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Part of
Current Studies in Chinese Language and Discourse: Global context and diverse perspectives
Edited by Yun Xiao and Linda Tsung
[Studies in Chinese Language and Discourse 10] 2019
► pp. 200–219

Chapter 10
Kinship metaphors in the Chinese construction A shi B zhi fu/mu

Biology and culture as conceptual basis

| University of Oregon

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.

Keywords: kinship metaphor, the Chinese language, corpus linguistics, culture, semantics, cognitive linguistics, experiential basis of cognition
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Data for analysis
  • 3.Methodology
    • 3.1Metaphor identification
    • 3.2Statistical procedure
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1Research object and A has [+human]
    • 4.2Research object and B has [+human]
    • 4.3Research object and A has [+specific]
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 15 April 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/scld.10.10zhu
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