Sound symbolism in Chinese children’s literature

Iconicity is a fundamental property of spoken and signed languages. However, quantitative analysis of sound-meaning association in Chinese has not been extensively developed, and little is known about the impact of sound symbolism in children’s literature. As sound symbolism is supposed to be a universal cognitive phenomenon, this research seeks to investigate whether iconic structures of Mandarin are embodied in native Chinese speakers’ language experience. The paper describes a case study of Chinese storybooks with the goal of testing whether phonosemantic association is prominent between name sounds and character features. A quantitative method was used to investigate the distribution of different phonological units in character denomination depending on their physical and emotional traits. The results show that phonemes and syllable combination patterns are closely related to perceivable character features. By comparing schematic mapping in Chinese with other languages, the study illuminates a cross-linguistic tendency in addition to a Chinese-specific iconic relation between sound and meaning.

Wasted Innocence: Children and Childhood in Cao Xueqin's Dream of the Red Chamber

Cao Xueqin's Dream of the Red Chamber is a classic Chinese novel dating back to 1792. This article investigates the formative experiences of the representative children from the book's four distinguished households against the unique historical and sociocultural context of premodern Chinese Confucian adulthood with all its rules for rigid regulatory order. We argue that a gap needs to be filled in the understanding of the premodern conceptions of children and childhood in Chinese literature through a detailed case study of Dream. Moreover, the novel's representation of childhood innocence as a form of resistance that draws its force from a dialectic of nature and culture provides an important alternative perspective on the Western Romantic conception. While the book is universally acknowledged as the pinnacle of traditional Chinese fiction, it should also be fully recognised as one of the most important precursors to modern and contemporary Chinese children's literature.

Children’s literature in China: Revisiting ideologies of childhood and agency

In this article we consider historical and contemporary ideologies of childhood in China and critically examine notions of ‘child’ and ‘childhood’ in Chinese children’s literature. We analyse the themes and knowledge that relate to relevant historical and contemporary political events and policies, and how these contribute to the production of childhoods. We focus on three images of childhoods in China: the Confucian child, the Modern child and the Maoist child. Each of the images reflects a way of seeing, a perspective about what a child ought to be and become, and what their childhood should look like. Everyday media are reflected in the texts and stories examined and portray both ‘imagined’ and ‘real-life’ narratives of children and their childhoods. The stories, and the connected power relations, represent an important link between the politics of childhood and the pedagogy associated with these politics, including large-scale state investment in the production of desired, ideal and perfect childhoods. Through such an examination of contemporary and historical children’s literature and media in China we also explore the ways in which contemporary media revitalise particular notions of child agency.