An SFL approach to gender ideology in the sentence examples in the Contemporary Chinese Dictionary

Author:

Hu, Huilian  Xu, Hai  Hao, Junjie  

Journal:

LINGUA

Issue Date:

2019

Abstract(summary):

This study concerns the gender ideology reflected by dictionary examples. It mainly used the transitivity and interpersonal systems in Systemic Functional Linguistics to analyze the gender discourse in the seventh edition of the Contemporary Chinese Dictionary (CCD7). The analysis reveals certain differences between the transitivity patterns and interpersonal meaning of female- and male-related sentence examples from the A-B sections of CCD7. Women's experiences are mostly confined to themselves and their adjacent environment. Their actions are often self-directed, seldom affecting other participants or the environment. In contrast, men are usually portrayed as the typical social men, active social participants, and shapers of the environment, whose actions often bring concrete changes to other participants or to the environment. The differences between transitivity patterns and interpersonal meaning construct men as valuable social members while overlooking the due value of women in the social world. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Page:

17---30