After the effectiveness of GDPR and the Schrems II case, the global data flow seems to have entered the “era of Standard Contractual Clauses”. Promoting cross-boundary data transmission between the mainland and the Macao Special Administrative Region is essential for building an “electronic bay area” and a digital trade port with Portuguese speaking countries. SCCs, with its convenience and practicality, are the top choice in the existing legal toolbox that can drive leading innovation and break institutional barriers. The “9+1” transmission structure is only the starting point, and the rule convergence of SCCs should point to the future of the “1+1+1” system. There are differences in terms of contractual clauses between the two regions, including relevant concepts, applicable prerequisites, specific content, and procedures. Hengqin In-Depth Cooperation Zone has a top-level design and a “bottom-up” dynamic normative structure, retaining considerable institutional flexibility in legislation, administration, and judiciary, providing a experimental platform for the rule convergence of contract clauses between the two regions; Its existing experience in institutional reform, such as “one place, two inspections” and the division of functions among statutory bodies, can also serve as a reference for SCCs system harmonization. On the premise of fully recognizing the institutional differences between the two regions, taking the institutional innovation of the Guangdong-Macao In-depth Cooperation Zone as an opportunity, the general principles and framework of standard contractual clauses can be established, and distinctions in professional terminology can be eliminated. Then, sample contracts can be launched through agreements, and institutions within the executive committee can be established to supervise and execute, thus building a interactive development status of “rule co-consultation, platform co-construction, institution co-management, and achievement co-sharing”. This can achieve an improvement in the information industry and residents' welfare in Guangdong, Macao, and even the region, while effectively safeguarding digital human rights, and providing a “Greater Bay Area Scheme” with Chinese characteristics for cross-boundary data flow.

The meteoric rise of ChatGPT has ignited the so-called “chatbot tsunami,” propelling AI chatbots into the vanguard of technology research and development. This study conducts a comprehensive review of AI chatbot research from 2000 to 2023, harnessing bibliometric and content analysis methods facilitated by VOSviewer software. Quantitative and visual analyses of 1,236 relevant documents retrieved from the Web of Science in May 2023 unveil AI chatbots as an interdisciplinary research domain. The most influential authors are identified from three distinct fields: human-computer interaction, human-related, and computer-related research. Key research foci encompass AI technologies, digital health and education, conversational AI, COVID-19 applications, customer service, and sentiment analysis. Building upon the bibliometric findings, we delineate the developmental trajectory of AI chatbot research and propose a conceptual framework to guide future endeavors. Furthermore, we outline prospective research avenues for AI chatbots, including advancements in AI capabilities, optimization of human-computer interaction design, and fostering interdisciplinary synergies. This comprehensive review elucidates the AI chatbot research landscape, offering valuable insights to steer both academic pursuits and industrial applications in this burgeoning field.

Jin Yong's martial arts fiction (wuxia) works play a pivotal role in opening the narrative space for the localization and internationalization of Chinese stories. These works encapsulate vivid Chinese tales, embodying unique martial arts spirit (wuxia), through charismatic character dialogues, profound martial arts, multidimensional heroic figures, they convey Chinese language and culture to the world. This study explores how Jin Yong's wuxia works, Originating from Guangdong-Hong Kong area, reaching global audiences and has become a window for the world to understand China. First, based on the overlapping academic perspectives of international Chinese communication and international Chinese education, the theoretical background and research value of Jin Yong's wuxia works in the context of international Chinese communication are clarified. Secondly, the study investigates the unique humanistic connotations and cross-cultural communication functions such as: “shared appreciation” (a blend of language, culture, history, and customs), “shared empathy” (heroic ideals, chivalric spirit, and cultural core essence), and “shared dialogue” (the pursuit of new order and the imagination of a new world). Finally, the research explores effective strategies for utilizing Jin Yong's wuxia works in international Chinese education under the framework of cultural exchange. These include fostering cross-cultural understanding in language and culture education, enhancing the interpretation of cultural symbols in cultural exchange practices, and strengthening the influence of Chinese culture through multimedia communication. Therefore, using Jin Yong's wuxia works as a medium, the study aims to build a “dream community” of international Chinese communication and also explore practical approaches to promoting international Chinese communication globally.

