduates’ employability.

The conflict between doctors and patients has become an important social problem in China, and is detrimental to the physical and mental well-being of both parties, affecting normal operation of medical service. The negative emotion brought by the experience or the event as a source of provocation will affect the perception of the experiencers as well as their attitude towards the relationship between doctors and patients. Medical students will become health professionals, taking on the responsibility of social health improvement and medical services. Therefore their growth and development are closely related to the health of the general public. This research focuses on how doctor-patient conflict exercises psychological stress among in-school medical students who are not directly exposed to this source of provocation. Based on the empirical research of data from 31 universities across the country, this article explores the mechanism of the impact of doctor-patient conflict on the psychological stress of medical students. A multi-stage stratified cluster sampling method was used to get a sampling data of 11,592 medical students from 31 universities across the country. The measurement of doctor-patient conflict was based on the cognitive-social impact theory, and the psychological stress was measured using the Chinese version of the Perceived Stress Scale (CPSS). Multivariate logistic regression and structural equation models were used to analyze the relationships and paths between variables. Among the subjects, 38.0% were found to have high stress and 15.6% had extremely high stress. More than half of the respondents reported that their family members, relatives, friends or classmates had experienced doctor-patient conflicts when seeking and receiving medical services. The reference norm is positively related to psychological stress. The risk of psychological stress of medical students whose family had experienced doctor-patient conflicts was 1.33 times higher than those without such experience, and the risk of medical students with friends or classmates who experienced doctor-patient conflict was 1.28 times higher than those without. Compared with those who did not perceive doctor-patient conflict or those with low perceived stress, the students with moderate or higher perceived stress had higher psychological stress, with OR values of 1.59 (1.32-1.91), 2.36 (2.01-2.77) and 2.80 (2.20-3.50) respectively. It is showed from the results of structural equation fitting that: χ2=139.991, df=13, p<0.01; GIF=0.997, AGIF=0.992, REM=0.006, indicating goodness of fit. The current situation of doctor-patient relationship (r=0.064, p<0.01; r=-0.096, p<0.001), the reference to the norm and pressure perception of doctor-patient conflict were all significantly positively correlated to the psychological stress but negatively correlated to the professional interest(r=0.06, p<0.01). The study has found the relationship between doctor-patient conflict and the psychological stress among medical students in school. The article discusses the importance of properly managing the current tight doctor-patient relationship for the development and growth of medical students. It is necessary to further the reform of the medical service system and deal with the sources of doctor-patient conflicts. Deliberate attention should be equally paid to humanities education as a part of medical education and to improve the students’ social skills such as doctor-patient communication.