ISFC40 Continued into the Second Day

Last updated:2013-07-17

Today’s program of ISFC 40 comprised three plenary speeches and 39 parallel presentations. The morning sessions began with a plenary speech by Professor Erich Steiner entitled Empirical Methodologies and Their Alternatives in Translation Studies and Linguistics. Professor Steiner focused on empirical methodologies and the alternative ones (such as historical and hermeneutic ones) and emphasized the inadequacy of the former and the complementary necessity of the latter.


In the afternoon session, Professor He Wei delivered a plenary speech entitled “Bi-functional Constituent Constructions” in Modern Mandarin Chinese: A Cardiff Grammar Approach. She adopted the Cardiff Grammar approach to analyze the Chinese sentences that contain a constituent functioning as both the “object” of the first verb and the “subject” of the second verb, aiming to contribute to the understanding of the nature of this construction. Professor Jonathan Webster in his plenary speech Analyzing Richard Nixon’s Discourse in Victory and Defeat applied a functional approach to the analysis of US President Nixon’s second inaugural and resignation speeches, intending to investigate how patterning in both lexis and grammar contributes to texture.


Parallel sessions involved a wide range of research topics. To name just a few, Professor Huang Guowen analyzed Ku Hung-ming’s English version of Lun Yu. Professor Kay O’Halloran demonstrated a software for analyzing videos of multimodal data. Professor Eija Ventola discussed commodification, globalization and localization of angry birds. Professor Michael Cummings analyzed The Nun’s Priest’s Tale using appraisal theory and literary stylistics.

                                                            Professor Kay O’Halloran                                             Professor Bob Hodge

                                                         Professor Eija Ventola                                             Professor Michael Cummings


Written by: Yan Xiaoqing
Photographer: Hua Yi & Wang Shaoli