English Language Teaching and Linguistics Studies
English Language Teaching and Linguistics Studies (ELTLS) is an international, Refereed, double-blind peer-reviewed, open-access journal published by Scholink. The journal aims to provide a high-level platform for scholars and researchers all over the world to share latest findings and views in the field of English Language Teaching and Linguistics Studies. We would welcome scholars and researchers engaging in the related field to submit your manuscripts which are complete unpublished and original works and not under review in any other journals to English Language Teaching and Linguistics Studies. Both of online submission and E-mail submission (eltls@scholink.org) are acceptable. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The journal includes, but is not limited to the following fields: Teaching English as a Second Language or a Foreign Language Syllabus Design and Curriculum Development English Language Testing and Assessment Linguistics Teaching and Learning Discourse Analysis Second Language Acquisition Critical Discourse Analysis Applied Linguistics Comparative Linguistics Corpus Linguistics Descriptive Linguistics Language and Linguistics Psycholinguistics Socio-linguistics Theoretical Linguistics Teaching Process Translation Studies Language Learning Education Morphology Phonology Pragmatics Literature Semantics Syntax -------------------------------------------------------- Index/List/Archive CNKI-Scholar CrossRef WANFANGDATA LinkedIn ResearchGate ResearchBib Yahoo Google Scholar Canadiana ResearchBib Base Search CrossRef Sciencegate Worldcat PKP Open Archives Harvester Lockss ISSN PORTAL Refereed Journal: English Language Teaching and Linguistics Studies is a Refereed Journal. Open access: English Language Teaching and Linguistics Studies is available online to the reader "without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself." Peer review: English Language Teaching and Linguistics Studies takes peer review policy. Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people of similar competence to the producers of the work (peers).
Authors who publish with this journal must agree to the following terms: Authors should promise that their works are entirely original, and all the references in their works should be appropriately cited or quoted. The works have not been published previously. The behavior of submitting the same work to other journals is unacceptable. The journal editor has the right to edit the format of works.
“Simplicity as a Weapon”: A Comparative Analysis of Zhang Xuefeng and State Education Talk in the New Media Sphere
In the new media era, public educational discourse has tended toward popularization, with Zhang Xuefeng’s educational discourse serving as a typical representative. From the perspective of corpus linguistics, this study constructs two corpora: the Zhang Xuefeng Educational Corpus (ZXC) and the Expert Educational Corpus (EEC) of university scholars. With AntConc, NeoSCA and SPSS adopted, a comparative analysis is conducted on lexical richness and syntactic complexity. The results indicate that there is no significant difference in sentence length between the two types of discourse, while extremely significant differences exist in lexical richness, subordinate structures, coordinate structures and phrasal structures. Overall, Zhang Xuefeng’s discourse tends to be simplified and popular, whereas expert discourse is more rigorous and standardized. This study reveals the differentiation law of popularization and specialization in new media educational discourse, interprets the adaptive value of simplified expression in mass communication, and provides empirical references for optimizing the dissemination of public educational information and balancing professionalism and accessibility.
Copyright (c) 2026 Shuo Geng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
A Multimodal Discourse Analysis of Interpersonal Meaning in New-Type Farmers' Agricultural Promotion Short Videos on Douyin
This study selects 15 short videos published over the past year by new-type farmers (xin nong ren) on Douyin as research corpus. It adopts systemic functional grammar’s interpersonal meaning theory, visual grammar’s interactive meaning theory, and intersemiotic complementarity theory as analytical framework, using AntConc and ELAN multimodal video analysis software as research tools. This study employs both quantitative and qualitative methods to examine how agricultural promotion short videos construct interpersonal meaning through multimodal resources. The analysis focuses on three aspects, including verbal mode, visual mode, and their synergistic complementarity. According to the findings, in the verbal mode, declarative sentences account for the highest proportion in the mood system. Median-value and low-value modal expressions reach 92.8% in the modality system, which helps present information in a relative neutral and tentative manner and contributes to shaping a credible image of new-type farmers and maintaining audience trust. In the visual mode, demand image, medium close-up and medium shots, horizontal angle, and high-modality color expressions are commonly used. These visual choices effectively reduce the social distance between creators and audiences, support a more equal interpersonal relationship and encourage emotional engagement. In terms of intersemiotic complementarity between verbal and visual modes, attitudinal convergence, attitudinal divergence, and appellative reinforcement can all be observed. Among them, attitudinal convergence occurs most often, where verbal and visual elements work mutually to reinforce interpersonal meaning, improve coherence and optimize the audience’s viewing experience. This study enriches empirical research on multimodal discourse analysis in the context of agricultural promotion short videos, and provides implications for the interactive design and content production of such videos.
