The feature topic for the volume 25 (2026) of Fu Jen Journal of Foreign Languages (FJJFL) is: "Transition and Transformation: Explorations in Language, Literature, Culture, and Translation." It aims at presenting research reflecting on history, culture, literature, and didactics in the context of deep technological, environmental and geopolitical changes affecting human societies.
The driving forces affecting the world in unpredictable and irreversible ways are so pervasive, ubiquitous, and intricate that "the world as we know it" is on the verge of becoming unrecognizable. Factors of disruption are already so numerous that naming them all is impossible: climate change, biodiversity loss, scarcity of energy resources, global geopolitical disorder, artificial intelligence, and animal cloning, to state the most obvious. Our economic, energetic, geopolitical, cognitive, aesthetic, and educational futures seem to have opened to endless possibilities of redefinition. The multifactorial nature of the changes transforming reality leads us to face an urge to adapt from everything we were and had to anything we might still become.
Thus, the question: how to transition? What are we transitioning to? Will we be able to think about transition before it starts to be imposed on us and to transform us? To be able to name it, to describe it, to ponder over it, will give us an edge or at least some agency over the driving forces imposing "transitioning" on us. Then again, transitioning may be at once a necessity for survival, an opportunity for transformation, and an impossible task.
In today's rapidly evolving world and knowledge domains, the questions raised
by "transition studies" in the domains of energy and technology are of primary concern in the fields of foreign languages, translation, literature and culture. Whether taking a particularist angle or macrocosmic view, studies of transitions in literature, culture and foreign language tend to be either interpretative or pragmatist, without losing their critical angles. They delineate human responses to historical and ongoing changes resulting from both social factors and cross-disciplinary exchanges. Ecological literature, for instance, responds to both by combining knowledge in natural and social sciences to tell stories of environmental and human changes. Besides the global issues listed above, topics of transitioning in the fields of foreign language, literature and culture include but are not limited to language change and cross-cultural communication, immigration and global flows, cross-media adaptation and trans-mediation. Concerned with ongoing changes, transition studies may also involve shifting one’s standpoint to re-examine existing critical angles, to deepen understanding of language and culture, and to capture the dynamic exchanges among different disciplines, with a view to connecting research with social practices.
A sum of ten remarkable contributions from researchers of 5 different nationalities (Taiwan, France, Belgium, Morocco, Japan) have been selected to constitute the content of the volume 25 (2026) of Fu Jen Journal of Foreign Languages. Among them six are directly related to "Transition & Transformation" while four other articles, though not directly associated with the aforementioned topic, share similar theoretical concerns about cultural studies, translation, and pedagogy. The classification of the ten papers gathered in this volume will be organized around four different thematic: "Cultural History and the Future of Humanity/ties"; "Cross-Cultural Japanese Aesthetics"; "Contemporary Translation & Trans-mediation"; "French Didactics."
The first three articles explore the issue of "Transition" in the context of a changing technological environment and an evolving geopolitical landscape. The first two invited articles are written by well-recognized Francophone philosophers. The first one is Pascal Chabot. A Belgian philosopher born in 1973, Pascal Chabot has published several books devoted to the philosophical exploration of the interactions
between technology and society: The Philosophy of Simondon (Vrin, 2003), After Progress (PUF, 2008), Global Burn-out (PUF, 2013), The Age of Transitions (PUF, 2015), and A Meaning to Life: A Philosophical Inquiry into the Essential (PUF, 2024). In his paper, "Conflicting Transitions" (translated in English from French by the editor of this volume), Pascal Chabot provides a philosophical analysis of Transition as a historical transformation differing from both Progress and Revolution: the fact that historical transformations are thought in terms of "transition" evidences a new critical awareness about progress, in its dual dimension: "utilitarian" and "subtle". Pascal Chabot contends that the emergence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is one of the most challenging social-technological transition of our times: changing our personal and collective connection to writing. The second paper is written by Rachid Boutayeb, an Associate Professor of Social Philosophy and Ethics at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies (Qatar). His most recent publications include Tristesse oblige: Eine kleine Philosophie der Nachbarschaft (Alibri, 2022) and Modernity and Contemporaneity. Ideas for an Intercultural Philosophy (Arab Center for Research and Policy, 2024). In his paper "Between Culture and Civilization: Towards a Critical Theory of Translation," Rachid Boutayeb develops a theory of translation adapted to the Arab-Islamic context: while adopting the perspective of the "Global South," it aims at maintaining a critical distance from (Neo-)Occidentalist discourses, dialectically subsuming both "Salafization" and "Westernization". The third paper is written by Jean-Yves Heurtebise, an Associate Professor at the Department of Chinese Literature at National Sun Yat Sen University. In his paper, he contends that the dual crisis of the writing of History in the social sciences and of the writing of Fictions in literature are interconnected phenomena. On this basis, he explores the links between writing, history and subjectivity in the context of the emerging automatic writing processes (AI).
