essentials and valuables
Cultural conceptualizations of Cantonese rice
idioms
Rice has a long history of being the staple
grain for the Cantonese communities. The prominence of rice is also
captured in the abundance of rice-related idioms in the Cantonese
vernacular. Within the theoretical and analytical framework of
Cultural Linguistics (Sharifian,
2017), this chapter examines the cultural
conceptualizations underlying Cantonese food idioms that contain the
rice-related keywords mai, faan,
and zuk, and discusses the extent of idiomaticity
of these idioms from a Cantonese speakers’ perspective. The analyzed
idioms are collected from eight dictionaries and reference books of
Cantonese colloquial expressions mostly published within the last
two decades and screened through an online survey participated by
147 Cantonese speakers from Guangzhou, Hong Kong, and Macau. The
study discovers that Cantonese speakers often conceptualize various
types of essentials and valuables through the domain of
rice. Specific-level elaborations of these
conceptualizations are embedded in distinctive rice idioms.
Furthermore, through exploring the speakers’ degree of consciousness
about the identified cultural conceptualizations, the extent of
idiomaticity the speakers perceive of the idioms is discussed. In
all, the chapter concludes that Cantonese rice idioms are
instantiations of a complex and dynamic system of culturally
constructed conceptualizations that reflect both the Cantonese
worldviews and the rhetorical creativity of the Cantonese
speakers.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Research of food metaphors and their linguistic
instantiations
- 3.The study: Analytical framework, data and materials
- 3.1Analytical framework
- 3.2Cantonese rice idioms and data collection
- 3.3Materials for analysis
- 4.Cultural conceptualizations of Cantonese rice idioms
- 4.1Cultural conceptualizations of essentials
- 4.1.1
mai for basic life
necessities
- 4.1.2
an elemental/common life experience is
mai
- 4.1.3
the source of intelligence is
mai
- 4.1.4
the essence of a construct is mai in
a zuk product
- 4.1.5
a (well-considered) decision is
faan
- 4.2Cultural conceptualizations of valuables
- 4.2.1
money is mai
- 4.2.2
remuneration is faan
- 4.2.3
a benefit is mai
- 4.2.4
possessions are faan
- 4.2.5
information is faan
- 5.Cantonese speakers’ perception of the idiomaticity of Cantonese
rice idioms
- 6.Conclusion
-
Notes
-
References
-
Appendix