Old French was a mixed language formed by the contact between the Germanic Frankish dialect and Latin, as well as the original Gaul Roman language. In the 9th century, the Normans from the north occupied the lower Seine River and the Cotentan Peninsula, bringing with them the Germanic Norman dialect. Gaul Norman was a Latinized dialect that had undergone long-term language contact and fusion. After the 12th century, Doyle language emerged in the northern part of the Frankish Kingdom, then expanded to the southwestern region of France in the 15th century. The blending of various Gaul Norman dialects in the southern and northern regions gave rise to the Middle French. In the 16th century, early modern French came into being. The Normandy Conquest in 1066 completely changed the social culture, language and literature of England, which began a multilingual period in England. Anglo-Norman turned out to be the court language and official language, Latin became the written language of the church and education, and Anglo Saxon the spoken language of the natives. Anglo-Norman was a dialect of Old French. In Shakespeare's plays, from King John to Richard III to Henry VIII, there are French words and sentences, English-French mixed sentences, and even such early modern English concepts as King English and pure English. The King of Frank in King Lear is a fictional historical illusion. The periods from King John of England to Henry VI to Richard III belonged to the Doyle and Middle French periods of France, while the French language of Henry VIII period belonged to early modern French. However, in Shakespeare's plays, there is no manifestation of the evolution of French in different periods. The French language used as a foreign language in the play may be similar to that spoken by London merchant population in the late 16th century, which was a crude and arbitrary mixed foreign language. As a clear example of spoken French, there are quite a few spelling errors in Shakespeare's plays.

In this study, the structural characteristics and fundamental typographical elements of Chinese characters were investigated on the basis of the origins and principles of formation of these characters. This study also discussed how the technological reform following the introduction of electronic computers in typography elevated the philosophy and method of contemporary typography. Building on this new philosophy and method, this study explored and dissected various design routes of Chinese typography from various aspects as follows: combination of visual and semantic elements; visual design of characters; combination of characters, words, and sentences; and combination of text and graphics.

The modal particle ‘ba’ is a multi-functional grammatical structure with complex meanings; the difficulty of its internal functional types varies greatly. The modal particle ‘ba’ is frequently taught in second-language teaching using implicit teaching, which omits the explanation of metalinguistic principles. Based on this circumstance, we conducted a trace experiment on four native English speakers using a large number of implicit input teaching without elaborating on meta-linguistic principles, adhering to the six features of implicit instruction identified by Housen & Pierrard (2005). The experiment is divided into two parts: situation-oriented thematic interview implicit teaching input and scene reproduction natural dialogue test. The findings reveal that: (1). Situation-oriented implicit teaching is successful for the acquisition of the modal particle ‘ba’ with complex meaning, and the learners' application capacity of ‘ba’ has improved nonlinearly. (2). The effect of implicit teaching is different for native English speakers with varying Chinese language proficiency, In addition, the influence of implicit teaching on each functional item of modal particle ‘ba’ is also diverse.

Previous studies about the Parent Reading Belief Inventory (PRBI) have shown discrepant results and have primarily focused on the western hemisphere. The present study aims to explore the fundamental factor structure of the PRBI and re-examine the reliability and validity in a large number of Chinese parents in southern China, expecting to show a multifaceted structure of parental reading belief from diverse socioeconomic status (SES). The significance of this study is underscored by its potential to provide a more culturally sensitive and contextually relevant measure of parental reading beliefs, which can contribute to a better understanding of literacy practices in the Chinese context. PRBI was first introduced by DeBaryshe and Binder (1994) to assess parents’ reading perception, attitude, value, and belief, which is a 42-item instrument composed of 7 subscales. Given the cultural disparities in parenting beliefs, linguistic subtleties, item relevance, and the imperative for contextual adaptation, the original PRBI may not be directly applicable to the Chinese context and requires adaptation. To address this, the study recruited 1,656 parents to complete the PRBI inventory and Home Literacy Environment Questionnaire. The lack of validation for the core factor structure of the Western-focused PRBI warrants careful reconsideration and should be interpreted with caution as researchers in these studies failed to affirm the PRBI’s reliability or validity for their specific cultural group. Therefore, the current study’s revisions aim to address these issues, allowing for a more accurate assessment of parental reading beliefs among Chinese parents. Findings show that the original PRBI exhibited poor fit parameters using confirmatory factor analysis and thus was revised to an inventory with 33 items. This revision fills a needed gap to assess parents’ reading belief in the Chinese context as an instrumental measure to examine parental involvement, early literacy practices, and perceptions on preschooler’s shared-book reading experience and early language development.

