Author(s)

Xin Chen

Corresponding Author

Xin Chen

Abstract

Metaphor in linguistics means that it involves the comparison of two concepts in that one is construed in terms of the other. It’s often described in terms of a target domain and a source domain. The target domain is the experience being described by the metaphor and the source domain is the means that we use in order to describe the experience. What gender metaphor is different from metaphor is that the conceptual mapping that is projected from the source to the target domain may create or reflect some kind of discrimination against men or women. This paper, first reviews the relevant research of gender metaphor in the foreign countries and China. Second, it mainly analyses three kinds of metaphor which reflect sexism: animal metaphor, plant metaphor and food metaphor. Then, it explores the pragmatic functions of gender metaphor. By explore this, it can be found that animal metaphor, plant metaphor and food metaphor have the following three functions: the referential function; the politeness function; the inferential function in gender metaphor. By study the pragmatic functions of gender metaphor, it is better to understand the real purpose of what the speaker want to say and gain a better communication effect.

Keywords

Gender Metaphor, Sexism, Pragmatic Function