Copyright (c) 2026 Yixin Chen http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Communicative Functions of Textbook Images: A Multimodal Analysis of New Standard English (Selective Compulsory Book 2)
With the increasingly prominent position of multimodal ability in high school English education, the function carried by textbook images is far more than page decoration. They are no longer just a visual accompaniment of written texts, but participate in meaning construction and classroom communication in a more direct way. This study takes New Standard English (Selective Compulsory Volume II) as the object of analysis, explores the communication function of textbook images under the theoretical framework of visual grammar, and adopts multimodal discourse analysis methods to examine how different visual resources promote the understanding and interpretation of textbook discourse. The analysis found that the images of the textbook generally play a positive role in discourse understanding, cultural awareness cultivation and value guidance in English learning, but the focus of each function is not exactly the same. Some images mainly help learners enter specific discourse situations and grasp the text background more smoothly; others highlight the cultural content with visual details such as clothing, character behaviour, natural appearance and surrounding environment. There is also a class of images that are more closely related to emotional response and attitude guidance. In contrast, some images choose to use symbols, visual metaphors or coherent series of images to clearly explain abstract concepts. When abstract concepts are transformed into more intuitive image forms, learners tend to get a more transparent understanding experience. Frankly speaking, the generation of meaning in these images does not rely on an isolated visual factor, but on the coordinated operation of elements such as mood, salignance, narrative reproduction and image organisation, which jointly affect the generation and interpretation of meaning. At the same time, the analysis shows that there are still some shortcomings in the images of the textbook. The interaction between some images and the audience is relatively limited, while others fail to form a sufficiently close semantic association with the supporting text. In some cases, the unclear reproduction structure may even interfere with the learner’s grasp of the meaning of the image. Based on the above findings, this study puts forward the following suggestions to teachers: in classroom teaching, students should not only be allowed to passively browse the illustrations of textbooks, but should be guided to think about the teaching value and interpretation functions of these images, and students should be encouraged to actively explore visual information. At the same time, textbook writers also need to work harder on layout design to make the connection between images and text and interaction design smoother and more natural. Only in this way can visual resources truly help discourse understanding, cross-cultural cognition and value guidance in English learning.
Copyright (c) 2026 Shiman Zhang http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Teaching Design of AI-Enabling Junior High School English Instruction under the POA Model
With the advancement of digital transformation of education, artificial intelligence provides technical support for the innovation of foreign language education model. However, there is still a problem of “separation of learning and application” in junior high school English teaching. In order to solve this problem, the Production-Oriented Approach came into being. This teaching method provides an effective pathway to realize the integration of learning and application. However, for front-line teachers, the application of POA in front-line teaching faces many difficulties, such as being time-consuming and laborious, and puts forward higher requirements for teachers’ personal teaching design ability and knowledge reserve. Based on this, this paper takes Unit 3 “A Helping Hand” from the FLTRP eighth-grade textbook as an example, constructs the POA teaching design framework under AI empowerment, embeds the generative artificial intelligence into the three key phases “motivating, enabling, and assessing” and explores the classroom implementation path under the support of human-machine collaboration. The research shows that AI has significant advantages in the creation of communicative situations, the support of language resources and the optimization of evaluation feedback, which enhances teachers’ design efficiency and improves students’ language application skills. This paper also provides an operational design paradigm for AI-supported POA teaching practice.
