A Comparative Study On Covert Gender Words Between Chinese And Japanese

Covert genderlect is variety of speech and vocabulary that implies a particular gender. Although there is no morphological identification of sex in such words or phrases, the semantic association with a specific sex is generally accepted. This paper selects words or expressions from the Hanyu Da Cidian (《汉语大词典》) and the Kojien (『広辞苑』)that have gender-specific meanings or usages but whose forms do not imply genders, and conducts a comparative study of covert genderlect in the Chinese and Japanese languages.Most studies on genderlect, on the one hand, either simply ignore or do not distinguish covert genderlect from its overt counterpart, which has obvious sex markers. On the other hand, of the studies on covert genderlect, most focus on sexual discrimination and gender differences. My point of this paper is:because sex identification of covert genderlect is deeply hidden, the collective unconscious behind it, which has very subtle influence on people, is more obscure; therefore, it is necessary to dig deeper into and expose the true nature of such covert gender words. Meanwhile, because the collective unconscious has more profound socio-cultural roots, the perspectives of study, more comprehensive than merely sex discrimination or gender difference, should include that of linguistics, history, culture, etc.It is not difficult to find out that foreign language education, translation and study, linguistic and cultural comparison, hermeneutics, etc. are all closely related to covert genderlect. Although in the researches of sociology, history, aesthetics, custom, etc., great achievements have been made in Sino-Japanese comparison, few have touched the area of covert genderlect. Most of them are comparative studies on cultural phenomena. However, language and culture are so closely bonded that, to some extent, cultural studies failing to incorporate genderlect, especially covert genderlect, are not yet complete. Therefore, this paper starts with the language layer, to the cultural layer, and finally to the collective subconscious layer, which provides us with a better understanding of the differences between the Chinese and Japanese cultures in aspects of sex, love, marriage, family, sexual differences, time and space perceptions, and aesthetics. Integration of linguistic studies on a micro scale and culture studies on a macro scale is the purpose and value of comparative linguistics.Comparison and multi-perspective analysis are the key methods used in this paper. On the one hand, it studies the covert genderlect from multiple linguistic perspectives, including perspectives of hermeneutics, naming motivation analysis, cognitive linguistics (metonymic/metaphoric), and historical linguistics. On the other hand, it also discusses the subject from multiple socio-cultural perspectives, including those of feminism, homosexual subculture, and sex culture. In all, studying the covert genderlect from various angles makes it possible to comprehend the subject more thoroughly. And hopefully, this paper will also benefit the areas that are even remotely related to it.As a general principle, the paper starts with micro language phenomena, explores deeper to the macro cultural level, comparing covert gender vocabulary in Chinese and Japanese, and in the end returns to linguistics. The purpose is to compare language differences on a broader cultural basis, by doing which not only language differences are explained, but also the collective unconscious behind the language is revealed.As the reality of my research, covert genderlect referring to women is more greatly abundant in both Japanese and Chinese languages than those referring to men. That is the reason for this paper to be female-centric. The chapters are as follows:Introduction. It clarifies the subject and methodology of the research. A generalization of the preliminary studies, theories, and values of the paper is given in this chapter.Chapter1:Women’s value. From the cognitive linguistic perspective, compares different terms referring to female in the two languages. It is not difficult to find the covert genderlect in the two languages has obvious difference in quantity and semantic coverage. The fact is closely related to the difference in the value systems of the two cultures. From the comparison in general, this chapter analyzes such difference, because the value system towards women is the basis for perceptions of sex and relationship and the revelation of such perceptions in the male-dominant society.Chapter2:Women’s body. This chapter studies the words covertly referring to beautiful women. Although in both cultures women are the object of aesthetic evaluation, the two cultures have different cognitive models. This chapter conducts further studies on the covert gender words referring to beautiful women and, from the perspective of cognitive model, explores the more fundamentals of the cognitive models in the two cultures.Chapter3:Women’s makeup. This chapter compares the covert gender words referring to women’s eyebrow cosmetics, explores the difference in aesthetic standards in the two cultures and shows the realization of the aesthetic standards in women’s makeup and styling.Chapter4:Marriage:This chapter compares the covert genderlect referring to wife/concubine and, focused on the positioning of women inside a family, analyzes the difference in marriage and family systems in the two cultures.Chapter5:Femal vs. male. From the perspective of sex cultures, this chapter compares the words that covertly refer to penis and menstruation, and hence discusses the difference in the attitudes towards sex and reproduction in the two cultures and reveals the difference in collective unconscious in the two cultures.Chapter6:Sex in hermeneutics. As for the entries that are covert gender words, dictionary explanations vary greatly. I believe it is caused by lack of studies on the subject this thesis covers. On the other hand, there is great necessity in hermeneutic studies on covert genderlect, because dictionary explanations reveal the main stream value of the society.Conclusion:The conclusion summarizs the former chapters and shows the thinking and plan for further researches on covert genderlect.