Social Semiotics

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Representing sexuality and morality in sex

education picture books in contemporary China

Jennifer Yameng Liang, Sabine Tan & Kay O’Halloran

To cite this article: Jennifer Yameng Liang, Sabine Tan & Kay O’Halloran (2017) Representing
sexuality and morality in sex education picture books in contemporary China, Social Semiotics,
27:1, 107-126, DOI: 10.1080/10350330.2016.1161117

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SOCIAL SEMIOTICS, 2017
VOL. 27, NO. 1, 107–126
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10350330.2016.1161117

Representing sexuality and morality in sex education picture

books in contemporary China
Jennifer Yameng Lianga, Sabine Tanb and Kay O’Halloranb
a
School of Foreign Studies, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing, People’s Republic of China;
b
School of Education, Curtin University, Perth, Australia

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
This study conducts a social semiotic analysis of six sex education Social actor; sex education;
picture books for preschool children in the People’s Republic of China; family; human body
China. Following van Leeuwen’s framework for analysing the
discursive construction of social actors, this paper examines two
types of social actors directly associated with the education of
human sexuality: the physical body of human beings and the
institutional, disciplinary body of the family. The analysis of the
linguistic and visual representations of the two types of social
actors reveals a significant compromise of biosexuality to the
complicated psychosexual and sociosexual concerns in the
People’s Republic of China. The introduction of biological
knowledge about human reproduction is conducted in such a
manner that aims to instil the appropriate moral values and
behaviours that are regarded as the norm in contemporary
Chinese culture as well as ensuring the sound physical and
psychological development of young children.

1. Introduction
Talking about sex education with their young children has always been a daunting task for
parents. It is the question of what to tell and how to tell it that unnerves most parents
when asked by their inquisitive children “Where do babies come from”. This is especially
the case in the People’s Republic of China, with its long Confucianism history and
entrenched values such as “upholding justice, annihilating desire” (Cuntianli, mierenyu;
存天理, 灭人欲). The discourse of sexuality always invites a range of connotations that
are deemed unsuitable for young children, such as physical desire, sexual violence, and
so on. However, with an increasing number of sexual offenses against small children
being featured more frequently in the Chinese media, more public attention has been
given to an appropriate and effective sex education conducted within home settings.
In the present study, six sex education picture books for preschool children in the
People’s Republic of China are examined with a view to reveal the linguistic and visual
strategies employed to: (1) educate small children about human reproduction, (2) high-
light the theme of romantic love and family responsibilities, and (3) promote social

CONTACT Kay O’Halloran [email protected]

© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
108 J. Y. LIANG ET AL.

values and moral principles that are conditioned by the economic and political restructur-
ing in post-reform China.
In order to reveal these ideological constructs, three dimensions of sexuality are exam-
ined in particular: the bio, the psycho, and the socio (Pan 1994). The biological aspect
refers to the physiological structures, functions and activities of human body that are pri-
marily for the purpose of reproduction; the psychological aspect involves the emotions,
affections, and various other mental activities arising from the discourses and activities
of sex; the social aspect in turn contextualizes the other two in particular socio-cultural set-
tings. In different discourses of sexuality, one particular dimension is often prioritized over
the others. For example, in scientific textbooks on human reproduction, biosexuality dom-
inates by featuring the knowledge of sexuality in a matter-of-fact way; in popular maga-
zines for teenagers, psychosexuality is found to be emphasized in order to shape
“sexuality as contemporary moral economy” (Raynaud 2014, 243); in government papers
and documents regulating issues such as marriage, sociosexuality is the guiding principle
that serves for the government’s institutional and political interests. For example, the Mar-
riage Law of the People’s Republic of China (issued 1950) specifies a marriage system that
is “based on the free choices of partners, on monogamy and on equality between man and
woman” (Article 2).
The ways in which different aspects of sexuality are either prioritized or backgrounded
in children’s sex education picture books are directly associated with the concept of
“sexual morality” which refers to the moral principles and judgements about issues
related to sexual behaviour (e.g. Haidt and Hersh 2001; Shao 2000). In order to examine
what are considered as appropriate sexual moralities for responsible Chinese citizens, a
critical theoretical framework proposed by van Leeuwen (2008) is applied for the systema-
tic multimodal analysis of both the verbiage and the images employed in the sex edu-
cation picture books for young children. In what follows, a historical account regarding
the evolution of sex education in China first sets the scene for the social semiotic analysis
of the six sex education picture books circulated in Mainland China. It then introduces van
Leeuwen’s theoretical framework for the discursive representation of social actors. The
analysis of how sexuality is represented is then organized around two threads of multimo-
dal representations: that of human body (i.e. the male and female body) and that of the
institutional body (i.e. the family). Through the critical examination of the meanings con-
strued by both verbal and visual semiotic systems, this study aims to reveal the ideologies
and morality underlying the sex education practices in contemporary China.