Copyright (c) 2026 Shuyao Zhao http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
CRT-Oriented English Writing Instruction in Rural Primary Schools: A Case Study in Jinsha, Guizhou
In the current background of rural revitalization, improving the quality of rural basic education is an important task to promote educational equity and regional development. English writing, an important indicator of comprehensive language ability, faces many challenges in rural primary schools in multi-ethnic areas, such as students’ limited language ability, insufficient utilization of cultural resources, and outdated teaching methods. This study takes the third to sixth grade students of a multi-ethnic rural primary school in Jinsha County, Bijie City, Guizhou Province as the research object, and uses the case study method, supported by classroom observation and student writing analysis, based on the theory of Culturally Responsive Teaching (CRT). The study found that students’ writing ability is not enough, the cultural resources are not used to the maximum, and there is no diversity of teaching practice. Based on CRT theory, this study puts forward the strategies to promote cultural integration and teaching improvement, including: using local ethnic cultural resources to design writing situations suitable for students’ life experience; adopting multimodal teaching to expand the ways of expression; optimizing the process-oriented diversified evaluation system; and strengthening teacher-student interaction and collaborative learning. The suggestions are to provide effective guidance for teaching English writing in rural primary schools.
Copyright (c) 2026 Yue Li http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Epistemic Lexical Verbs Based on the COCA Corpus: A Study of “Argue”, “Note” and “Claim”
This paper draws on the COCA corpus to conduct a comparative analysis of the usage characteristics of the epistemic lexical verbs “argue”, “claim” and “note”, examining dimensions such as frequency distribution, register differences, collocation features and colligations. The findings reveal that: (1) In terms of frequency and register distribution, “note” is the most frequently used, primarily concentrated in academic and expository registers; “argue” is active in both academic and interactional registers; whilst “claim” is more prevalent in media and online registers. (2) In terms of collocation features, “claim” frequently co-occurs with terms related to stance-taking groups and rights attribution; “argue” is more commonly paired with academic or professional subjects and argumentation-related vocabulary; whilst “note” primarily co-occurs with informative and explanatory vocabulary. (3) In terms of colligation, “claim” is commonly found in “that” clauses and noun phrases; “argue” primarily takes the form of “that” clauses and co-occurs with prepositional phrases; whilst “note” relies heavily on “that” clause structures. Overall, there are systematic differences in the usage patterns of these three verbs within discourse. Research indicates that the use of epistemic lexical verbs is constrained by multiple factors, including register, collocation and colligation.
Copyright (c) 2026 Bingshu Yin http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
A Study on Translation Strategies of Chinese Political Metaphors from the Perspective of Cognitive Translatology：A Case Study of Two Important Speeches Delivered in Lima
Cognitive Translatology is a new paradigm of translation studies grounded in cognitive science, focusing on the cognitive mechanism of translation, meaning construction, and cross-cultural communication. Rooted in embodied cognition and centered on profiling, it offers a systematic perspective for metaphor translation research. Taking President’s Lima Speech as the corpus, this paper adopts the base-profile theory of Cognitive Translatology and the Metaphor Identification Procedure (MIP) proposed by the Pragglejaz Group. Through manual identification and verification, 30 metaphors in the text are selected, classified, and statistically analyzed. Furthermore, integrated with four cognitive frameworks, this paper correspondingly examines the specific applications and cognitive operational mechanisms of four translation strategies: literal translation, metonymy, free translation, and metaphtonymy. Through case analysis, this study provides cognitive theoretical support and practical references for metaphor translation in political discourse, and enriches the applied research of cognitive translatology in political discourse translation.
Copyright (c) 2026 Lan Wang, Juan Yao, Hui Shao http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The translation of Hakka dialect into Hakka Language Is a Key Task in the Study of Hakka Language, which Should Be Analyzed from the Methodological Level in This Study, and the Translation of the New Testament in the 19th century Is Taken as an Example
Western missionaries compiled a large number of texts, and these texts have laid the foundation for the study of Chinese dialect grammar, but we should not ignore the existence of translation language interference in the compilation of these texts. This paper takes the New Testament written in Hakka as the research object, compares it with the grammatical materials of Hakka dialects in the same period or later periods, and constructs a three-tier analytical framework from three aspects: historical evolution, translation interference and underlying stability. Through analysis, it is found that the grammatical elements are relatively stable and should be included in the underlying stability layer, and the affirmative and negative interrogation structure and the “Jiang” clause have only appeared in the translation, and are consistent with the content of Putonghua, which is inevitably interfered with by translation, and should be included in the translation interference layer. The grammatical evolution of plural markers and the disappearance of comparative markers are inevitably related to historical evolution.Based on the above conclusions, this paper analyzes the principles of dialectal syntax research, including asymmetry and cross-validation strategies, in order to provide a reference for the analysis of similar texts.
