On the afternoon of October 9, 2025, Professor Xiang Mingyou, Huiyuan Distinguished Scholar, Dean of the School of English Studies, and doctoral supervisor at the University of International Business and Economics (UIBE), visited the School of Foreign Languages to deliver a lecture titled Pragmatic Unsaidness as part of the “Xiangjiang River Forum: Linguistics Lecture Series.” The lecture was chaired by Professor Yang Wendi, Dean of the School. Professor Li Qingping, Professor Zhong Wenming, Associate Professor Wang Hualing, along with over 100 faculty members and students from linguistics, translation studies, literature, and related fields, attended the event.

Centering on the concept of pragmatic unsaidness, Professor Xiang began by clarifying its relationship with unsaid elements, and introduced two fundamental pragmatic principles. Moving beyond the level of meaning interpretation, he situated unsaid elements within the broader context of verbal communication, aiming to uncover the underlying motivations of pragmatic unsaid behavior. He proposed that pragmatic unsaidness is governed by the complementary principles of economy and autonomy, forming a comprehensive explanatory framework. Specifically, such behavior is driven by the pursuit of maximizing the utility of linguistic resources, constrained by the law of diminishing marginal utility of language, and shaped by respect for communicative agents’ autonomy. At the same time, pragmatic unsaidness closely links speakers and hearers, facilitating both economy and autonomy, and thereby ensuring the smooth progression of communication. From the perspective of pragmatic action, incorporating unsaid elements into a unified framework helps address earlier research limitations that overemphasized the hearer over the speaker, and interpretation over production. This approach further highlights the significance of pragmatics in language interaction, social communication, and cultural dissemination.

During the Q&A session, Professor Xiang responded to questions such as how pragmatic unsaidness can contribute to human–machine dialogue. He pointed out that it is essential to distinguish between human language and machine language: while machines or large language models trained on corpora rely primarily on probabilistic generation in a statistical sense, human communication focuses more on how agents exercise autonomy in dynamic and context-specific communicative actions to achieve interactional goals. Regarding pragmatics in translation and communication, he emphasized that translation and dissemination represent two inseparable aspects of “communication.” A pragmatic approach to translation entails ensuring that the target audience can understand, accept, trust, and act upon the message, thereby internalizing it and achieving effective communication. In this sense, translation plays a crucial bridging role.

In his concluding remarks, Professor Yang Wendi emphasized that pragmatics originates from everyday life, where language is used to accomplish communicative goals through a balance between the principles of economy and autonomy. He encouraged faculty and students to adopt a “Doctrine of the Mean” perspective, recognizing that “life is scholarship, and scholarship is life” to actively identify meaningful research questions from language use and develop them into systematic academic inquiries.

This forum showcased the latest research achievements of Professor Xiang and his team in pragmatics. Their work contributes to advancing frontier linguistic research and its application to fields such as human–machine interaction and large language models, fostering a deeper understanding of human language and social communication in the digital-intelligent era. From a pragmatic perspective, the lecture also broadened participants’ academic horizons in linguistics, language teaching, and translation studies.

About the Speaker: Xiang Mingyou, PhD, is a Huiyuan Distinguished Scholar and Second-Level Professor at the University of International Business and Economics, where he serves as Dean of the School of English Studies and doctoral supervisor. He currently holds positions including Vice Chair of the College Foreign Language Teaching Advisory Board under the Ministry of Education, and member of the National Steering Committee for Graduate Education in Translation and Interpreting. He previously served as a member of the 7th Discipline Appraisal Group for Foreign Languages and Literatures under the Academic Degrees Committee of the State Council. His research focuses on pragmatics and functional linguistics. He has published over 80 academic articles in leading journals such as Journal of Pragmatics, Language Sciences, Foreign Language Teaching and Research, Foreign Languages, and Modern Foreign Languages, and has authored, translated, or edited 24 books.