2. Sex education in the People’s Republic of China

The present research draws upon six widely accessible sex education picture books for
preschool children (approximately between the ages of 3 and 6) circulated in the
People’s Republic of China. Sex education picture books as such have been produced
approximately since 2012, following an increasing amount of media coverage on sexual
offences against young children (e.g. CCTV 2013) and growing societal concerns
towards effective and appropriate sex education for preschool children. At the same
time, thoughts emerged that sex education ought to be expanded from public schools
to individual households (e.g. Micollier 2005). Open and frank discussions should be con-
ducted around issues such as “what are considered as the appropriate behaviour, what
 SOCIAL SEMIOTICS 109

does sexual behaviour mean and what are its consequences” (Zhuang 2011). However, the
psychological complexity and the social sensitivity of sexuality inevitably make the peda-
gogical discourse of sexuality one that is vigorously regulated by moral concerns and
national ideologies in contemporary China.
Prior to the South Song Dynasty (1127–1279 AD) where Confucianism was established
as the dominant ideology of the ruling class, sex education was long conducted for the
purposes of nourishing and preserving life and by means of medicinal literature (e.g.
Huang Di Nei Jing; 黄帝内经; The Inner Canon of Yellow Emperor), sexology books (e.g.
Su Nu Jing; 素女经; The Canon of Su Nu), and so on (e.g. Su and Ren 2005; van Gulik
2002). However, with Confucianism (and particularly the “neo-Confucianism” school flour-
ishing in the South Song Dynasty) greatly prioritizing the values of repressing sexual
desires, sex education was directly associated with procreation to carry on the family
bloodline, and under that influence, titles of sexology books in ancient China tended to
be associated with “expanding offspring” (Guangsi; 广嗣) (Wang 2004, 31). With the col-
lapse of feudal system after the Republic Revolution in 1911, western ideas on gender
equality, romantic love, and sexual well-being were gradually introduced into China. Mod-
ernizing reformers such as Liang Qichao were amongst the advocates of sex education to
control the population size and improve the demographic qualities of Chinese nation
(Wu 1981). Arranged marriages were discouraged and those based on free will were
considered vital to improving population quality and facilitating social evolution. Sex
education was promoted in “enlightened, serious, scientific, and respectful manners”
(Aresu 2009, 533), represented by the publication of the first scientific book featuring
sex education, Sex History 1926 by Zhang Jingsheng (see e.g. Aresu 2009; Zhang 2014).
In light of a new Communist state established in 1949 by Chairman Mao Zedong, atti-
tudes towards sexuality were politicized, legitimizing monogamous marriages for sexual
activities. Sexuality was regulated by central government, such as the issuing of the Mar-
riage Law in 1950 as the first official law in the People’s Republic of China. During the era of
the “Cultural Revolution” (1966–1976), sexuality was regarded as a “forbidden zone” and
excluded from all types of public discourses. Likewise, sex education was also considered
a “potential threat to young people’s moral integrity” (Aresu 2009, 535). In spite of the
efforts of then Premier Zhou Enlai, sex education was only slowly implemented in the
late 1970s, with a restrained focus on sexual hygiene. Since the reform and opening up
policy carried out in 1978, profound changes have taken place in China on the views
and perceptions towards sexuality. The connotations of sexuality have been enriched to
encompass not just procreation, but also physical desires, sexual subjectivity and so on
(Zhao 2001). Increased public display of female sexuality and more openly expressed dis-
courses in the public arena characterized the landscape of sexuality in that phase (e.g. Pan
1994). Sex education was carried out as part of the austerely enforced family planning
policy in China in order to control the size of the population on the one hand and
promote sexual hygiene on the other.
The mid-1980s and onwards witnessed a priority of moral education in the national pro-
gramme of sex education (Aresu 2009). In order to ensure the healthy and sound devel-
opment of the younger generation, sex education was conducted in public schools to
cultivate sexual morality and prevent sexual crimes and misconducts. In 1992, “Guidelines
for Primary and Secondary School Health Education” (hereafter “the Guidelines”) were
jointly issued by the Ministry of Health (currently known as the National Health and
110 J. Y. LIANG ET AL.

