Abstract
This chapter presents a model of the teacher in China. The model is constructed by examining Chinese learners’ ideal expectations of teachers through a study of the metaphors they use to characterise teachers. Broadly, we adopt the Lakoff approach to conceptual metaphors but with a cultural focus. Two main data sources are used to analyse Chinese metaphors for teacher: traditional sayings and texts in the Confucian heritage which have had a continuing influence on Chinese educational values, and nearly 3000 metaphors elicited from 496 university students in China. From resulting networks of interrelated metaphors and learners’ interpretations we construct a cultural model of the Chinese teacher. This should be of interest to those teachers internationally who work with Chinese students and to Chinese (or other) students themselves, as a means to raise comparative educational awareness and reflect on teacher– student expectations and roles in China or elsewhere. The model highlights the roles of knowledge, cultivation and morality — and unexpectedly the role of sacrifice — but these and other key features characterising the teacher in Chinese cultures have particular resonances of networks of meanings located in cultural contexts. The chapter includes quite a few quoted metaphors, including those of cultivators, cows and computers which give insights into Chinese learners’ appreciation of teachers.
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© 2009 Martin Cortazzi, Lixian Jin and Wang Zhiru
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Cortazzi, M., Jin, L., Zhiru, W. (2009). Cultivators, Cows and Computers: Chinese Learners’ Metaphors of Teachers. In: Coverdale-Jones, T., Rastall, P. (eds) Internationalising the University. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230235007_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230235007_7
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