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Representations of Occupational Stigma and Burnout in Henan Literature: A Psychological Reading of Educator Narratives

Muhammad Shahjahan

Advances in Linguistics Research / 2026,8(2): 191-204 / 2026-06-24 24 18

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• Information:

  College of Foreign Languages, Shandong University of Science and Technology, Qingdao, China

• Keywords:
  Occupational Stigma; Psychological Capital; Occupational Burnout; Henan Literature; JD-R Model
• Abstract: Occupational stigma among university humanities faculty has emerged as a recurrent thematic concern in contemporary Chinese literature, particularly in works emerging from or set in Henan Province. This paper examines how two representative literary texts—Yan Lianke’s Elegy of Wind (《风雅颂》) and Li Peifu’s The Book of Life (《生命册》)—together with Liu Zhenyun’s portrait of the traditional tutor Old Wang in Someone to Talk To (《一句顶一万句》), represent the psychological experiences of educators as sequential processes of professional devaluation, resource depletion, emotional exhaustion, and diminished vocational efficacy. Drawing on the job demands‑resources (JD‑R) model and conservation of resources (COR) theory as interpretive heuristics, this literary analysis identifies recurring narrative patterns across these texts: teachers are focalized through perspectives of perceived devaluation relative to administrators, STEM colleagues, or market‑oriented professionals; institutional structures systematically erode their psychological capital (self‑efficacy, hope, optimism, resilience); they manifest classic symptoms of occupational burnout (emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, reduced accomplishment); and their pedagogical performance deteriorates correspondingly. Beyond individual characterization, this paper argues that Henan educator narratives function as a form of “cultural ethnography”, giving literary voice to marginalized academic groups in central China shaped by the structural disadvantages of the region’s higher education system. The analysis reveals a recurring psychological trajectory in literary form: narratives that trace occupational stigma, reduced psychological capital, burnout, and impaired performance offer a literary instantiation of this trajectory, providing a qualitative lens into the internal experiences of educators. These findings advance the field of contemporary Chinese literary studies by demonstrating how psychological frameworks can illuminate narrative structure while also enriching our understanding of how regional Chinese fiction thematizes the crisis of humanities education in an increasingly market‑oriented, STEM‑prioritizing academic environment.
• DOI: 10.35534/lin.0802016 (registering DOI)
• Cite: Shahjahan, M. (2026). Representations of Occupational Stigma and Burnout in Henan Literature: A Psychological Reading of Educator Narratives. Advances in Linguistics Research, 8 (2), 191-204.