Bulletin of the Transilvania University of Brasov. Series IV: Philology and Cultural Studies

On Chinese Literature, Language and Culture

2026-05-26T07:15:29+00:00

No abstract

Geographical Characteristics and Reception Process of Overseas Dissemination of Contemporary Chinese Literature: A Case Study of Xuemo’s Works

2026-05-26T10:17:28+00:00

This study examines Xuemo’s works as a case to explore the geographical traits and overseas reception of contemporary Chinese literature. It identifies a pattern of “geographical adaptability”: four dissemination models—academically oriented, market-community collaborative, cultural affinity-driven, and project-linked—corresponding to Europe, North America, East/Southeast Asia, and South/Central Asia. Reception effectiveness depends on cultural-psychological distance, agent strategies, cross-cultural textual quality, and institutional environments. The study advocates shifting from extensive coverage to targeted adaptation, building multi-agent networks, and improving cross-cultural accessibility. Xuemo’s case offers insights for Chinese literature’s “going global”, highlighting pathways from “dissemination reach” to “cultural integration.”

Tradition and Resilience: Starting from a Story by Feng Jicai and Its Screening

2026-05-26T09:58:51+00:00

This paper aims to analyze Feng Jicai’s short story, “The Miraculous Pigtail” (Chinese Literature, Spring 1986), and the film based on it, “The Magic Braid” (1986), from the perspective of the adaptability of tradition, always ready to face the challenges of an ever-changing history. It examines, besides the characteristics of Chinese popular storytelling, the difference between the author’s ironic style and the inevitably more impersonal language of cinema, the contrast between the description of traditional customs and their visual presentation, as well as the adaptation of the written text to meet the demands of a different art form and a different audience.

Cultural and Philosophical Dimensions in the Creation of Chinese Ming-Style Furniture

2026-05-26T10:07:33+00:00

Chinese Ming-style furniture represents the pinnacle of traditional craftsmanship, esteemed for its refined artistry, elegant simplicity, and profound cultural and philosophical significance. While previous studies have extensively documented its historical and technical aspects, the philosophical underpinnings of its design merit deeper exploration. This paper contends that Ming-style furniture was profoundly shaped by Daoism, reflecting its principles in tangible form. Moving beyond formal or technical analysis, this study examines the creative philosophy of Ming-style furniture through a cultural and Daoist lens. It demonstrates how core Daoist concepts—such as Yin-Yang dialectics, Wuwei (effortless action), and Ziran (naturalness)—are embodied in the furniture’s design, structure, and decoration. The harmony of rigid and soft forms and the use of mortise-and-tenon joinery exemplify Yin-Yang unity; techniques that highlight the innate qualities of wood reflect Wuwei; and the emphasis on natural texture and organic beauty expresses Ziran. Even decorative motifs carry symbolic meanings tied to Daoist ideals like longevity and harmony. This research contributes to the broader understanding of traditional creative thought by explicitly linking Daoist philosophy to material culture. It offers insights into how spiritual values influenced material life and provides a meaningful framework for sustainable innovation in contemporary design rooted in cultural heritage. Ming-style furniture thus transcends utility, serving as a profound cultural statement.

Reflections on Mandarin Teaching in the Brazilian Context

2026-05-26T09:00:59+00:00

In recent years, Mandarin Chinese has gained visibility in Brazil, accompanied by the expansion of Confucius Institutes and Confucius Classrooms as key instruments of China’s cultural diplomacy. This article offers a research-based reflection on Mandarin teaching in the Brazilian context. After outlining the historical processes of standardizing Putonghua and promoting Chinese internationally, the text presents two Brazilian institutional cases. The analysis shows how global language-planning strategies are reinterpreted in local academic partnerships and classroom practices, highlighting both opportunities and tensions regarding cultural representation, linguistic diversity, and the risk of exoticizing “Chinese culture.”