Literature on GM foods reports often examined article tones in general, omitting the differences in various social actors' attitudes. To explore such differences, we conducted a comparative framing analysis of news reports on genetically modified (GM) foods in the United States and China, two large markets of GM foods, to examine (1) the use of frames on GM foods; (2) who has more power in defining the risks of GM foods and (3) the tones towards GM foods of the sources in each country. We used both article and source assertion as the unit of analysis. By content analyzing 267 news articles on GM foods from 2014-2023, including 126 from the People’s Daily (PD) and 141 from the New York Times (NYT), we identified the frames, sources, and tones of each article. We also identified 1,496 source assertions to examine the tones of each source. Results showed PD used more treatment responsibility frame than NYT, while the latter used more conflict and causal responsibility frames than the former. While both publications primarily published neutral articles, NYT published more anti-GM food articles than PD. The NYT used a broader range of sources and more anti-GM food sources than PD, while PD cited more pro-GM food sources. The two newspapers both held neutral attitudes toward GM foods. By reporting both sides of the opinion on the issue, most news articles framed it as uncertain rather than having harm or benefit to human society, which may lead to public confusion about GM foods.

From a black feminist perspective, especially Narayan’s theory on “epistemic privilege”, the paper examines the cross-racial female relation in Toni Morrison’s A Mercy, focusing on two pairs of friends - Lina and Rebekka, and Florens and Daughter Jane. In each relation, the two women, who are in different racial and class backgrounds but are both outcasts of the hierarchic society in the colonial new land, make an attempt to form a bond with each other. However, the relations head to opposite directions and end differently. The friendliness between Lina and Rebekka does not turn into a political solidarity because they are outsiders of the knowledge of “epistemic privilege” they respectively own, and their relation is greatly influenced by patriarchy and supremacy. On the contrary, Florens and Daughter Jane develop an interdependent and reciprocal relation as they bear witness to each other’s untold misery, which leads to their denial of being defined by the dominators and assimilated by supremacist notions. Their friendship bridges the racial differences, functioning as the healing power to help them seek for subjectivity and political solidarity against the same social oppression upon them. Through these two pairs of friends, Morrison illustrates the difficulty as well as the possibility of forming cross-racial sisterhood in slavery. The openness to the women of other races and the willingness of building connection with the other may not only give birth to a female community on the basis of equality and mutual benefits but also contribute to their personal growth and identity construction.

With the rapid development of China, the demand for Chinese language learning continues to be strong, and the demand for Chinese language teacher is also increasing simultaneously. Cultivating excellent teachers has become an urgent task. As the foundational stage of the “training chain”for international Chinese language teachers, the current undergraduate training program for international Chinese education is still a field where theory outweighs practice. To help students build a solid foundation while gaining in-depth understanding of the real-life teaching scenario and requirements of international Chinese education, and to explore development directions, the practitioners at Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, based on the “International Chinese Teacher Professional Competency Standards” and experiential learning theory framework, have developed a “XiPu approach”, integrating professional skills, professional practice, and professional knowledge in training. This approach, through the permeation of a four-stage cyclic structure of “concrete experience - reflective observation - abstract conceptualization-active experimentation” in teaching design, encourages students to actively practice this dynamic learning mode in their growth path. It represents an initial exploration of a talent cultivation model with the goal of lifelong learning.

