中文形容詞呈現之性別概念

Gender Representations Manifested in Chinese Adjectival Compounds

張建斌(Chien-Pin Chang)

指導教授 ： 蘇席瑤博士

國立臺灣師範大學/文學院/英語學系/碩士(2007年)

摘要

在中文裡，當帶有某種性別特徵之詞素與其他字結合為複合詞，此複合詞通常帶有此性別特徵。但事實上，部份複合詞並非如此呈現。此論文旨在探討此種中文複合形容詞中所呈現之不對稱現象與其所代表之意涵。此研究選擇「狂」、「豪」、「柔」、「溫」、「正」五個詞素所構成之二十三個複合形容詞作為研究對象。研究結合了語料庫與問卷兩種方法，同時採用此兩種方法使得研究更為全面性。
此研究選擇網路作為語料庫來源，Google則為語料蒐集之工具。複合形容詞與男性或者女性共現之語料（共蒐集690筆）為語料庫研究分析對象。此外，共有108名男性與127名女性參與問卷研究。根據年齡，受試者之後也被區分為兩組。受試者在問卷的三個部份中，分別被要求判斷每個複合形容詞之性別連結偏向、表達對於複合形容詞之感受程度、提供這些複合形容詞之代表人物。
語料庫研究之結果發現，複合形容詞之性別偏向可能受到多種原因影響，例如形容詞本身之語義偏向、網路及媒體之影響、社會風氣之改變。另外，傾向女性之複合形容詞時常帶有負面意涵。相同的複合形容詞與男性或女性連結，亦可能產生不同的意涵。這些結果某種程度上反映出一般人所抱持之刻版印象。
在問卷方面，結果顯示刻板印象仍深入影響人們對複合形容詞之看法。對於複合形容詞與性別之連結，女性與年輕人看法較顯彈性。另外受試者大多偏好男性傾向之複合形容詞與排斥女性傾向之複合形容詞。然而，女性雖排斥女性傾向形容詞，但對此類形容詞接受度仍較高。此現象亦反映了女性在語言中的弱勢地位。問卷中不同年齡層之受試者選擇偏好亦有其差異，而此差異也反映了某種程度之社會變遷。在代表人物部份，女性受試者較常為某些被偏好的男性傾向複合形容詞提供女性作為代表人物；兩年齡層相互比較亦可發現男女意象之改變。比較兩種研究方法結果顯示網路與大眾媒體可能是造成兩種研究結果差異之主因。
期望藉由中文複合形容詞與男女之共現研究，我們能更深入的探知詞義反映社會價值之現象。

關鍵字

社會語言學 ； 中文 ； 性別 ； 年齡 ； 篇章分析 ； 詞彙語義學 ； 語料庫 ； 問卷 ； 刻板印象 ； 社會變遷 ； 複合詞 ； 搭配詞 ； 語言歧視 ； Google

並列摘要

In Mandarin Chinese, when a morpheme biased towards a given gender combines with another word to form a compound, this compound tends to maintain the gender connotation of the biased morpheme. However, some compounds do not reveal this tendency. This thesis aims to investigate such unequal phenomena found in some Chinese gendered adjectival compounds and their linguistic effects and connotations. We focus on the following five characters and their adjectival compounds (23 in total): kuang (狂), hao (豪), rou (柔), wen (溫), and zheng (正). This thesis combines two approaches, including a corpus-based approach and questionnaire collection. The two approaches complement each other.
The search engine “Google” was chosen as the tool to access our corpus—the web. Tokens in which a compound was used to modify people were included for analysis, and there were 690 tokens collected in total. In addition, we recruited 108 men and 127 women, and the participants were further divided into two age groups. The participants were asked to judge a compound’s likelihood to collocate with men and women, express their feeling about a compound when it is used to describe them, and provide a representative figure for each compound.
The results of the corpus-based study show that each adjectival compound has its collocational preference, which may result from diverse factors, including the original semantic features of the compounds, the influence of the Internet and mass media, social trends, etc. In addition, it is observed that female-inclined compounds carry negative meanings more often. When a compound co-occurs with different genders, different meanings and connotations might be generated. The results to some degree reflect the stereotypes people generally hold.
The questionnaire reveals the great influence of gender stereotypes on people’s perceptions of the compounds. The female participants’ and the junior group’s answers are also found to be more flexible in that the boundaries between masculine and feminine compounds are not as absolute as before. Additionally, it is found that male-inclined words are usually preferred, while most female-inclined words are dispreferred. However, women are adapted to these words more often. Women’s disadvantageous language position is observed. The different preferences of the junior group and the senior group also suggest the change of social trends. Furthermore, it is also discovered that the female participants are more likely to provide female representative figures for a preferred male-inclined compound. Through the comparison between the junior group’s and the senior group’s answers, it is also found that the images of men and women are changing. Finally, the discrepancies between the two approaches display the influence of the Internet and mass media.
It is hoped that by observing some gendered adjectival compounds in Mandarin Chinese, we can gain a deeper understanding of how lexical meanings can reflect social values.

並列關鍵字

Sociolinguistics ； Mandarin Chinese ； gender ； age ； Discourse Analysis ； Lexical Semantics ； corpus ； questionnaire ； stereotype ； social change ； compound ； collocation ； language bias ； Google

參考文獻

Zhang, Jie, and Yong-Lin Yang. 2003. A study on linguistic sexism in English textbooks of China primary schools. Research on Education Tsinghua University 3:39-48.

Beauvoir, S. 1961. The Second Sex (1949). Translated by HM Parshley. New York: Bantam.

Benson, M., E. Benson and R. Ilson. 1986. The BBI Combinatory Dictionary of English. A Guide to Word Combinations. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Benson, M., E. Benson and R. Ilson. 1997. The BBI Dictionary of English Word Combinations. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Benwell, B. Ed. 2003. Masculinity and Men’s Lifestyle Magazine. Oxford: Blackwell.