Water Women, Animal Men, and Metaphor: A Gender Metaphor Study of the Interaction of Gender and Age
Date Issued
2012
Date
2012
Author(s)
Li, Pei-Ci
Abstract
The present thesis aims to investigate gender metaphors in Mandarin Chinese by adopting corpus-based method and questionnaire in which two factors: gender and age are taken into account to examine how different gender metaphors would be in different times and from different perspectives of different ages and genders in present time.
Conceptual metaphor is not only regarded as an important mechanism of human thinking, but recognized as a device to reflect cultural values and norms which are often conveyed by speakers with more power toward other socially disadvantageous people. Men are usually those with power. Study on gender metaphor is thus considered as a manner to reveal the evaluations under the society of sexual inequality. However, little research of gender metaphor has been done except in European languages. Moreover, the data sources of previous studies are from the dictionaries, which are limited in reflecting the present values, and which lack different perspectives of different speakers. Via this study adopting two methodologies of corpus and questionnaire, we intend to fill the gap.
The results based on dictionary show an asymmetrical structure of women metaphor and men metaphors. Besides, those metaphors are full of men’s values. The source domains describing women include PLANTS, ANIMALS, SUBSTANCE, FOOD, and OBJECT. However, only the previous three source domains are employed to refer to men. Among them, WOMEN ARE PLANTS is the most productive. Women’s age, beauty, and skittishness are highlighted. Otherwise, MEN ARE ANIMALS is the most prominent when men are the target domain. The tallness and the sturdiness are features emphasized.
The questionnaire is analyzed from three levels: category of the source domains, types, and features of the target domains. The results show that other than the existed source domains found in the dictionary, there are eight novel source domains investigated. Besides, the asymmetrical structure has become more symmetrical. Among the categories, when there are conventional metaphors describing one gender in one category, the frequency of using this category to describe that gender is more prominent than to describe the other gender. Moreover, the speakers of one gender use more the conventional metaphorical expressions describing such gender to refer to themselves than speakers of the other gender do. Those findings show that gender metaphors have a great influence on the stereotypes of gender and that those metaphors describing two genders are regarded as an evidence for social construction of gender because each gender follows the society expects them to act, according to those metaphors.
Otherwise, there are many types mentioned with high frequency not because of conventionality but of cultural background, language knowledge, and experience. For example, WOMEN ARE WATER is the conceptual metaphor of the highest frequency across genders and ages, which do not show in the dictionary. Finally, in term of selected features from the target domains, women’s appearance is more emphasized than that of men, while men’s social aspect are more focused than that of women. Furthermore, the differences of describing personalities reflect the change of personalities with ages. With ages, the focus of women’s tenderness increases, while the unpredictability of emotion decreases. On the other hand, the emphasis of men’s reliability decreases, whereas the impulsiveness decreases.
By this study, we examine gender metaphors in Mandarin Chinese diachronically and synchronically, and complement the English-based literature on gender metaphors. Diachronically, the present study shows how gender metaphors change with the revolution of gender equality, but it also reveals that gender stereotypes are still entrenched in the society. Synchronically, we take age and gender into account to provide multiple perspectives in gender metaphors.
Subjects
gender metaphor
language and gender
social construction of gender
conceptual metaphor
SDGs
Type
thesis
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