Copyright (c) 2026 Xianrui Zhu, Xueying Lin, Xinyang Li http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
A Multimodal Construction of China’s National Sports Image by China Daily in the Away-Game Context
This study takes the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics as a case study to explore how Chinese media construct the national sports image through multimodal discourse in an away-game context. Addressing the gap in existing literature, which predominantly focuses on home-game events, this paper analyzes 30 multimodal news reports from China Daily. It adopts the framework of multimodal discourse analysis (MDA), integrating transitivity analysis, Visual Grammar, and Intersemiotic Complementarity theory to examine the synergistic construction mechanisms of verbal and visual modalities. The findings reveal that China Daily presents a credible image through material processes and objective data; shapes a lovable image via emotional expressions and an equal perspective; and portrays a respectable image using cultural symbols and willpower. Consequently, it accomplishes the multidimensional construction of a “credible, lovable, and respectable” image in an away-game context. This paper broadens the away-game dimension in national sports image research and provides references for the multimodal communication strategies of Chinese media in international sporting event coverage.
Copyright (c) 2026 Yihan Liu http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Analysis of Pragmatic Presupposition in “Qiushi” Based on LDA Model from Linguistic Adaptation Theory
This research, grounded in Linguistic Adaptation Theory, selects 648 English Qiushi Journal articles from 2015 to 2024 as corpus. It applies the LDA topic model to proportional samples 18 papers and codes their pragmatic presuppositions via NVivo to analyze presupposition strategies’ traits. Results show six core national governance themes covering politics, economy and livelihood. Its thematic evolution falls into three dynamically adaptive stages with shifting research focuses. Besides, pragmatic presuppositions form a three-dimensional adaptive pattern matching linguistic structures, changing contexts and cultural salience. The study enriches LDA’s linguistic empirical applications, broadens Adaptation Theory’s coverage, facilitates cross-research of pragmatic presupposition and macro-linguistics, and offers a fresh angle for political discourse pragmatic strategies.
Copyright (c) 2026 Yaping Yang http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
A Study of the Subtitles of A Bite of China from the Perspective of Semantic and Communicative Translation
With the increasing attention of the international spread of Chinese culture, documentaries became an essential carrier of Chinese culture to the world. Based on Newmark’s theories of semantic translation and communicative translation, this study analyzes the English subtitles of A Bite of China Episode 4: The Taste of Time, and discusses the use of the two translation methodologies in the Chinese documentary subtitling. The findings reveal that the subtitle translation is a flexible blend of semantic translation and communicative translation to strike a balance between the preservation of culture-specific information and the understanding and acceptance of the audience, thus allowing the cross-cultural communication of Chinese cuisine.
Copyright (c) 2026 Heng Li http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Comparative Analysis of Translation Accuracy for Terminology in the Huangdi Neijing
The global dissemination of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) culture contributes to the spread of China’s traditional culture, and for TCM culture to reach every corner of the world, translation is indispensable. To address the challenges in promoting Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) culture internationally, this paper conducts a comparative analysis of two translations of the Huangdi Neijing—by Li Zhaoguo and by Wu Liansheng and Wu Qi—using accuracy as the criterion and referencing third-party sources, aiming to provide reference material for accurate international dissemination of TCM terminology.
Copyright (c) 2026 Jiawen Wang http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Research on Differentiated Homework Design for Junior High English Listening and Speaking under the “Double Reduction” Policy
Against the background of the “Double Reduction” policy, compulsory education homework is required to reduce burden while improving quality. Current homework design for junior high school English listening and speaking lessons is homogeneous, monotonous and poorly differentiated, failing to meet individual differences. Supported by the Input Hypothesis (i+1) and Multiple Intelligences Theory, this study adopts questionnaire surveys, classroom observations and case analyses with 96 eighth-grade students from two classes as subjects. It constructs a closed-loop path for differentiated homework design: “stratification criteria-task differentiation-implementation procedures-multiple assessment-dynamic adjustment”. A three-level homework case is designed based on Unit 4 of the textbook for Grade 8 Volume 2. Practice proves that this path significantly improves completion rate and satisfaction, and promotes targeted development of listening and speaking abilities. This study fills the research gap of specialized differentiated homework for English listening and speaking courses and provides operational schemes for teachers.
