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Cultural Gender Metaphors in Modern Chinese Fiction

Language and Cognitive Science / 2017,3(1): 1−40 / 2017-08-26 801 855

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• Authors: Yufang Zhou
• Information:

  Liaocheng University, Shandong

• Keywords:
  critical cognitive analysis; gender metaphor; modern Chinese fiction; sexism/gender discrimination
• Abstract: Gender metaphors used in literary works are not merely ornamental linguistic or rhetorical devices, but are more importantly, ideological cognitive tools that exploit the readers’ search for cognitive efficiency, often giving rise to covertly sexist interpretations. However, gender metaphor has received relatively little attention in Chinese literary discourse studies. Based on a self-built corpus of ten modern Chinese fictions that consists of around 1,470,640 words, this paper aims first to identify gender metaphorical expressions in mainstream literary works during a special historical era (the Republican Era: 1912–1949), and then, by analyzing gender metaphors via a critical cognitive analysis framework, to reveal the underlying social and cultural ideologies so as to increase the consciousness of readers’ critical reading.
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.17923/LCS201703001
• Cite: Yufang Zhou．Cultural Gender Metaphors in Modern Chinese Fiction［J］．Language and Cognitive Science，2017，3（1）：1−40．