Language Sciences最新文献

{"title":"Ecological awareness issues in Chinese language dictionaries: A case study of the Contemporary Chinese Dictionary","authors":"Zihui Xiao","doi":"10.1016/j.langsci.2026.101810","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.langsci.2026.101810","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The selection and definition mechanisms of dictionaries are part of human cognitive psychology. While language dictionaries present real language, they also reflect human worldviews and values. This article aims to explore the manifestations of anthropocentrism and other attitudes in Chinese language dictionaries through analysis of the most authoritative Chinese language dictionary, the <em>Contemporary Chinese Dictionary</em>. It is found that both biological and non-biological entries reflect socially ingrained negative ecological awareness in the dictionary’s entries, definitions, and examples. The potential impacts of these manifestations are then explored from a social psychology perspective. This study further proposes specific improvements on how to effectively convey a positive ecological perspective in dictionaries <em>via</em> the mechanisms of selection and definitions.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51592,"journal":{"name":"Language Sciences","volume":"115 ","pages":"Article 101810"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2026-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147386302","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Ecolinguistic perspectives on multimodal metaphors: a comparative analysis of Chinese and American children’s climate change picture books","authors":"Anxue Yuan","doi":"10.1016/j.langsci.2025.101791","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.langsci.2025.101791","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Given the significance of climate change on the global agenda, children’s climate change picture books (CCCPBs) are increasingly emerging as a vital educational medium, warranting in-depth investigation into their multimodal metaphors. This study integrates Critical Metaphor Analysis with an Ecolinguistics framework, employing MIPVU and VISMIP to examine the distribution and frequency of multimodal metaphors across six Chinese and American CCCPBs. It also provides exemplifications of anthropomorphic metaphors constructed through image-text synergy and explores their distinct ecological value orientations. I develop an explanation for the social context in which the analysed metaphors appear. It is found: (1) there are significant distribution differences—nine metaphor types in Chinese CCCPBs versus eleven in American counterparts, with divergent frequency in core metaphors; (2) multimodal metaphors are mainly beneficial, occasionally ambivalent and rarely destructive; (3) one multimodal metaphor may manifest divergent ecological value orientations, influenced by cross-domain mapping, context, and ecosophy; (4) educational values of multimodal metaphors are contingent on cognitive frames and ecological value orientations (5) the usage of multimodal metaphors is driven by a confluence of factors, including embodied cognition, cultural influences, and ideological considerations.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51592,"journal":{"name":"Language Sciences","volume":"114 ","pages":"Article 101791"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145926679","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Linguistic fingerprinting: current status, development, and future directions","authors":"Noé Xiu ,&nbsp;Yuan Wang ,&nbsp;Wenmei Li ,&nbsp;Rudolph Sock ,&nbsp;Béatrice Vaxelaire ,&nbsp;Zhenhua Ling","doi":"10.1016/j.langsci.2025.101789","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.langsci.2025.101789","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Similar to the human fingerprints left on the surface of objects, each individual's textual output and speech expression also contain a unique identifier known as “linguistic fingerprint.” To some extent, this “linguistic fingerprint” reflects the uniqueness and relative stability of an individual's language. This article reviews the research outcomes of linguistic fingerprinting both domestically and internationally, elaborating on the implementation methods, operational principles, advantages, and limitations of linguistic fingerprinting. Building upon this foundation, we combine practical case studies to analyze the specific applications of linguistic fingerprinting in various fields such as authorship attribution, forensic investigation, and public opinion monitoring. Addressing the challenges that the current development of linguistic fingerprinting faces, the article further proposes a series of feasible innovative points, envisioning the future direction of linguistic fingerprinting.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51592,"journal":{"name":"Language Sciences","volume":"114 ","pages":"Article 101789"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145884860","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Dimensions of Respect in Mapuzugun: A Preliminary Ecolinguistic analysis","authors":"Ingrid A. Gavilan Tatin ,&nbsp;George M. Jacobs ,&nbsp;Italo Cantarutti Arias","doi":"10.1016/j.langsci.2025.101790","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.langsci.2025.101790","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study explores the multifaceted concept of respect within Mapuzugun, the language of the Mapuche people who live in the southern part of South America. The researchers examined how respect encodes ecological ethics and reflects a profound and holistic interconnection between nature and humans. The study adopts a qualitative ecolinguistic framework, eco-discourse analysis, and a model of the cyclical flow between ecosophy, discourse, and behavior. Lexical data were collected through <em>güxamkawün</em> (Mapuche dialogue) and from bilingual dictionaries and other Mapuzugun learning materials. Findings reveal that Mapuzugun distinguishes two primary dimensions of respect: <em>ekun</em> for solemn respect toward nature and non-human beings and <em>yamün</em> for respect toward humans. These expressions construct moral and ecological narratives that emphasize reciprocity, interdependence, and the agency of more-than-human beings. This study also documents the reduced everyday use of terms such as <em>ekun</em>, reflecting broader processes of linguistic and ecological erosion. The study concludes that <em>mapun kimün</em> (ancestral Mapuche knowledge) holds essential ecosophy and worldviews that offer profound guidance for confronting 21st-century environmental crises. Because Mapuche knowledge emerges from a worldview that conceives humans and nature as mutually dependent, it provides valuable guidance for rethinking contemporary environmental challenges. Accordingly, revitalizing Mapuzugun becomes essential not only for cultural continuity but also for restoring the ecological ethics and relational practices embedded in the language.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51592,"journal":{"name":"Language Sciences","volume":"114 ","pages":"Article 101790"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145977550","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A corpus-based study of the Chinese comparative correlative construction yuè X yuè Y","authors":"Shuqiong Wu ,&nbsp;Yue Ou","doi":"10.1016/j.langsci.2025.101781","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.langsci.2025.101781","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study investigates the Chinese comparative correlative construction <em>yuè</em> X <em>yuè</em> Y within the framework of usage-based construction grammar. Drawing on the data from the BCC corpus and employing collostructional analysis, this study examines the syntactic and semantic properties of this construction and its hierarchical network. Syntactic analysis shows that both slots accommodate a wider variety of filler types than previously identified, including adjectival, verbal, prepositional, nominal phrases, and fixed expressions, with the Y slot demonstrating higher productivity than the X slot. Semantic analysis reveals five semantic categories in each slot. The X slot conveys a broad range of meanings, whereas the Y slot primarily encodes degrees of properties or actions. The construction exhibits both positive and negative alignment, with positive alignment being more frequently. Covarying collexeme analysis demonstrates strong syntactic and semantic associations between <em>yuè</em> X and <em>yuè</em> Y, which suggests the presence of entrenched meso-constructions in speakers’ mental grammar. Based on these findings, a hierarchical network is proposed for <em>yuè</em> X <em>yuè</em> Y, illustrating inheritance relations across macro-, meso-, and micro-construction levels. As the first large-scale corpus study of Chinese comparative correlative construction, this research provides empirical evidence that syntactic and semantic correlations jointly shape cognitive representation of constructions within usage-based grammar, thereby contributing to cross-linguistic studies of comparative correlative constructions.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51592,"journal":{"name":"Language Sciences","volume":"114 ","pages":"Article 101781"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145719062","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A cognitive semantic model of Chinese character representation","authors":"Jing Liu","doi":"10.1016/j.langsci.2025.101792","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.langsci.2025.101792","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study investigates the representation of Chinese characters by examining the relationship among their orthographic structures, phonological features, and semantic functions. It adopts a conceptual approach and proposes a cognitive semantic model. To evaluate the model’s predictions, the study compiles and analyzes a corpus consisting of all characters included in the <em>Xinhua Dictionary</em> (10th edition, Institute of Linguistics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, 2004). The findings support the assumptions of the cognitive semantic model, showing that both orthographic structures and phonological features contribute to the semantic functions of Chinese characters. The way Chinese characters structure space is regarded as a specific instance of the broader system through which meaning is conveyed. At the fine-structural level, a defining feature of spatial representation is its schematic nature: each character encodes a metaphorical mapping from spatial to conceptual structure, giving rise to five primary static image schemas—FIGURE–GROUND, LEFT–RIGHT, UP–DOWN, ENCLOSED, and HIERARCHICAL. In addition, the linguistic-cognitive system in which these characters operate is characterized by the <em>windowing of attention</em>. Overall, the proposed cognitive semantic model makes a tentative contribution to understanding the typological features of Chinese characters, highlighting them as a unique reading and writing system.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51592,"journal":{"name":"Language Sciences","volume":"114 ","pages":"Article 101792"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145926680","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"‘The end of civilisation’: Exploring children's eco-narratives through an analysis of visual grammar","authors":"Helen Sauntson,&nbsp;Clare Cunningham","doi":"10.1016/j.langsci.2025.101779","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.langsci.2025.101779","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This article reports on findings from a study investigating how a sample of 40 children aged 5–11 perceive and represent environmental issues through multi-modal eco-narratives (n = 40) that they have produced in response to a visual stimulus. Using a multimodal discourse analysis framework, the research explores the discursive and semiotic strategies children employ to express their knowledge, attitudes, and emotions about climate change and ecological harm. Findings reveal that children demonstrate a strong awareness of environmental degradation, particularly its impact on animals, often portraying humans as either passive observers or heroic saviours, but rarely as contributors to environmental harm. The visual elements of the eco-narratives frequently depict environmental damage as agentless events, suggesting a gap in children's understanding of the causal role of human activity. We interpret these elements as naturalising environmental harm and softening human culpability at an age where socialisation into responsibility is formative. The study highlights the emotional weight of children's responses, with sadness and eco-anxiety emerging as dominant themes. These insights underscore the importance of integrating multimodal approaches in climate education and suggest that future curricula should more explicitly address human agency and empower children with actionable knowledge to confront environmental challenges. The study also makes a methodological contribution to the field of ecolinguistics in exploring the ways in which the analytic tools of visual grammar and multimodal discourse analysis can be used to further understandings about how ecological discourses are constructed in texts.