Journal of Chinese for Social Science (JCSS) aims to explore the application of Chinese in social science research, teaching, publishing, cross-cultural academic communication, and transcultural knowledge production, dissemination, and practice. It focuses on meaning-making and knowledge communication in specific academic contexts, while encouraging renewed reflection on the evolution of concepts, terminology, and meanings in existing translations and language practices within Chinese social science.
Chinese for Social Science is an important branch of Chinese for Specific Purposes (CSP). Together with fields such as Chinese for Science and Technology and Business Chinese, it forms part of a broader framework of Chinese language studies for specialised purposes. What distinguishes Chinese for Social Science, however, is its concern with how language participates in the construction of social science concepts, knowledge production, academic communication, and scholarly practice. It emphasises that social scientific knowledge is always embedded in specific linguistic, historical, cultural, and intellectual traditions. The concept originated from the China in Comparative Perspective Network (CCPN at LSE), established at the London School of Economics and Political Science in 2006, and was subsequently developed through CCPN Global, the predecessor of the Global China Academy (GCA). Since 2014, the Global China Dialogue Series Forum has brought together scholars from different disciplines and professionals from a wide range of institutions around the world to engage in sustained dialogue on China and global issues, providing a rich theoretical foundation and practical experience for the development of Chinese for Social Science.
Meanwhile, the long-standing integrated Chinese–English dual-language publishing practice of Global Century Press has provided an international platform for the two-way dissemination of social science terminology, concepts, theories, and ideas, while also promoting mutual exchange and learning between Chinese and international scholarship. However, in the process of cross-linguistic communication, the isolated use of translated terminology and concepts outside their specific historical, cultural, and academic contexts often leads to shifts in meaning and may even produce representations of China with Orientalist characteristics. JCSS therefore pays particular attention to the differences between original concepts and their translated counterparts. It emphasises understanding and using language within its specific historical, cultural, and academic contexts in order to promote more accurate and analytically informed cross-cultural academic communication, while advancing transcultural knowledge production, dissemination, and practice across different knowledge systems.
Unlike traditional bilingual or dual-language publishing, JCSS is edited and published in accordance with the Global Century Press dual-language style. The journal itself constitutes a practical case of the theory of Integrated Dual-Language Publishing (IDLP). Within this framework, different languages are not regarded as simply corresponding versions of the same text, but as complementary ways of organising, interpreting, and communicating knowledge. Integrated Dual-Language Publishing is therefore not merely a process of translation, but an important component of transcultural knowledge production, dissemination, and practice. Through this practice, JCSS explores a new model of international academic publishing that promotes mutual learning and the co-construction of knowledge across different knowledge systems.
Since 2025, Journal of Chinese for Social Science has further developed into a Chinese-language academic journal with distinctive Chinese–English dual-language characteristics. With Chinese for Social Science as its central focus, it is committed to advancing Chinese-language research in the social sciences, international Chinese language education, dual-language academic publishing, and interdisciplinary and cross-cultural knowledge exchange, while promoting deeper understanding, collaboration, and knowledge sharing among different academic communities.
JCSS features five regular sections: Teacher Research, Student Academic Writing, Leading Scholarship in Translation, Community Building and Integrated Dual-Language. JCSS welcomes original research contributions in the fields of social sciences, international Chinese language education, translation studies, dual-language publishing, and related fields.
ISSN 2633-9501 (print)
ISSN 2633-9633 (online)
DOI https://doi.org/10.24103/jcss.cn
