SSRScientific and Social Research2661-43322981-9946Bio-Byword Scientific Publishing Pty. Ltd.10.26689/ssr.v8i8.15302ArticlePaths and Boundaries of Area Studies in the Foreign Language Disciplines: Reflections from the Perspective of Mutual Learning among Civilizationshttps://artdesignp.com/journal/SSR/8/8/10.26689/ssr.v8i8.15302GuoQi,LiPing2026882026-08-31The elevation of Area Studies to a first-level discipline under the category of Interdisciplinary Studies in China’s 2022 catalog of graduate disciplines has placed the foreign language disciplines at the center of a nationwide debate: what can they contribute to Area Studies, and where should their involvement stop? Drawing on the international history of Area Studies and on the Chinese concept of mutual learning among civilizations, this paper argues that the foreign language disciplines possess a distinctive and irreplaceable foundation for Area Studies—direct access to primary sources, philological competence, and long experience of cross-cultural mediation—but that their participation must be disciplined by clear boundaries. From the perspective of mutual learning among civilizations, Area Studies should be conceived neither as intelligence gathering nor as the unilateral representation of an objectified “other,” but as a dialogic practice in which the knowing subject is itself transformed. The paper proposes four concrete paths for foreign-language-based Area Studies (language-anchored deep knowledge, text- and discourse-centered methodology, translation as knowledge production, and the cultivation of compound talents) and delineates three boundaries that should not be crossed: the disciplinary boundary against amateurish interdisciplinarity, the epistemic boundary against theory-less empiricism, and the ethical boundary against the instrumentalization of knowledge about other societies. Recognizing both the paths and the boundaries, the paper concludes, is the precondition for a Chinese Area Studies that is academically credible and civilizationally self-reflexive.Area studies, Foreign language disciplines, Mutual learning among civilizations, Interdisciplinarity, Knowledge production

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