Blending the Old and the New: A Conceptual Integration Analysis of Cultural Transmission in English-Media-Making Projects

DOI: https://doi.org/10.62517/jhet.202515509

Author(s)

Hanjuan Tang

Affiliation(s)

School of Foreign Languages, Lingnan Normal University, Zhanjiang, China

Abstract

Amidst national initiatives advocating for the "creative transformation and innovative development" of cultural heritage in China, this study investigates an innovative pedagogical model that incorporates local folk culture—the Zhanjiang Nianli Festival—into tertiary-level English instruction. Within a project-based learning framework, university students were engaged in producing original multimodal digital media in English, designed to introduce the Nianli Festival to global audiences. Grounded in Fauconnier and Turner's conceptual integration theory, this research adopts a case study methodology centered on multimodal artifacts to examine student-generated videos and digital posters. The analysis elucidates the underlying cognitive-semiotic processes involved in their cross-cultural mediation. Findings indicate that students skillfully blended elements from a "traditional Nianli space" with those from a "modern English-media space," creating novel conceptual blends that reinterpreted ritual ceremonies as immersive cultural journeys and communal feasts as global food carnivals. This blending process not only promoted meaningful English language use but also functioned as an effective mechanism for enacting "dual innovation" in cultural pedagogy. The study affirms the potential of such an approach to position students as active agents of cultural reinterpretation and transmission, while providing a transferable model for language educators throughout the Asia-Pacific region aiming to integrate local heritage with contemporary competencies.

Keywords

Conceptual Integration; Cultural Transmission; English Language Teaching; Multimodal Discourse; Project-based Learning

References

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