The Comparison between Two Approaches

The comparison is conducted to deal with the last research question:

11. Do the results of the corpus-based study conform to the results of the questionnaires? If not, what does the discordance mean?

The main differences of the two approaches are clear in these adjectival compounds: kuangye, kuangfang and haofang, which collocate with women more often in the corpus, and yinrou, wenliang and wenhe, which collocate with men more often. As our analyses in Section 4.1 show, kuangye, kuangfang and haofang are popular for adult websites to describe women; therefore, such discrepancies are quite reasonable. With regard to yinrou, wenliang, and wenhe, exposedness of these terms

in news discourse results in the discrepancies.

Ochs’ theory of indexicality (1992) might be helpful for us to understand how these compounds are associated with the images of a specific gender. She suggests that the connection between language and gender might not be so direct:

The relation between language and gender is not a simple straightforward mapping of linguistic form to social meaning of gender. Rather the relation of language to gender is constituted and mediated by the relation of language to stances, social acts, social activities, and other social constructs. (Ochs 1992:336)

Ochs proposes that there are two levels of indexicality: direct and indirect.

Certain linguistic forms are directly related to some stances, social acts, social activities, and other social notions, all of which, in turn, may be associated with certain identity categories, such as gender. In this way, language forms and identity categories may be interfaced with social facets. The relation between language forms and identity categories is indirect indexicality.

The adjectival compounds’ association with specific genders could also undergo similar processes. For example, kuangye, kuangfang and haofang are often used to describe women on adult websites. The association between these terms and women’s sexual images therefore becomes tighter. These terms are gradually associated with the images of women. The connection between yinrou, wenliang, and wenhe and men could be another example. These terms are greatly used by mass media to describe men. The association between men and these terms by degrees becomes close. Therefore, when people use these terms, they might think of men’s image.

5.4 Chapter Summary

This chapter provides some general discussion about the results and analyses in Chapter 4 and attempts to answer the research questions posed in Section 1.3. As for the corpus-based study, gender stereotypes are the key factor affecting the co-occurrence of a compound and male or female figures. Also, it is observed that female-inclined compounds usually carry negative meanings. Some compounds even connote contrary meanings when used to describe men and women. The asymmetrical modification of men and women reveals that women are disadvantageous in language. In addition, some female-inclined compounds often occur in adult websites. It is suggested that men’s disparagement of women is to emphasize their power or to keep women away from power.

Concerning the first part of the questionnaire, it is found that the results echo the findings of the corpus-based study. The similar tendency again confirms the impact of gender stereotypes. Men and women are both expected to possess some traits.

When the two gender groups are compared, it is discovered that the female participants’ perceptions of these adjectival compounds exhibit more flexibility, and they tend to reject traditional female traits and accept male traits. This phenomenon indicates that women might attempt to escape from traditional gender stereotypes.

The junior participants, like the female participants, also tend to deny traditions and stereotypes, and their preferences might indicate social changes and gender stereotype weakening.

With regard to the second part of the questionnaire, it is often the case that male-inclined compounds are preferred, while female-inclined ones are dispreferred.

The finding is also a piece of evidence for women’s being in a disadvantageous position. Both men and women are expected to construct their gender images according to gender stereotypes and develop in two different directions. Although

women might be unwilling to develop into gender stereotypes, they still load themselves with the dispreferred traits and get accustomed to them. This could also be observed from the discrepancies between the male and the female participants.

The female participants accept some dispreferred female-inclined words more often than the male participants. Regarding the age factor, it is discovered that young people tend to deny terms with the meaning of being hackneyed, such as zhengjing.

On the other hand, they prefer wenrou, a characteristic praised nowadays.

The influence of gender stereotypes, again, is revealed in the third part of the questionnaire. The representative figures for male-inclined compounds are usually male, while the representative figures for female-inclined compounds are female.

When gender is considered, it is found that the female participants in this part are more likely to provide female figures as the representative figures for some male-inclined terms, and these terms are indicated to be prestigious language forms.

It is suggested that women’s choice of prestigious language forms for women is a way to protect themselves in a male-dominant society. As far as the discrepancies between the two age groups are concerned, it is suggested that young people associate wenrou with men more often. This indicates the change of men’s image. On the other hand, young people regard zhengdian as a term more often linked to women.

It is argued that women’s appearance is still emphasized.

Some discrepancies between the results of the two approaches are also discovered. It is argued that the discrepancies might result from the influence of the Internet (adult websites) and mass media (news). The frequent associations between a gender and a term in the two sources might tighten the relation between the gender and the term.

Chapter 6