Copyright (c) 2026 Keying He http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
A Corpus-Based Study of Dependency Relation Types in English Writing by Chinese Senior High School Students: Evidence from CLEC
This study investigates the use of dependency relation types in English writing by Chinese senior high school students. Based on the ST2 sub-corpus of the Chinese Learner English Corpus, it aims to reveal the syntactic features of students’ English sentence construction and provide implications for English grammar teaching. Using Python-assisted dependency parsing and frequency analysis, this study examines the frequency and distribution of dependency relation types in the English writing of Chinese senior high school students and compares them with those in a native-English corpus, GUM, within the Universal Dependencies framework. The findings show that the most frequently used dependency relation types include nsubj, Root, det, case, advmod, obj, obl, and amod. Compared with the GUM, students use fewer case relations and show less syntactic flexibility, especially in complex structures. The study suggests that grammar teaching should focus more on prepositional structures, common syntactic patterns, and complex sentence construction.
Copyright (c) 2026 Guiru Wang http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
A Corpus-Based Comparative Study of Hedges in English and Chinese Research Articles
As an essential linguistic device, hedges are widely adopted in academic writing to express standpoints and boost the persuasiveness of academic arguments. Based on two self-built corpora, this study conducts a comparative analysis on the frequency distribution and linguistic realizations of hedges in English and Chinese research articles. The results indicate that the overall frequency of the hedges in English research articles is significantly higher than that in Chinese research articles, and that different hedge subcategories exhibit distinct preferences in usage between the two corpora. In terms of adaptors, intensifying adverbs are predominantly utilized in English texts to adjust the certainty or strength of claims, whereas mitigating adverbs are favored in Chinese texts to soften the tone of arguments. In terms of rounders, non-numerical types are significantly more frequent in English texts than in their Chinese counterparts. In terms of plausible shields, certain adjectives are incorporated in English texts while being notably absent in Chinese texts, indicating a difference in how tentative judgments are constructed in the two languages. In terms of attribute shields, discourse verbs are relied on more heavily in English texts to achieve mitigation, whereas research verbs are employed more frequently in Chinese texts to achieve the same hedging effect. This study not only enriches existing research on hedges in academic discourse but also offers a direct reference for the teaching of academic writing.
Copyright (c) 2026 Baocui Lou, Yingchun Xu http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Research on the Construction and Application of a Blended Teaching Model for Undergraduate English Courses Based on Technological Empowerment
As vocational education is transitioning to the undergraduate level, it requires higher English application ability from students. It needs to provide students of vocational education with good, situation-specific language skills necessary for thriving in an open world and cultivate top-tier technical talent with international competitiveness. Currently, there are still some systemic problems in the English teaching of vocational undergraduates at the college level, such as a “data silo” due to the lack of coordination between online and offline teaching and a single assessment system that cannot comprehensively reflect students’ learning results or show the development of their professional literacy. To solve the above problems, this paper puts forward an online-offline blended teaching model based on constructivist learning theory and sociocultural theory, and through the combination of various teaching resources and the application of artificial intelligence and learning analysis, it is possible to collect data on students’ learning behavior accurately and deeply. Based on practice, it has been found that this model can provide personalised teaching and learning guidance according to the different circumstances of various students. Through a multi-dimensional and data-driven assessment system for their entire learning process, it can improve teaching efficiency and motivate students to learn. Therefore, it can offer practical theoretical support and an implementation path for the reform of English education in vocational undergraduate education.
Copyright (c) 2026 Chunlan Xu http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Multimodal Persuasion Strategies in English Learning Advertisements
In the digital communication era, English learning advertisements have evolved from language-only persuasion to complex semiotic events that integrate language, image, sound, and space. Drawing on Kress and van Leeuwen’s visual grammar and Aristotle’s three persuasive appeals, this study analyzes two real-world cases—Duolingo’s “social-first” campaign and Liulishuo’s “AI Teacher” brand film—to examine how multimodal persuasion strategies operate in English learning advertisements. The findings reveal that these advertisements use language to create anxiety and promise transformation, visual images to construct ideal self-representations, sound to build emotional atmospheres, and interactive space to encourage user engagement. Through the orchestration of these modes, English learning advertisements achieve a distinctive persuasive mechanism: they redefine English proficiency not merely as a language skill but as a gateway to a higher-order identity. This identity reconfiguration drives consumer action. The study provides theoretical insights for advertising practitioners and contributes to the marketing research of English language education.