A Study on Chinese Language Motivational Teaching Strategies in Romania

2026-05-26T09:13:08+00:00

Motivation is one of the most important determinants of L2 learning achievement. Therefore, it is very urgent to explore “how to stimulate and sustain L2 learners’ motivation”. This paper uses “Ten Commandments for Motivating Language Learners” presented by Hungarian linguist Zoltán Dörnyei as a theoretical framework and employs a questionnaire survey and interview to analyze the characteristics of various motivational teaching strategies adopted in Chinese language teaching in Romania. Research results indicate that teachers' enthusiasm, a positive classroom atmosphere, and a clear sense of learning goals are the three most effective factors in stimulating learning motivation. Based on these findings, this paper suggests that teachers: help students establish clear and achievable learning goals; pay attention to teaching feedback; encourage interactive participation.

Action and Analysis on Questions in Mixed-Aged Class of Chinese as a Foreign Language in Latvia

2026-05-26T09:29:52+00:00

This paper explores several practical challenges encountered in teaching Chinese as a second language in Latvia. It focuses on common questions raised by Chinese language teachers in their daily classroom practice and curriculum design, which influence both teaching effectiveness and teachers’ motivation. Through systematic analysis, the study identifies the underlying causes and outcomes of these challenges and proposes strategies to address them. The findings offer useful insights for improving classroom practice and contribute to the professional development of Chinese language teachers in similar contexts.

When Mandarin Meets Romanian: Linguistic Interference Patterns in Chinese Learners’ Acquisition of Romanian as a Second Language

2026-05-26T09:46:25+00:00

This study investigates the linguistic interference of Chinese native speakers who learn Romanian as a Second Language, through a mixed-methods analysis, which triangulates the analysis of 9 learner journals and 32 questionnaires, starting from the firsthand observation that Chinese learners face systematic challenges at different linguistic compartments. Thus, morphologically, all participants struggled with Romanian’s three-gender system (absent in Mandarin); syntactically, topic-comment transfer produces OVS errors, with questionnaire data revealing persistent L1-mediated processing (M=4.00 “thinking in Chinese first”); lexical interference manifests through overgeneralised light verbs and inappropriate Mandarin obligatory classifier insertion; and pragmatically, Chinese indirect refusal strategies transfer inappropriately to Romanian’s explicit communicative norms. Consequently, a critical finding was generated: learners demonstrate metalinguistic awareness without production accuracy, suggesting that spontaneous language use falls behind explicit knowledge, which emphasises the need for precise contrastive language acquisition patterns for grammatical gender, structured morphosyntactic practice, and dedicated pragmatic training for Romanian pedagogy targeting Chinese-speaking learners.

A Study on the Form Class, Prosody, and Semantics of Modern Chinese clothing Compounds

2026-05-26T08:39:13+00:00

This paper examines modern Chinese clothing compound words within the framework of Generative Lexicon Theory, focusing on their prosodic mode, grammatical mode, and the qualia role. The study finds that the N+N form class and 1+1 prosodic pattern are dominant, reflecting linguistic economy, where functional verbs are often implicit, and modifiers are typically monosyllabic. Semantically, the pattern preference follows XTelic+N > XFormal+N > XConstitutive+N, which can indirectly encode the inherent functional meaning of clothing items, either by foregrounding the situational context of use or by highlighting the materials that enable such function. The paper also proposes a referential semantic template by incorporating implicit predicates within these compounds.

Women in Chinese and Romanian proverbs— a cross-cultural analysis from the perspective of conceptual metaphor

2026-05-26T08:48:37+00:00

This study employs Conceptual Metaphor Theory to conduct a cross-cultural analysis of gendered proverbs in Chinese and Romanian societies. It argues that while both cultures utilize the Great Chain Metaphor to ontologically downgrade women, the specific source domains reflect distinct cultural imperatives. Chinese proverbs, profoundly shaped by Confucian ethics, emphasize internal virtue, chastity, and hierarchical loyalty. In contrast, Romanian proverbs, driven by agrarian pragmatism, focus on labor utility, physical control, and economic burden. This research demonstrates that despite divergent metaphorical imagery, both linguistic systems function identically to rationalize and cement the subordination of women within the patriarchal order.

