On May 26, the 24th Symposium on Functional Linguistics and Discourse Analysis was held in SCAU. The symposium was organized by the School of Foreign Studies of SCAU and co-organized by English and Chinese Discourse Analysis Committee of China Association for Comparative Studies of English and Chinese, "Journal of Poyang Lake", Guangdong Society of Foreign Languages and Centre for Ecolinguistics of SCAU with the theme of “Migrants Language Problems”. The keynote speakers included Prof. Huang Guowen (South China Agricultural University), Prof. Wang Lei (Guangdong University of Foreign Studies), Prof. Hu Yingfeng (Jiangxi Academy of Social Sciences) and Dr. Liu Junhong (China Three Gorges University). More than 140 teachers and students attended from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies,  Hong Kong Polytechnic University and South China Agricultural University, etc.

   The opening ceremony was chaired by CPC branch secretary of SFS Prof. Chen Wenyi.In the opening ceremony, Vice President of SCAU Prof. Yang Zhou delivered a welcoming address, in which he welcomed the teachers and students present and introduced SCAU. SCAU is determined to devote to the cause of countryside rejuvenation, in which ecological migration is an important part. Prof. Yang Zhou pointed out that to study the language issues of migrants is of great value to ecological and cultural protection. He hoped that scholars of this symposium can exchange ideas of migrant language research and make contributions to countryside rejuvenation.

   Keynote speakers Prof. Huang Guowen, Prof. Wang Lei, Prof. Hu Yingfeng and Dr. Liu Junhong respectively delivered speeches with the title of "Migrant Language Study from the Perspective of Harmonious Co-existence of Humans and Nature", "A Initial Survey of Language Use by Immigrants from Three Gorges to Guangdong", "A Survey of Language Use by Environmental Immigrants" and "From Language Islet to Islands:  A Review of Research on Language Contact by Three Gorges Immigrants".

   The speeches were highly inspirational and the audience raised questions like "what is the impact of immigrants on local ecology", "questionnaire design on immigrants' language attitude", "language fusion and harmony", "dialect protection", etc., which the keynote speakers answer in great length. The keynote speakers also answered questions like how to conduct research and publish papers and encouraged the teachers and students of the symposium to do research in a devoted and down-to-earth way.

   In the closing ceremony, Deputy Dean Prof. Chen Yang expressed gratitude to the keynote speakers' thought-provoking speeches and observed that these speeches showed that functional linguistics bore a strong sense of social responsibility and a strong affection for the country. Prof. Huang Guowen concluded that the organizer and co-organizers all had made painstaking efforts for the success of the symposium.

   The symposium served as a platform on which researchers of functional linguistics and ecolinguistics could exchange and share thoughts, which in turn helped broaden our horizons and kept us updated for the cutting-edge development in relevant fields.