Where Do I Come From? Metaphors in Sex Education Picture Books for Young Children in China

This study examines the types of verbal, pictorial, and multimodal metaphors in the genre of sex education picture books for young children in Mainland China. Although being an educational discourse genre that is essentially concerned with transmitting scientific facts, sex education picture books e...

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Main Authors: Yameng Liang, J., O'Halloran, K., Tan, Sabine
Format: Journal Article
Published: 2016
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/42173
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author Yameng Liang, J.
O'Halloran, K.
Tan, Sabine
author_facet Yameng Liang, J.
O'Halloran, K.
Tan, Sabine
author_sort Yameng Liang, J.
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description This study examines the types of verbal, pictorial, and multimodal metaphors in the genre of sex education picture books for young children in Mainland China. Although being an educational discourse genre that is essentially concerned with transmitting scientific facts, sex education picture books employ a range of metaphors that categorize and construe the biological knowledge of human reproduction in a way that not only facilitates young children’s understanding of scientific concepts but also instills in them particular values and moralities that are socioculturally conditioned. An examination of the source domains from which the metaphors are drawn and the target domains onto which the metaphors are mapped reveals three types of metaphor, namely, personification, domestication, and cross-experience metaphors. The analysis of seven sex education picture books for pre-school children suggests that these types of metaphor are used purposefully for addressing pedagogical as well as ideological concerns in the introduction of sex-related knowledge in Mainland China.
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institution Curtin University Malaysia
institution_category Local University
last_indexed 2025-11-14T09:10:45Z
publishDate 2016
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spelling curtin-20.500.11937-421732017-09-13T15:48:12Z Where Do I Come From? Metaphors in Sex Education Picture Books for Young Children in China Yameng Liang, J. O'Halloran, K. Tan, Sabine This study examines the types of verbal, pictorial, and multimodal metaphors in the genre of sex education picture books for young children in Mainland China. Although being an educational discourse genre that is essentially concerned with transmitting scientific facts, sex education picture books employ a range of metaphors that categorize and construe the biological knowledge of human reproduction in a way that not only facilitates young children’s understanding of scientific concepts but also instills in them particular values and moralities that are socioculturally conditioned. An examination of the source domains from which the metaphors are drawn and the target domains onto which the metaphors are mapped reveals three types of metaphor, namely, personification, domestication, and cross-experience metaphors. The analysis of seven sex education picture books for pre-school children suggests that these types of metaphor are used purposefully for addressing pedagogical as well as ideological concerns in the introduction of sex-related knowledge in Mainland China. 2016 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/42173 10.1080/10926488.2016.1187039 fulltext
spellingShingle Yameng Liang, J.
O'Halloran, K.
Tan, Sabine
Where Do I Come From? Metaphors in Sex Education Picture Books for Young Children in China
title Where Do I Come From? Metaphors in Sex Education Picture Books for Young Children in China
title_full Where Do I Come From? Metaphors in Sex Education Picture Books for Young Children in China
title_fullStr Where Do I Come From? Metaphors in Sex Education Picture Books for Young Children in China
title_full_unstemmed Where Do I Come From? Metaphors in Sex Education Picture Books for Young Children in China
title_short Where Do I Come From? Metaphors in Sex Education Picture Books for Young Children in China
title_sort where do i come from? metaphors in sex education picture books for young children in china
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/42173