Cover not available

Article published In: International Journal of Language and Culture: Online-First Articles

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload EPUB
authorization required

Individualism vs. collectivism

Feminist conceptual metaphors in the corpus of American and Chinese magazines

ORCiD logo with link | Liuzhou Institute of TechnologyLiuzhou
 | Universiti Malaysia Sarawak
Published online: 25 August 2026
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/ijolc.25039.che
Abstract
Women’s magazines reflect the notions of gender equality and social justice in society and serve as a catalyst for public debate on these issues. Little is understood about whether feminist conceptual metaphors in magazines are similar to those in magazines published in the United States and China. The study examined feminist conceptual metaphors used in the self-compiled corpus of American magazines Ms. and Bust (1,617 articles) and Chinese magazines Women of China and Marriage and Family (5,182 articles). The magazine articles were published between July 1, 2023 and June 30, 2024. The analysis using AntConc 4.2.4 and SegmentAnt 1.0.0 shows that both American and Chinese magazines deploy war and journey metaphors to portray the ongoing struggle and progress toward gender equality. However, we argue that magazines are active constructors, not mere mirrors, of gender ideology, deploying metaphors to naturalize neoliberal individualism in the United States and state-mediated collectivism in China.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Research design
    • 2.1Corpus source
    • 2.2Data analysis
    • 2.3Methodological rigor guarantee
  • 3.Results
    • 3.1Similarities between corpus of American magazines Ms. and Bust and Corpus of Chinese Magazines 中国妇女 (Women of China) and 婚姻与家庭 (Marriage and Family)
    • 3.2Differences between corpus of American magazines Ms. and Bust and corpus of Chinese Magazines 中国妇女 (Women of China) and 婚姻与家庭 (Marriage and Family)
      • 3.2.1Individuality in the corpus of American Magazines Ms. and Bust
      • 3.2.2Individuality in the Corpus of Chinese Magazines 中国妇女 (Women of China) and 婚姻与家庭 (Marriage and Family)
  • 4.Discussion
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Conflicts of Interest
  • References
References (39)
References
Abu Alrub, E. (2022). A comparative analysis of feminist discourse representation using conceptual metaphors during Women’s History Month 2022 in national American and British newspapers [Bachelor Thesis, English Studies-Linguistics, Malmö University].
Ahmed, U. (2018). Metaphor in the construction of gender in media discourse: Analysis of metaphors used to describe women in Nigerian newspapers. International Journal of Gender and Women’s Studies, 6(1). 88–99. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bao, K. (2023). War on feminism: An analysis of metaphorical representations on Weibo. Social Semiotics, 11, 1–19. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2024). Comparative analysis of representations of feminism across Chinese social media: A corpus-based study of Weibo and Zhihu. Social Media+Society, 7(3), 1–13. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Batterson, C. (2016). “Feminism” and feminism: A rhetorical criticism of Emma Watson’s Address to the U.N.. The Journal of Undergraduate Research, 51, 1–12. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bettache, K. (2024). Where is Capitalism? Unmasking its hidden role in Psychology. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 291, 215–249. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bust. (n.d.). Bust Official Website. [URL]. Retrieved June 1, 2024.
Chen, S. F., Ting, S. H., & Chuah, K. M. (2025). Feminism: “WAR” and “JOURNEY” metaphors in Ms. and Bust magazines. Forum for Linguistic Studies, 7(3). 397–411. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chen, Y. (2023). “Women Are Warriors” or “Women Are Flowers”: A corpus-based study on the metaphorical framings of women in Women of China. Queen Mary’s OPAL #51 Occasional Papers Advancing Linguistics, pp. 1–39. [URL]
