Translation is a process that adheres to the standards of “preserving truth, aspiring to goodness, and seeking beauty,” facilitating the cross-lingual and cross-cultural reproduction, transformation, and dissemination of knowledge. In this process, indigenous knowledge not only evolves and ascends in value along the vertical dimension, ultimately emerging, regenerating, and being reconfigured; but also, along the horizontal dimension, it engages itself in cross-cultural “encountering” “mutual appreciating” and “beauty sharing” with other local knowledge systems, leading to the integration and renewal of values, achieving common value, and merging into the ocean of global knowledge. Through a close examination of knowledge emergence from multiple dimensions, we have found that: (1) the translational communication of knowledge is a continuous process of the emergence of new knowledge and well-acknowledged values, and only knowledge that possesses common value can be more readily accepted by the world; (2) there exists a dialectical relationship between the emergence of knowledge and the emergence of value in the process of translation and dissemination; (3) the communication of knowledge unfolds within transphere, sociosphere, and mediasphere, forming three fundamental communication models, namely, the DIKW model based on text, the SECI model centered on knowledge transfer, and the MST model aimed at the emergence of common values.

The proposal of Transknowletology has opened new prospects for translation studies that had long been suffering from a lack of fresh theoretical inspiration. As the principles of translation production and criticism embedded in this new theory, with knowledge at its core, ‘seeking knowledge with truth’, ‘demanding righteousness with goodness’ and ‘re-writing with beauty’ (or in short: truth, goodness and beauty) are rooted in philosophy and implemented in the process of translation. Thanks to their link to both theory and practice, they constitute essential elements on which translation knowledge can build up. As truth, goodness and beauty are originally basic categories from the field of philosophy, their definitions, applications and interconnections within the specific domain of translation must be considered and clarified by those who commit themselves to the development of Transknowletology. The review of the relevant literature suggests that: (1) truth can be understood as the truly sincere attitude with which knowledge is sought after and the true nature of knowledge; (2) goodness can be divided into the superior one consisting in shortening knowledge gaps between different cultures and the inferior one of facilitating target readers in acquisition of local knowledge from other cultures; and (3) beauty can be considered as a quality instrument for shedding light on truth and communicating both subject knowledge and language knowledge carried in source texts; (4) the three ought to be mutually serviceable as ends and means and are often found in subtle and sophisticated interactions. It is hoped that such contributions to the existing interpretations of the threes principles, completely drawn on the researcher’s limited knowledge and experiences, can inspire further inquiries into the topic in question with the final purpose of consolidating the edifice of Transknowletology.

Based on a diachronic review of cultural studies in translation, this paper points out that the “cultural issues” in translation studies can be categorized into three types: “inter-textual”, “extra-textual”, and “post-textual”. Inter-textual studies focus on cultural meanings or nuances transferring between texts of different languages, extra-textual studies examine the various sociocultural contextual factors surrounding translation activities, and post-textual studies concentrate on the impact and effects of translational products in the sociocultural context of the target language. Together, these three aspects constitute the translational cultural system. The author suggests that research on cultural issues in translation studies should be precisely situated and adhere to three principles: a systematic perspective, a holistic view, and an integrative approach.

As China’s knowledge production expands, the demand for the globalization of local knowledge intensifies, promoting deeper and more diverse engagement. Cross-cultural scholarly communication creates opportunities for local knowledge to enter the global system, yielding remarkable results. Translation plays a vital role in facilitating scholarly communication by mediating differences between local and global discourse systems. This process addresses incongruencies in knowledge traditions, cultural contexts, and discourse styles, challenging translators to make careful choices that weigh potential losses against gains towards effective communication. Consequently, they often find themselves in a dilemma between preserving local traditions and embracing innovation.

