The Award Ceremony of the 4th Xu Guozhang Foreign Language Research Award and the High-end Forum on Foreign Language Disciplines were held in Beijing on November 18. During the event, the list of winners of the 4th Xu Guozhang Foreign Language Research Award was announced. Prof. Liu Zhengguang from the HNU College of Foreign Languages was awarded the second prize of the award for his paper "Differing Conceptualizations of Time-Space in English and Chinese: Time-Space Distinction vs. Time-Space Conflation".
Differing from the dichotomous conceptualization of time-space in English, Chinese is hypothesized in Liu's paper to exhibit time-space conflation. This hypothesis is supported by evidence can be found in the ancient conceptualization of the universe, which refers to both space and time, and at almost every level of the language system: the formation of Chinese characters, the lack of grounding of nouns and verbs, the functional fusion of nouns and verbs, the multifunctionality of grammatical classes and minor sentences, etc. The time-space conflation view can offer coherent and consistent accounts for "idiosyncracies", the essential features of Chinese and its integrative thinking mode.
The Xu Guozhang Foreign Language Research Award was established in 2015 on the occasion of Mr. Xu Guozhang's 100th birth anniversary. It is an academic research award for the achievements of foreign language research and foreign language education across China. It aims to commemorate Mr. Xu Guozhang, a famous educator and linguist who has made great contributions to foreign language research and foreign language education in China. Moreover, the award aims to inspire scholars to dedicate themselves to exploring this field and to promoting advancements in China's foreign language research and education.
The award holds great authority in the foreign language sector and is bestowed every three years. The winners of this year's award were nominated by 125 experts, underwent a review process by 60 experts, and ultimately passed the final assessments conducted by the expert committee. The first prize was unoccupied this year, but three second prizes were awarded. In the four sessions held so far, a total of 13 winners have been recognized, with only one first prize being awarded during the third session.