The second series of papers written in French, English and Japanese are dedicated to Cross-Cultural Japanese Studies. The fourth paper of this volume and first paper in this sub-section is written by Fei-ning Chen from Hiroshima University; it’s entitled "Resonance between The Tale of Genji and Contemporary Fiction: Focusing on the ‘Wakana’." It contends that the 11th century classic Japanese novel (The Tale of Genji) displays narrative techniques that resonate with contemporary storytelling. The fifth paper of this volume and second in this sub-section is written by Fanny Guinot Hsueh (National Chengchi University, Department of European Languages and Cultures) and entitled "Rethinking Tattooing Through the Water Margin: The Case of Lu Zhishen in 19th-Century Japanese Art": based on the descriptions of one of the main character of Shi Nai’an’s (施耐庵) Water Margin (水滸傳), it explores the impact of the Chinese novel on the development of traditional Japanese tattoo art (irezumi). The sixth paper and third in this sub-section is authored by Hiroyuki Dan (Wenzao Ursuline University, Japanese Department) and devoted to the poetry of Kenji Miyazawa (宮沢賢治), a Japanese novelist, poet, and children’s literature writer and more precisely to the motifs of children’s clothing and the head of the household depicted in the literary poem "Small Stockinet Salt Fish" (「［小きメリヤス塩の魚］」), focusing on the ideological motivation behind his unique poetry technique.
In the third series of papers discussing contemporary issues related to translation and trans-mediation, the seventh paper of the volume and first paper in this category is authored by Ivan Yung-chieh Chiang from National Chung Hsing University (Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures). Entitled "Reduction Training through Les Misérables Musical Lyrics Translation: An Exploratory Study," it explores the effectiveness of training the reduction technique (the translational practice which consists in decreasing certain linguistic or structural components, by ignoring part of the source text or by condensing the translated text) in English-to-Chinese translation through the rendition of song lyrics, specifically using the text from the Les Misérables musical as experimental material. The eighth paper in this volume and the second paper in this sub-section dedicated to translation, written by Cheng Hui- Fen (Fujen Catholic University, Department of German Language and Culture) aims at "Revisiting the Notion of ‘Da’ in Yan Fu’s Translation Theory: A Multi-contextual Approach." It inquires into the translation theory elaborated by Yan Fu (嚴復) in the preface of his Evolution and Ethics and provides an in-depth discussion of Yan Fu’s notion of dá zhǐ (達恉) in the sense of "conveying meaning" as a better way to communicate ideas than the conventional "written translation" (bǐ yì, 筆譯).
Finally, the last two papers are related to questions pertaining to the category of "French Didactics." The ninth paper of this volume is co-written by Fanny Guinot Hsueh (National Chengchi University) and by Amaury Ramier (Tamkang University, College of Foreign Languages and Literatures). Entitled "Teachers of French as a Foreign Language as Cultural Mediators: Challenges and Perspectives of a Museum Translation Project in Taiwan," it examines an innovative project carried out in Taiwan, involving the translation into French of the scripts of the audio guides from the permanent collection of the National Museum of Taiwan History and the recording of the audio guides. The tenth and last paper of the volume 25 of Fu Jen Journal of Foreign Languages (FJJFL) is written by Julie Bohec (Fujen Catholic University, French Department) and entitled: "Images of France in the Latitudes Textbook and Students’ Perceptions." It argues that while the textbooks are used for pedagogic purposes in the learning of a foreign language, they also often present a simplified version of reality, paving the way to stereotypes which can sometimes hindering the understanding of a foreign culture.
This brief presentation of the articles contained in volume 25 of FJJFL amply demonstrates the depth and value of the research done in the field of foreign language and culture in Taiwan.