The focal point of knowledge translation history rests with the translation in knowledge development, and it gives equal consideration to the internal and external history of translation. Therefore, this paper explores the modern chemical historian Lu-Ch’iang Wu’s English translation of Baopuzi Neipian from the perspective of knowledge translation history, trying to uncover the inter-lingual processing, reconstruction, and dissemination of Chinese ancient alchemy knowledge. It is revealed that Wu aims to promote the global dissemination of ancient Chinese chemical history, and he adheres to a truth-seeking attitude to select the Chinese version. He also emphasizes the preservation of cultural heterogeneity in science-related historical materials and balances the Western readers’ expectations. His deed should be highlighted in the translation history of Chinese science, and he contributed to the disciplinary history study of Chinese science and civilization internationally. It is thus advocated that knowledge translation history should be valued for the study of English translation history of Chinese scientific and technological classics, thus revealing the global significance of Chinese science knowledge translation from a broader historical perspective.

Chinese mythology, as a vital cultural gene, has exerted profound influence on the formative process of Chinese civilization. While Chinese myth studies constitutes a vibrant and evolving academic field, research on its translation remains at its preliminary stage. This study, employing primarily qualitative methods, critically examines the current state of Chinese myth translation research, and identifies its key limitations. Building upon this analysis, it proposes and originally argues for the “Concept of General Chinese Myth Translation”. Grounded in indigenous Chinese mythological scholarship, this Concept draws upon the foundational idea of “General Chinese Myth” as its conceptual bedrock, while referring to the inherent logic that underpins the latter’s landmark impact on the development of Chinese myth studies. Within this framework, the paper defines the scope of textual objects for “General Chinese Myth Translation Studies”, discusses its holistic research transformation, and offers basic research dimensions to promote the systematization of the field as a whole.

Technical terms in Tian Gong Kai Wu are essential carriers of ancient Chinese sci-tech culture. With the combination of the evaluative model based on translator behavior and the perspective of “thick translation”, this paper describes and compares the translators’ behavioral dispositions of the English version by E-tu Zen Sun and Shiou-chuan Sun on the notes of technical terms. It is concluded that the behavioral dispositions of Sun’s on the notes concerned are categorized into three types, containing intra-pragmatism, intra-extra-pragmatism and extra-pragmatism based on intra-truth-seeking due to the confinement of internal and external translation factors. It is noted that intra-translation behavior occurs in both internal and external texts, in which notes in external texts are information-oriented, containing explanatory notes, referential notes, comparative notes, explanatory misinterpretations or the mixture; while extra-translation behavior occurs mostly in external texts, in which the notes are research-oriented, containing exploitative notes, evaluative notes and controversial notes. Based on this research, extensions could be made in both the subjects of studies on English versions of Tian Gong Kai Wu and the theoretical framework.

Children’s picture books are important resources and tools of children’s education. Based on the identity discourse construction theory, this paper uses visual grammar as a theoretical framework, selecting 30 Caldecott Award-winning picture books related to fatherhood as the corpus. It employs the three subsystems of interpersonal meaning in visual grammar: the focus system, the emotional system, and the atmosphere system to explain the construction of fatherhood identity. The research finds that the types of fatherhood can be divided into two main categories: interactional identity and personal identity, encompassing both positive and negative aspects, with the former being significantly more prevalent than the latter. The multi-dimension of fatherhood reflects changes of father identities, the diversity of intimate relationships and the redefinition of masculine traits and fatherhood. This study aims to provide an academic reference for the research of children’s picture books and the creation and promotion of local ones.

As an emerging meta-discipline in translation studies, Transknowletology has developed through three years of theoretical and practical exploration. This study examines its disciplinary institutionalization by analyzing 2022-2025 literature from China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) using academic historiography and descriptive analysis methods. Key findings indicate: (1) Theoretically, an ontological framework emphasizing “theoretical construction” has been established, enriched through interdisciplinary engagement with philosophical epistemology and sociology of knowledge; (2) Practically, research frontiers have expanded beyond humanistic translation to form specialized paradigms in science, medicine, and law. However, critical gaps persist: insufficient empirical research in natural and social sciences and lack of research on translation historiography and knowledge genealogy. To address these, future directions should focus on: (1) enhancing empirical studies in natural science, social science and interdisciplinary translation. (2) advancing knowledge archaeology through disciplinary translation histories and genealogical mappings to clarify knowledge’s centrality in translational evolution. This article provides a foundational reference for Transknowletology’s disciplinary positioning and strategic development.