Copyright (c) 2026 Yuan Gao http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
A Practical Research on CET-4 Reading Teaching Based on the Integrated “Teaching-Learning-Assessment” Model at a Private University in Yunnan
Against the predicaments including inadequate English competence among private university students, inefficient preparation for CET-4 reading, and disjointed teaching, learning and assessment in conventional instruction, this study constructs a CET-4 reading teaching framework underpinned by the integrated Teaching-Learning-Assessment (TLA) approach and conducts a five-week instructional intervention. The research subjects consist of 99 students in the experimental group, 725 peers with equivalent proficiency forming the ordinary control group, and another 344 high-proficiency students as the advanced control group. Adopting a quasi-experimental between-group comparison design, the research employs SPSS to implement one-way ANOVA and correlation analysis for effect verification. Statistical results demonstrate that the proposed pedagogy significantly facilitates learners’ reading scores; the experimental group presents marginally significant score disparities against the advanced control group. Furthermore, CET-4 reading performance registers a strong positive correlation with overall CET-4 scores, and precise lexical mastery constitutes the core determinant of improving candidates’ pass rates. It is verified that the hybrid mode combining embedded formative assessment with authentic past CET-4 test papers matches the academic characteristics of students from private universities, bearing prominent practical value and popularization potential.
Copyright (c) 2026 Qian Zhang, Mengmeng Zhang, Xinrong Cha http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Order in Chaos: An Analysis of Senior Three Students’ English Continuation Writing Texts Based on Complex Dynamic Systems Theory
This study investigates the dynamic features of language production in senior three students’ English continuation writing. Traditional writing instruction and assessment, which rely on static and linear models, fail to explain the complex fluctuations students exhibit in lexicon, syntax, and discourse construction. To address this issue, the study adopts Complex Dynamic Systems Theory (CDST) as a new analytical framework. Using textual analysis combined with case analysis, the study examines 14 continuation writing texts completed by senior three students from a natural class in a key high school in Taiyuan during a mock exam in the first semester of the 2025 academic year. The analysis focuses on three dimensions: lexicon, syntax, and discourse cohesion. The results show that students’ continuation texts are not simple accumulations of linguistic elements but complex systems characterized by fluctuation and self-organization. Specifically, vocabulary use exhibits obvious nonlinear waxing and waning; syntactic structures show dynamic competition between complex and simple forms; and discourse cohesion emerges as overall coherence from the interaction of micro-level elements. The findings indicate that CDST offers an ecological perspective for understanding students’ writing production. Students should rationally view the nonlinear fluctuations in their writing process, adjust their task-response strategies appropriately, and actively identify and utilize their own linguistic resources, thereby enhancing their English writing competence more effectively.
Copyright (c) 2026 Jiahui Nie http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The Discursive Construction of Legitimation in Regional Conflict Discourses of Ukraine and Russia from the Perspective of Proximization
The outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict in 2022 has triggered intense discourse battles, in which the discursive construction of legitimacy has become a core battlefield for both sides. Drawing on Piotr Cap’s Proximization Theory and corpus-assisted critical discourse analysis, this study examined the speeches delivered by Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during the initial phase of the Russia-Ukraine military confrontation in 2022. The analysis revealed that both leaders systematically employed spatial, temporal, and axiological proximization strategies to legitimize their respective positions while delegitimizing the adversary. Putin predominantly utilized temporal proximization to frame Russia’s military operation as a preemptive self-defense against anticipated NATO expansion, whereas Zelensky favored spatial and axiological proximization to portray Ukraine as an innocent victim of unprovoked aggression. These divergent discursive patterns reflect contrasting ideological orientations and serve distinct legitimation functions: Putin sought to justify defensive military action, while Zelensky aimed to mobilize national resistance and secure international solidarity. This study contributed to the growing body of critical cognitive linguistic studies on conflict discourse by demonstrating how proximization operates as a powerful rhetorical mechanism for manufacturing consent in political communication.
Copyright (c) 2026 Yuanyuan Zhang http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0