Cultivators, Cows and Computers: Chinese Learners’ Metaphors of Teachers

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. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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