With the rise of generative AI, social semiotic multimodality studies face new opportunities and challenges. This paper reviews recent developments in multimodal researches to explore the application and impacts of AI technologies in social semiotics. Our findings show that AI helps overcome methodological limitations in multimodal discourse research, stimulates innovation in multimodal genres, and contributes to a paradigm shift in social semiotics theory—one that considers all communicative elements in the dynamic meaning exchange process. To address AI’s limitations in empathy and multimodal comprehension, future efforts should focus on building harmonious human-AI collaboration, encouraging interdisciplinary work and enriching the interpretation of multimodal discourse theory.

Since 2024, generative artificial intelligence represented by DeepSeek has achieved breakthroughs in Russian language training, providing technical conditions for the digital-intelligent transformation of Russian language education in higher education. This study examines the teaching practice of a Russian language course employing The Way to Russia 1 as its core textbook, systematically exploring implementation pathways and enabling mechanisms of large language models (LLMs) in collegiate Russian instruction under the“AI+HI”framework. Comprehensive analysis reveals that LLM-assisted Russian language education demonstrates three distinctive operational characteristics: multidimensionality, stratification and modality integration. They not only enable personalized modeling of disciplinary knowledge graphs, competency graphs, and problem graphs, but also possess technical potential for optimizing teaching lesson plans and assisting instructional activity design, achieving dual empowerment in both macro-level curriculum construction and micro-level instructional design. Through positive human-machine interaction adhering to the principles of “people-oriented” and “learning-oriented”, the integration of LLMs has effectively enhanced students’ comprehensive Russian language proficiency and intercultural communication skills, laying a crucial foundation for Chinese youth to better tell Chinese stories on the international stage.

In the past two decades, the German language major in China has experienced an awkward situation from being “eagerly sought after” to being “sneered at”. Now it is facing unprecedented crises and challenges such as “suspension of enrollment” and “revocation”. The survival crisis of “Double Non” local universities, which do not have advantages in terms of student sources and faculty, is even more severe. The formal establishment of foreign language education studies as a secondary discipline of foreign language and literature has brought a new opportunity for higher foreign language education to reflect on the quality of talent cultivation and find a professional connotation based development path. The quality of foreign language education is reflected in the quality of foreign language talent cultivation, by developing a survey questionnaire on the employment quality of fresh graduates, a survey was conducted on the employment quality of German undergraduate students from 31 “Double Non” local universities across the country. The survey results show that the employment quality is relatively good for the students from “Double Non” local universities that was selected for the “Double Ten Thousand Plan” first-class undergraduate major construction site; while the employment quality of the graduates from universities which were not selected for the “Double Ten Thousand Plan” is worrying. This is reflected in two aspects: on the one hand, nearly half of the graduates cannot pass the PGG exam. On the other hand, graduates face problems such as low employment rates, poor employment prospects, and low professional matching degree. In view of this, “Double Non” local universities should position German majors as application-oriented under the theoretical guidance of foreign language education studies, and cooperate with German universities to carry out application-oriented German talent cultivation.

“Communication competency” is a core capacity for emergency language service talents. The thesis proposes a design of curriculum to cultivate students’ communication competency for emergency response. It is a case study of airport emergency response during pandemic, which is based on the problem-based learning method. The curriculum is helpful for students’ promotion of communication competency concerning its efforts in training students’ competency of information production, information reception as well as interaction with citizen groups, which are regarded components of emergency communication competence.