With the gradual spread of Mandarin across different levels of education in Madagascar, phonetic instruction has become increasingly important in the local promotion of Mandarin. Tone perception is a crucial indicator of whether learners can effectively acquire the Mandarin phonological system. To investigate the Mandarin tone perception of Malagasy learners, this study conducted two perception experiments with ten intermediate-level learners, focusing on their recognition of both monosyllabic tones and disyllabic tone combinations. The analysis of perception accuracy and reaction times revealed learners' weaker performance in perceiving T2 and several disyllabic tone combinations, including T3+T1, T3+T4, T1+T2, T4+T3, and T4+T2. These results suggest that learners have not yet fully established distinct categories for Mandarin tones. Further examinations of the learners' error patterns showed that they tended to confuse T2 and T3 in perception, which was closely related to factors such as tonal category, tone combinations, and the position of a tone within a given combination. Moreover, it is argued that their tone perception was affected by the stress patterns of Malagasy, especially the “high-low” stress template, making them more sensitive to Mandarin T1 and T4. At the same time, learners' second language, French, also appeared to influence their tone perception performance.

This paper focuses on the high-context cultural text “Bai Yuyu” in Liaozhaizhiyi. By comparing “The History of Woo-Tsing-Yen”, published in Fraser's Magazine in 1835, and “Bai Yuyu”, included in Zhang Qingnian's 1997 translation Strange Tales from the Liaozhai Studio, we explore the commonalities and particularities in how translators from different cultural backgrounds interpret the same source text. The findings show that both translations adopt the strategies of clarity and omission to transform and interpret the original text, reflecting the translators' active participation and intervention. The similarity in the use of clarity strategies also demonstrates that the translators across different periods were motivated by a common desire to introduce Chinese culture and literature in-depth. At the same time, the translators' distinct cultural identities and cognitive orientations give rise to interpretive individualities: the English native translators tend to use poetic and purified interpretations, guided by the intervention of the translators' self-consciousness and values, while the Chinese native translators favor a concise and realistic interpretation of the text, which is faithfully rooted in the historical context of the original text.

The 2008 financial crisis spurred China to promote the use of renminbi (RMB) in international transactions in order not to be trapped deeper in a US “dollar trap”. The launch of cross-border RMB trade settlement marked the start of RMB's internationalization. Early on, China had to choose between fully liberalizing capital flows and maintaining capital control for the sake of financial stability. It opted for a gradualist policy approach. RMB internationalization has made progress, with gains in international usage, foreign exchange reserves, international payments, and global trade finance. Yet, it still lags way behind the US dollar and the Euro. The US dollar's dominance has contributed to the existing monetary system's drawbacks that include global currency instability, deflationary bias in global aggregate demand due to the accumulation of currency reserves by developing countries to deal with the instability, and inequality in the international allocation of resources in the sense that the value of exports from developing countries to developed countries exceeds that of their imports from developed countries. Among the various reform proposals for the international monetary system, more feasible would be a multi-polar system whose core currencies include the US dollar, RMB, and the Euro competing with each other. It would make the global currency market more stable, reduce the global aggregate demand's negative bias, and make the international resource allocation more equitable. RMB internationalization still has a long way to go to match China's relative economic size and share of international trade. With China's economic growth, the extent of RMB internationalization may rise much further, thus contributing to the formation of a multi-polar international monetary system.

This paper, situated within the context of international Chinese education and country-specific studies, adopts the framework of third language phonetic acquisition theory (TLPA) and employs phonological contrastive analysis and experimental phonetics methods to investigate the production of Mandarin stop consonants by 11 trilingual learners with L1 Spanish, L2 English, and L3 Mandarin. The study analyzes their voice onset time (VOT) in stop production, aiming to identify the main error patterns and underlying causes. The results show that: (1) The learners' production of L3 Mandarin stops is influenced by both their L1 Spanish and L2 English, indicating significant cross-linguistic phonetic transfer. (2) For aspirated voiceless stops p, t, k (/p^h, t^h, k^h/), errors include insufficient aspiration and blurred aspiration/non-aspiration contrasts. For unaspirated voiceless stops b, d, g (/p, t, k/), the main errors involve voicing confusion. Overall, k (/k^h/) and g (/k/) were acquired with relatively higher accuracy, whereas p (/p^h/) and b (/p/) showed lower accuracy. (3) Learners' error patterns and accuracy are closely related to their L3 proficiency and immersion, with higher-level learners producing VOT values closer to those of native speakers. This study fills a research gap on Spanish-speaking trilingual learners of Mandarin, revealing their characteristic error features and proposing targeted teaching strategies and suggestions to inform both pedagogy and further research.