(2008). Corpus linguistics and metaphor. In R. W. Gibbs (Ed.), The Cambridge handbook of metaphor and thought (pp. 280–294). Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hewitt, N. A. (2012). Feminist frequencies: Regenerating the wave metaphor. Feminist Studies, 38(3). 658–680. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Janusz, S. (1994). Feminism and metaphor: Friend, foe, force. Metaphor and Symbolic Activity, 9(4). 289–300. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jahagirdar, S., & Saccenti, E. (2020). On the use of correlation and mi as a measure of metabolite–metabolite association for network differential connectivity analysis. Metabolites, 10(4). 171–176. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jung, G., & Moon, M. (2025). “Feminism is like a light to me”: The collective process of feminist awakening among young female college students in South Korea. Asian Journal of Social Science, 53(1). 1–9. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kövecses, Z. (2010). Metaphor: A Practical Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2018). Metaphor, cognition, culture. Handbook of advances in culture and psychology, 71, 61–106. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2020). Extended Conceptual Metaphor Theory. Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lee, Y. (2007). Active or passive initiator: Cai Yuanpei’s admission of women to Beijing University (1919–20). Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 17(3). 279–299. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Li, H. (2020). 基于语料库的英汉“anger/怒”概念隐喻研究 [Conceptual metaphors of anger/nu in English and Chinese: A corpus-based study] [Doctoral dissertation, Hunan Normal University]. Retrieved from [URL]
Marriage and Family. (n.d.). Marriage and Family Official Website. [URL]. Retrieved June 1, 2024.
Meckled-Garcia, S. (2014). Does the WTO violate human rights (and do I help it)? Beyond the metaphor of culpability for systemic global poverty. Political Studies, 62(2). 435–451. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mishra, A. (2023). On two metaphorical expressions in feminist philosophy: Context and analysis. Tattva–Journal of Philosophy, 15(1). 77–97. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ms. (n.d.). Ms. Official Website. [URL]. Retrieved June 1, 2024.
Mohr, C., Graves, R. E., Gianotti, L. R., Pizzagalli, D., & Brugger, P. (2001). Loose but normal: a semantic association study. Journal of psycholinguistic research, 30(5). 475–483. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nacinovic Prskalo, L., & Brkic Bakaric, M. (2022, September). Identification of metaphorical collocations in different languages–similarities and differences. In International Conference on Text, Speech, and Dialogue (pp. 102–112). Cham: Springer International Publishing. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nicholson, L. (2015). Feminism in “waves”: Useful metaphor or not? New Politics 12(4). 34–39. [URL]
Olmos-Vega, F., Stalmeijer, R., Varpio, L., & Kahlke, R. (2022). A practical guide to reflexivity in qualitative research: AMEE Guide No. 149. Medical Teacher, 451. 241–251. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pragglejaz Group. (2007). MIP: A method for identifying metaphorically used words in discourse. Metaphor and Symbol, 22(1). 1–39. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Reali, F., & Avellaneda, L. (2023). Feminists are warriors: Framing effects of war metaphors. Crossroads: A Journal of English Studies, 43(4). 103–123. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Saint-Croix, Catharine, & Roy T. Cook. (2024). (What) Is feminist logic? (What) do we want it to be?. History and Philosophy of Logic, 45(1). 20–45. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sznajder, H. (2009). A corpus-based evaluation of metaphors in a business English textbook. English for Specific Purposes, 291. 30–42. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
United Nations Development Programme. (n.d.). Gender Inequality Index (GII). UNDP Human Development Reports. [URL]
Vachhani, S. J. (2023). Networked feminism in a digital age–mobilizing vulnerability and reconfiguring feminist politics in digital activism. Gender, Work & Organization, 31(3), 1031–1048. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Women of China. (n.d.). Women of China Official Website. [URL]. Retrieved June 1, 2024.
Yang, Q. (2024). An analysis of metaphor in Trifles from the perspective of feminism. Lecture Notes on Language and Literature, 7(7). 52–59. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ytre-Arne, B. (2011). Women’s magazines and the public sphere. European Journal of Communication, 261. 247–261. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Yu, N. (2003). Chinese metaphors of thinking. Cognitive Linguistics, 141. 141–165. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue