Sinología hispánica. China Studies Review

Representation of China in the “Dual Carbon” Discourse in the People’s Daily

He Yan, Miao Jingwen — Thu, 24 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Media play a crucial role in constructing and projecting a country’s image. This study examines how China is portrayed in its efforts to combat climate change through reports on the “double carbon” initiative published in the Spanish edition of People’s Daily between March 2023 and April 2024. Utilizing corpus analysis and positive discourse analysis, we analyzed high-frequency keywords, keyword collocation networks, and concordance lines to interpret China's image. The results indicate that People’s Daily constructs a multifaceted image of China as a responsible leader, technological innovator, sustainable, and internationally cooperative nation. These representations are based on key strategic motivations: the transmission of state will, the strengthening of discursive power, the promotion of traditional ecological heritage, and the commitment to the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities. This analysis deepens the understanding of the media-driven construction of Chinas image in environmental sustainability and climate policies, providing a reference for future studies on the “double carbon” discourse.

Research on Bronze as a Vehicle for Chinese Writing

Yan Yifan — Tue, 08 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Bronze has always been an important representative of ancient Chinese civilization, and inscriptions on bronzes have attracted the research of domestic and foreign scholars. Generally, the classification of Chinese writing in the pre-Qin period is according to the writing materials. Hard materials mainly refer to bones, stone tools, ceramics and bronzes, and soft materials mainly include bamboo tablets, wooden tablets and silk. Writing instruments are divided into knife and pen. Inscribing on hard materials with a knife is called inscription, and writing on soft materials with a brush is called writing. From the Shang dynasty through the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, with economic, political and cultural changes, bronze changed from a means of communication between humans and gods to a symbol of political rights and then to a writing medium. Bronze inscriptions also went through different stages. This article focuses on the classification of inscribed bronzes and the evolution of the nature of bronze as a writing medium.

Empirical Study on the Temporal Metaphors 前qián and 后hòu in Chinese, Korean, Spanish and German

Wei Xin, Yan Jingyi, Cai Yazhi — Tue, 08 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

As a universal phenomenon, space-time metaphors are found in numerous languages and cultures around the world. Despite linguistic differences among speakers of different languages, these metaphors provide a fascinating means to explore how people conceive and verbalize time and space. In our study, we conducted three experiments with speakers of Chinese, Spanish, German, and Korean, focusing on their metaphorical preferences and the reasons behind their linguistic choices. In experiments I and II, we used visual stimuli to assess metaphorical preferences. We observed that speakers of Chinese and Korean tend to prefer the metaphor "TIME IS MOVEMENT," while speakers of Spanish and German opt for "EGO IS MOVEMENT." This suggests differences in how these groups conceptualize time and its movement. Experiment III consisted of a series of questions designed to delve deeper into how these speakers perceive time. The results indicated that the Chinese and Korean groups pay more attention to the past, while Spanish and German speakers focus more on the future. These differences reflect significant cultural and linguistic variations in time perception and can influence intercultural communication.

Ambitious captivity: Revealing the Dutch-Spanish Rivalry in the Relación by Adriano de las Cortes

Yu Shiyang — Tue, 08 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The Spanish Jesuit Adriano de las Cortes left in the Philippines in 1629 a lavishly illustrated chronicle titled Journey to China. While the main body of the work records many natural and humanistic landscapes of late Ming Dynasty Canton, it is the process of capture, interrogation and escort in 1625-1626 that appears to be the primary purpose of the writing, and the reasons why he travelled and quickly wrote the text seem to be more profound. Starting from three philological details, i.e. the unusual season of departure, the unskilled references to Chinese officials, and apparent hostility from the local people, this paper combines relevant historical facts and materials to reveal that de las Cortes came well prepared for the trip instead of “common” shipwreck. This suggests his journey was likely in response to the Dutch presence and competition in Canton and Hokkien region during the first three decades of the 17th century.

Study of Translation Strategies for Culturally Loaded Terms in Spanish: Based on Grounded Theory

Zhang Bingqi — Tue, 08 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Culturally loaded words that frequently appear in people's daily lives carry the historical and cultural characteristics of a country, playing a crucial role in intercultural communication. Based on materials from major language textbooks from China and Spain, and using a sample of 30 translators, this study applies grounded theory to investigate culturally loaded words in daily communication texts in Chinese and Spanish, as well as the translation strategies employed. Through translation tests with the 30 translators and two rounds of semi-structured interviews, original interview data were collected and organized, and coding was carried out at three levels. A total of 32 initial concepts were extracted, and through comparison and induction, 12 fundamental categories were formulated, which eventually led to the identification of 5 core concepts. The study reveals that when translating culturally loaded terms, translators tend to preserve the cultural connotation of the term in 90% of cases when source language factors are predominant, whereas they prioritize the reader's understanding of the text in 10% of cases when target language factors are more influential. Among the seven translation strategies identified, “intratextual explanation” and “analogy” are the most frequently used.

Linguistic variation in China and its presence in literary works: analysis based on The Tea House

Wang Yi — Thu, 17 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Linguistic variation is a phenomenon present in almost all languages. In the case of China, with a vast territory and a large population, the dialect situation is complicated. In the present study, we intend to review the linguistic variation in China, as well as its presence in literature. With this objective, we have chosen The Tea House, a representative work of Beijing-featured novels. After a quantitative analysis, we confirmed that the presence of the geographical dialect is notable in the work and constitutes a resource for naturalness and character characterization.

The influence of context on the temporal interpretation of verbs in Mandarin Chinese: Challenges for Spanish speakers

Daniel Muñoz González — Tue, 08 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This study examines the role of context in the temporal interpretation of verbs in Mandarin Chinese from the perspective of Spanish speakers. Unlike Spanish, where tense is marked through verbal inflections, Chinese relies on aspectual particles such as “了 (le)”, “过 (guo)”, and “着 (zhe)”, along with temporal adverbs, to situate actions within the timeline. However, understanding these markers heavily depends on linguistic, cultural, and situational factors. Since Spanish explicitly expresses temporality through verbal morphology, this study emphasizes the need for a contrastive approach in Mandarin teaching, focusing on pragmatic and contextual strategies. The specific challenges that Spanish speakers face when interpreting and translating the temporal nuances of Chinese are examined, highlighting the structural differences between the two systems. The findings suggest that effective communication requires a broader perspective on context, integrating not only discourse structure but also pragmatic cues and sociocultural conventions. In this regard, pedagogical strategies specifically designed for Spanish speakers are proposed, aiming to enhance their comprehension and production of temporal expressions in Chinese.

The Forgotten Early Chinese-Language Newspaper in Latin America: History and Role of Hoy Men Kong Po in Cuba

Wang Zigang, Liang Fangjun, Xue Qixin — Mon, 14 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Early Chinese-language newspapers in Latin America were a vital carrier of social memory for the Chinese community and a key window for academics to understand the social situation of the Chinese diaspora in the mentioned region. As the longest-running Chinese-language newspaper in Cuba, the centre of Chinese-language media in Latin America in the last century, Hoy Men Kong Po (開明公報) was highly representative and significant. In this study, we conducted an in-depth excavation of this newspaper stored in the National Library of China. We sorted out and reviewed the historical context and different stages of its establishment. Subsequently, based on a structural weekly sampling study of more than a thousand copies of this newspaper from 1955 to 1959, we identified six major classifications of its contents and analysed their corresponding characteristics and impacts on the Chinese community in Cuba.