The significant differences in information disclosure standards between listed companies in Shenzhen and Hong Kong, the lack of interoperability for ESG information, the absence of regulations for third-party verification bodies, and the insufficient collaborative regulatory mechanism are currently hindering market integration and international development in the Greater Bay Area. To address these issues, the Shenzhen Stock Exchange should further improve its rules by clarifying the scope of mandatory disclosure, specifying quantitative disclosure requirements, and implementing measures to ensure the authenticity of disclosures. The Hong Kong Exchange needs to enhance its rules by differentiating disclosure standards across industries, regulating third-party verification bodies, and reducing the disclosure burden on small and medium-sized enterprises. Additionally, coordination and alignment of ESG information disclosure rules for listed companies in the Greater Bay Area can be achieved by establishing unified ESG information disclosure standards, creating an ESG information disclosure data platform, and developing a collaborative regulatory mechanism. Macao can also align its corresponding rules to achieve its sustainable development goals.

The intricacies of identity within Miguel Street have consistently captivated scholarly attention, with a predominant focus on identity loss. Remarkably scarce are analyses delving into the characters' mimicry and development. Employing Homi Bhabha's theories of mimicry, hybridity, and “unhomeliness”, this paper articulates a dynamic evolutionary framework for the identity of the colonized in Miguel Street. It argues that the characters progress through and interact with three stages: spiritual unhomeliness, mechanical mimicry, and hybrid progression, thereby demonstrating how the postcolonial individuals evolve their strategies of identity construction. The analysis reveals Naipaul's emphasis on the colonial subjects' ongoing and active agency. They are not passive victims of fate; instead, they actively shape their dignity through cultural synthesis, along a non-linear but discernible trajectory of development.

With the rapid development of China's artificial intelligence industry, the lack of institutional protection for legal safeguards of AI-generated content has become increasingly evident. According to traditional legal principles, artificial intelligence is not recognized as a legal subject and therefore cannot constitute an author as defined by copyright law. From a legal hermeneutics perspective, AI-generated content also struggles to meet the originality requirement stipulated by copyright law, which means that the rights and interests associated with such content cannot be protected under the current copyright framework. Article 18 of the Draft Amendment to the Anti-Unfair Competition Law of the People's Republic of China stipulates that “the legitimate rights and interests of business operators in commercial data shall not be harmed.” Although this provision primarily addresses commercial data, it can also be interpreted to apply to AI-generated content. Granting limited rights to AI-generated content through the Anti-Unfair Competition Law would not only maintain the stability of the copyright legal system but also align with the law's function of providing “complementary protection” for intellectual property. Furthermore, it would effectively mitigate the risk of “misattribution”, thereby establishing a legal development pathway for the artificial intelligence industry.

In the contemporary market environment with intense competition, service organizations are forced to continuously renew their processes and offerings to obtain competitive advantages and maintain business sustainability. How to further improve employees' service innovative behaviors has become critical to organizations' survival and success. Servant leadership, as a leadership style characterized by serving others, is closely related to employees' service innovative behaviors. Therefore, in order to investigate the influence mechanism of service leadership on employee service innovation behavior, this study aims to establish a theoretical framework to construct a moderated mediating model based on the mediating role of prosocial motivation and the moderating role of team emotional climate. This paper collected 788 valid questionnaires from 89 teams (89 leaders and 394 employees) and used SPSS 27.0 and Mplus 6.0 to test the hypothesis. The findings revealed that (1) servant leadership positively influences service innovative behaviors, (2) prosocial motivation plays an intermediary role between servant leadership and service innovative behaviors, and (3) team emotional climate positively or negatively moderates the relationship between servant leadership and service innovative behaviors. These novel findings contribute to the literature and help company managers in enhancing employee innovation and performance. From the perspective of practice, some suggestions for how to motivate employees' service innovation behavior in the new environment and maintain the core competitiveness.