Chapter 10. Kinship metaphors in the Chinese construction A shi B zhi fu/mu
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Lin Zhu
Abstract
This corpus-driven study focuses on two metaphorically used kinship terms in Modern Chinese, 父 fu ‘father’ and 母 mu ‘mother’. Under investigation are two constructions [A shi B zhi fu] ‘A is the father of B’ and [A shi B zhi mu] ‘A is the mother of B’. It is found that the figurative meanings expressed by mu (mother) are more conventionalized than those expressed by fu. The study shows that mu has higher metaphoricity, and I argue that the degree of metaphoricity of the two kinship terms in Chinese is a function both of the experiential basis of cognition in terms of universal biological phenomenon and of cultural constraints, especially Confucian thoughts, on conceptualization.
Abstract
This corpus-driven study focuses on two metaphorically used kinship terms in Modern Chinese, 父 fu ‘father’ and 母 mu ‘mother’. Under investigation are two constructions [A shi B zhi fu] ‘A is the father of B’ and [A shi B zhi mu] ‘A is the mother of B’. It is found that the figurative meanings expressed by mu (mother) are more conventionalized than those expressed by fu. The study shows that mu has higher metaphoricity, and I argue that the degree of metaphoricity of the two kinship terms in Chinese is a function both of the experiential basis of cognition in terms of universal biological phenomenon and of cultural constraints, especially Confucian thoughts, on conceptualization.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Contributors vii
- Chapter 1. Chinese discourse from diverse perspectives 1
- Chapter 2. New words in contemporary Chinese language use 5
- Chapter 3. Usage based language change and exemplar representations in Beijing Mandarin Chinese 27
- Chapter 4. Contextual variations of internal and external modifications in Chinese requests 57
- Chapter 5. Some interactional functions of Yinwei -clauses in Mandarin Chinese conversation 81
- Chapter 6. Preliminaries to delicate matters 105
- Chapter 7. Chinese near-synonyms jian (建), zao (造), gai (蓋) ‘to build’ revisited 137
- Chapter 8. Constraints on the collocational behaviors of Chinese near-synonyms 155
- Chapter 9. Genericity and sentences with an AP state complement in Mandarin Chinese 177
- Chapter 10. Kinship metaphors in the Chinese construction A shi B zhi fu/mu 199
- Chapter 11. The classification of Chinese time expressions from Systemic Functional Linguistics Perspectives 221
- Chapter 12. Being a Kam in China 245
- Chapter 13. Specialised corpora for Chinese language education in Singapore 265
- Index 297
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Contributors vii
- Chapter 1. Chinese discourse from diverse perspectives 1
- Chapter 2. New words in contemporary Chinese language use 5
- Chapter 3. Usage based language change and exemplar representations in Beijing Mandarin Chinese 27
- Chapter 4. Contextual variations of internal and external modifications in Chinese requests 57
- Chapter 5. Some interactional functions of Yinwei -clauses in Mandarin Chinese conversation 81
- Chapter 6. Preliminaries to delicate matters 105
- Chapter 7. Chinese near-synonyms jian (建), zao (造), gai (蓋) ‘to build’ revisited 137
- Chapter 8. Constraints on the collocational behaviors of Chinese near-synonyms 155
- Chapter 9. Genericity and sentences with an AP state complement in Mandarin Chinese 177
- Chapter 10. Kinship metaphors in the Chinese construction A shi B zhi fu/mu 199
- Chapter 11. The classification of Chinese time expressions from Systemic Functional Linguistics Perspectives 221
- Chapter 12. Being a Kam in China 245
- Chapter 13. Specialised corpora for Chinese language education in Singapore 265
- Index 297
