About the Speaker
Liao Qiaoyun is a Second-Class Professor at Shanghai International Studies University (SISU), holding a Ph.D. and serving as a Zhiyuan Outstanding Scholar. She is a doctoral supervisor and postdoctoral co-supervisor in English Language and Literature, as well as in Foreign Linguistics and Applied Linguistics. She serves as a communication review expert for both the National Social Science Fund and the Ministry of Education Social Science Fund projects, and as a doctoral dissertation review expert at the Degree Center of the Ministry of Education. She holds the position of Vice President of the Embodied-Cognitive Linguistics Professional Committee of Huaxia Culture Promotion Association, Vice President of the China Language Education Research Association, Vice President of the China Cognitive Neurolinguistics Association, Standing Council Member of the Cognitive Linguistics Professional Committee of China Association for Comparative Studies of English and Chinese (CACSEC), and Standing Council Member of the Sino-Western Philosophy of Language Professional Committee of CACSEC. She has previously directed three National Social Science Fund projects (including one key project, rated excellent upon completion), six provincial/ministerial research projects, two provincial-level key higher education teaching reform projects, one national-level first-class course, one Shanghai-level first-class course, and one Shanghai-level key course. Her main research areas include cognitive linguistics, cognitive pragmatics, and cognitive neurolinguistics. She has published six monographs, including A Study on the Operational Mechanism of Causal Constructions and Cognitive Neural Mechanism of Semantic Rhetoric, and over 80 articles in prominent domestic and international journals indexed in CSSCI, A&HCI, SSCI, and SCI, such as Foreign Language Teaching and Research, Foreign Languages, Modern Foreign Languages, Journal of Pragmatics, and Journal of Neurolinguistics. She has been honored as one of the Fourth Batch of Young and Middle-Aged Experts with Outstanding Contributions in Chongqing and has received one second-prize National Teaching Achievement Award in Higher Education, one Bao Steel Education Award for Excellent Teachers, two second-prize Provincial/Ministerial Outstanding Social Science Achievement Awards, and one first-prize and one third-prize Provincial/Ministerial Higher Education Teaching Achievement Awards.
Lecture Time and Venue
Time: 19:00–20:30, Monday, June 22, 2026
Venue: Lecture Hall 103, Building 5, Songjiang Campus
Lecture Title
A Corpus-Based Comparative Study of the Cultural Mechanisms of Semantic Rhetoric in Chinese and English
Lecture Abstract
With the social turn in cognitive linguistics, an increasing number of researchers have begun to focus on the socio-cultural factors and social variations related to linguistic facts, in order to reflect the influence of socio-cultural factors on language use. As an important means of meaning construction, semantic rhetoric is inherently embedded in specific cultural knowledge, social experience, and cognitive modes in its formation and use. This study adopts a corpus-based research approach, combining statistical analysis of large-scale corpora with comparative investigations using self-built closed corpora, to examine the cultural mechanisms underlying semantic rhetoric in Chinese and English. Specifically, this study first conducts a statistical analysis of the usage patterns of semantic rhetoric based on large-scale corpora, preliminarily identifying its overall distributional features and examining the cultural knowledge and cultural factors embodied therein. On this basis, it further conducts a comparative study of material culture metaphors in Chinese and English through self-built closed corpora, revealing the commonalities and differences in material culture metaphors between the two languages, and exploring the underlying embodied-cognitive motivations, cultural mechanisms, and differences in thought patterns. This study may provide corpus-based evidence for research on semantic rhetoric, as well as offer references for cross-cultural comparative studies between Chinese and foreign languages and for foreign language teaching practices.