A Philological Approach to a Modern Sino-Indonesian Book: The Coconuts by Zheng Tufei

2026-05-26T07:29:12+00:00

Philology as a discipline in the sphere of humanities has recently lost ground in favour of other approaches, but it nevertheless has the potential of exploring literary texts in their inner structures and outer connections as well, bringing rich information to the discussion. While being traditionally used in the study of old manuscripts, philology is deemed efficient and informative in the case of modern, printed books as well. The present paper elaborates a case study of a philological approach to the prose volume The Coconuts, published by Sino-Indonesian author Zheng Tufei in 1929 in Shanghai, emphasizing analysis of formal levels as well as contextualization and intertextuality.

The Numbers of War: Did Sunzi Really Do Calculations?

2026-05-26T07:50:00+00:00

This article investigates the use and significance of numbers in Sunzi’s “Art of War”, addressing both their empirical and symbolic dimensions. Drawing on classical sources — including the Analects, Book of Rites, Laozi, and Sima Qian the article examines how numbers such as five, nine, and one hundred function in military, cultural, and ritual contexts. It analyzes translation challenges arising from ambiguous Chinese numerals and units of distance, and considers historical plausibility versus theoretical or idealized figures, particularly for army sizes and campaign logistics. The discussion highlights instances in which numeric references convey both practical guidance and broader philosophical or cultural meanings, including eternal change, completeness, and strategic deception. By situating Sunzi’s numerical usage within historical, linguistic, and cultural frameworks, the study attempts to provide a detailed picture of the interplay between arithmetic, military organization, and symbolic representation in early Chinese strategic thought.

Zhuangzi – prototypes of fiction and (proto)principles of Chinese novels

2026-05-26T08:12:37+00:00

This paper investigates Zhuangzi as a proto-fictional frameworks that anticipates the formal, rhetorical, and epistemological principles of xiaoshuo and, implicitly, of the Chinese novel. By situating Zhuangzi’s philosophical prose within the diachronic evolution of Chinese narrative forms, the study argues that fiction in China emerges not solely from oral vernacular traditions, but also from a literary, polemical, and iconoclastic discourse that relativizes Confucian axiology. Through irony, paradox, parable, and fictional dialogue, Zhuangzi articulates a weak, plural, and self-reflexive mode of thinking that destabilizes canonical hierarchies and legitimizes narrative ambiguity. The paper further demonstrates how these proto-fictional strategies are perpetuated in classical gudian xiaoshuo and reconfigured in modern and post-Maoist fiction. Ultimately, the analysis proposes a non-teleological genealogy of the Chinese novel, grounded in processes of metamorphosis, rewriting, and discursive negotiation rather than rupture alone.

Confucian Culture and Contemporary China - a Compatibility Issue

2026-05-26T08:29:32+00:00

After the fall of Qing dynasty, together with the beaurocratic system that made reform impossible, Confucianist tradition came under scrutiny, with many intellectuals voicing the need to get rid of its harnesses, guilty of keeping China locked in the „feudal” past. The urgent need for modernization referred both to technology and thinking, and was synonymous with Westernization. With the proclamation of the People’s Republic, Confucius was blended with the dregs of the past. The Cultural Revolution saw everything Confucian smashed to pieces, while after Lin Biao’s defection, it was associated with treason itself. After 1976, however, Confucian tradition came to be seen, more and more, as a central part of national identity and in urgent need of re-evaluation. As opposed to other imported ways of thought, Confucianism already had Chinese characteristics. Within my paper, I make a summarization of the efforts at making Confucian culture compatible with the new ways of Chinese thinking.