1 Introduction

Emphasis was placed on the crucial role of language in military struggle and national security, highlighting its importance in strengthening identity, maintaining unity, consolidating political power, psychological warfare and cognitive deception, disseminating ideas, and winning the hearts and minds of the people. At the same time, it points out the rise of foreign language and war research since the 21st century, and proposes that this article will sort out the research in this field, providing reference and suggestions for future research.

2 Core Concepts and Related Literature

Explored the core concepts in the study of language and war, including language warfare, language warfare, war language, and discourse warfare. Language warfare involves using language as a tool of war, such as public opinion warfare, psychological warfare, etc. The war of languages refers to social unrest or competition within languages caused by language differences. The language of war focuses on the language used in warfare, including the language of the military and the people. Discourse warfare emphasizes the specific use of discourse in war, such as discourse power and discourse rhetoric. In addition, it also involves research fields such as language and conflict, peace, crisis, and violence, distinguishing different types of verbal conflict, nonviolent conflict, and war conflict.

Multidimensional research on foreign languages and wars since the beginning of the 21st century

Since the beginning of the 21st century, research on language and war abroad has covered multiple dimensions, including the overall characteristics of language and war, national defense language strategies and policies, language use in specific wars, war discourse, translation and translation actions, and language use in the war on terror. Thorne (2001) explored the characteristics of English in war from six aspects, including the militarization of everyday English, the weaponization of everyday language, the representation of identity vocabulary between the enemy and us, propaganda in war, media language in war reporting, and language in virtual warfare. Dawes (2002) analyzed the language characteristics and war culture reflected in typical literary works and important war legal texts after the American Civil War from the perspective of language use in literature, law, and other texts. Kelly et al. evaluated in "The Palgrave Guide: Language and Conflict" that after the 9/11 attacks in the early 21st century, the Afghanistan and Iraq wars broke out, increasing the likelihood of military operations in foreign countries. Culture became an important factor influencing warfare, with language being the most direct factor. They pointed out that language and war is a cross disciplinary and multidisciplinary study, involving knowledge from linguistics, social semiotics, cultural studies, narratology, communication studies, interactive communication studies, history, and other fields, as well as the non-public and ethical nature of war language information.

The main characteristics of language and war studies

Since the beginning of the 21st century, language and war research has achieved significant results in multiple aspects, becoming an important field for scholars to explore together. The research features include: 1) Language plays a crucial role in war operations and runs through the entire process of war; 2) Military translation has become a research hotspot, involving translation issues of multiple languages before, during, and after the war; 3) Military language policy is the core of research and holds a leading position in the advancement of war; 4) The research has clear connotations and broad extensions, involving the interactive relationship and influence between war and language; 5) Strong interdisciplinary nature, involving multiple fields such as cultural studies, translation studies, literature, etc; 6) Cross linguistic and cross-cultural differences are prominent, and research involves wars involving multiple countries, cultures, and linguistic backgrounds. These characteristics reflect the depth and breadth of language and war research, providing rich perspectives and space for future research.

5 Shortcomings in the Study of Foreign Languages and War

There are seven major shortcomings in foreign language and war research: 1 The research system has not been rigorously constructed, lacking scientific layout and coordination of research directions; 2. Insufficient systematic research on military language support and lack of effective support models; 3. There is a lack of research on optimizing military translation planning in war, and a lack of systematic research; 4. The key construction direction of national defense language research is unclear, and the theoretical methods are not mature; 5. There is a relative lack of research on the construction of military language resources and technology, as well as a lack of dedicated resources and technological research; 6. There is a lack of research on the impact of psychological cognitive space on the battlefield, and no empirical research has been conducted on a wide range of audiences; 7. New pioneering research in emerging fields such as language has not emerged, and there is a lack of computability, deep computing, and precise computational research.

6 Conclusion

Since the 21st century, the field of foreign language and war research has significantly strengthened, gradually forming an independent research area. This article systematically introduces the main research trends, distribution patterns, research contents, characteristics, and shortcomings of foreign countries in this field since the 21st century, covering key areas such as national defense language strategy, world wars, other major wars, military translation, war discourse, counter-terrorism war discourse, etc., aiming to provide reference and assistance for the domestic academic community.