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51592,"journal":{"name":"Language Sciences","volume":"114 ","pages":"Article 101779"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145719063","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Problematizing language","authors":"Alexander V. Kravchenko","doi":"10.1016/j.langsci.2025.101758","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.langsci.2025.101758","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The article is a follow-up on the previously raised issue of the lack of language awareness on the part of both the general public and professional linguists of various theoretical strands. The different senses of the terms “language” and “natural language” used in linguistics and everyday life are discussed from the point of view of their empirical adequacy. It is argued that the arbitrariness and inconsistency of these terms issue from failure on the part of orthodox linguistics to understand the nature of language as a biological adaptation and its evolutionary function as a manner of living of human organism-environment systems. Such an understanding becomes possible by using Humberto Maturana's systems approach to language and cognition in the framework of radical constructivist epistemology. Such an approach may, finally, rescue language from the “blind zone” of linguistics, laying the ground for a new comprehensive transdisciplinary paradigm in the language sciences.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51592,"journal":{"name":"Language Sciences","volume":"113 ","pages":"Article 101758"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145050484","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Information reception markers shi ba and shi ma in Mandarin conversation","authors":"Shuangyun Yao ,&nbsp;Yujie Zhu ,&nbsp;Hongyuan Liu","doi":"10.1016/j.langsci.2025.101771","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.langsci.2025.101771","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Employing the methodology of conversation analysis and interactional linguistics, this study investigates the nuanced interactional uses of the information reception markers <em>shi ba</em> and <em>shi ma</em> in Mandarin conversation. It is revealed that both markers can function as newsmarks. Specifically, <em>shi ba</em> aims for a holistic grasp of the conversation topic, while <em>shi ma</em> seeks a comprehensive understanding of the details of the topic. It is also found that <em>shi ba</em> can mark epistemic independence, while <em>shi ma</em> can signal expectation violation. The difference between them can be analyzed from the original lexical meanings of <em>ba</em> and <em>ma</em>. This research also contributes to the cross-linguistic study of the conversational practice of using tag questions to indicate the receipt of information.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51592,"journal":{"name":"Language Sciences","volume":"113 ","pages":"Article 101771"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145417051","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Methodological issues in ecolinguistics as a research project: a constructivist perspective","authors":"Alexander V. Kravchenko","doi":"10.1016/j.langsci.2025.101768","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.langsci.2025.101768","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The status of ecolinguistics as a research project is discussed from the point of view of its relationship to the ‘normal science’ of linguistics on the one hand, and its conceptual-theoretic foundations on the other. While sometimes claimed to be a new emerging paradigm in the study of language, ecolinguistics, or what goes under the name, is also routinely viewed as a branch of linguistics, often associated with sociolinguistics and critical discourse analysis. This, I argue, raises the question of whether modern ecolinguistics is, indeed, a new scientific paradigm in the Kuhnian sense, replacing the old paradigm, thereby signaling the beginning of a scientific revolution. A brief survey of the trends and developments in ecolinguistics over the past decades shows that, even though this is not yet the case, a new research paradigm is, indeed, in the making, as the conceptual-theoretic foundations of linguistic orthodoxy are re-evaluated and rejected in favor of empirically more sound and theoretically more sustainable views of language as species-specific interactional cooperative behavior crucial for the preservation of the delicate balance in global ecology. However, while tentatively moving in the right direction, ecolinguistic research lacks a well-defined methodology based on a clear conceptual-theoretic framework that would justify the “eco” part in its name. The article aims to make up for this by using a systems approach to language in the framework of constructivist epistemology, viewing language as a cognitive domain in which humans evolve as living systems. Leaning on Humberto Maturana's work, evolutionary biology and Niche Construction Theory, I argue for the necessity to take the concept of ecolinguistics, which “seems to converge on a shared appreciation of the need to pursue empirical work and theoretical development in tandem” (Steffensen, 2024a), farther and view it as a nascent transdisciplinary science of language as that which makes us what we are, <em>Homo loquens et scribens</em> evolving in the cognitive domain of language as our manner of living. To legalize its independence from the pre-science of linguistics, this new science would be much better off with a new name, to be decided on by the community of bio-ecologically minded researchers.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51592,"journal":{"name":"Language Sciences","volume":"113 ","pages":"Article 101768"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145363061","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}