Family Planning Commission), State Education Commission (currently known as the Min-
istry of Education) and the National Patriotic Health Campaign Committee with the aim to
provide appropriate and effective guidance for health education programmes in public
schools to assist children and teenagers experiencing physical growth and sexual develop-
ment. Sex education, which is included under the umbrella term “health education”, is
intended to serve the following objectives:

(1) To help children and teenagers master an appropriate amount of health knowledge; to
[help them] become aware of the connections and influences of issues such as per-
sonal hygiene, nutrition, physical exercises, disease prevention, environmental sani-
tation, mental hygiene, and safety measures on individual health; to [help them]
gradually develop responsible hygienic concepts.
(2) To cultivate good hygienic habits and healthy mental state in children and teenagers;
to [help them] correctly understand the physiological and psychological changes and
influencing factors in different stages of body growth, especially that in puberty; to
[help them] relinquish misbehaviour and establish healthy behaviour; to improve
environment and promote the sound and healthy development of the body and
the mind. (The Guidelines; our translation)

In line with these objectives, the Guidelines further enumerate where, what, and when sex
education should be taught. For example, public primary and secondary schools are
required to include in their curricula a weekly course on health education and encourages
less developed areas to hold regular health education lectures.
The two sets of objectives fit nicely with the three dimensions of sexuality (Pan 1994)
introduced at the outset of the paper: biosexuality, psychosexuality and sociosexuality.
However, throughout the Guidelines, the three aspects of sexuality seem to be attached
with unequal significance. The case is, the requirements regarding biosexuality are regu-
lated by the concerns of psychosexuality and more significantly, sociosexuality. For
example, specific age groups (i.e. Grade 5 and 6 in the primary school) have been men-
tioned for the introduction of physiological changes of puberty (e.g. menstruation and
breast development for girls; change of voice quality for boys). Education about human
reproduction is only stipulated in secondary schools to introduce to the teenagers (in
their puberty) the anatomical structure and functions of human reproductive organs, per-
sonal hygiene, and sexually transmitted diseases. There is also no mention of sexual
offenses in the section entitled “Prevention of Accidents and Injuries,” where only the fol-
lowing five categories of health hazards are listed: (1) traffic hazards, (2) exercises hazards
(e.g. swimming), (3) occupation hazards, (4) electric shock, burns, gas poisoning, and
foreign body in air passage, and (5) general external injuries.
The introduction of biosexuality, according to the Guidelines, is in the interest of a
smooth psychological transition over puberty (i.e. “learn to deal with common mental
hygienic issues, manage one’s mood, and maintain a healthy mental state”), which falls
under the dimension of psychosexuality. The way in which psychosexuality is prioritized
over biosexuality can be attributed to the deeply rooted conservative attitude towards
sexuality and sex education in China, and serves to “relegate sex to the realm of procrea-
tion and family, thus maintaining the traditional social order” (Lemish 2011, 273). However,
societal changes in the post-reform China have brought forth more open-minded and
 SOCIAL SEMIOTICS 111

liberal views and discussions about sexuality. The sexual moralities are gradually shifting
from the long revered virginity by Confucianism values to the cherishment of one’s sexu-
ality as part of personal subjectivity. Instead of being scrupulous in this taboo topic,
Chinese media have slowly brought to public attention the disturbing news of sexual
offenses towards young children in China (e.g. Cheng 2013). Motivated by the challenging
social context, the urgency of sex education intensifies, extending the education localities
from public schools to individual households and reaching a much younger generation at
the same time (e.g. Zhang et al. 2007). The six sex education picture books examined in the
present study, with the majority produced around 2012, are designed to address the chal-
lenges imposed on a timely and appropriate sex education for young children in China. In
the next section, the six sex education texts are introduced in terms of the themes featured
as well as in terms of general discursive features.

3. Data description
For the present study, six sex education picture books published or circulated in Mainland
China were collected.1 All texts are printed in the official Chinese language (Mandarin) and
are either published by publishing houses in Mainland China or made available through
online purchasing.2 While there are other texts translated from non-Asian countries (e.g.
“Where Willy Went” by Nicholas Allan), the six texts were selected precisely because,
with two from Japan, one from South Korea, one from the Hong Kong Special Administra-
tive Region, and two local ones produced by Chinese authors, they are all contextualised in
East Asian culture suffused with Confucianism values and ideologies. All six texts share
certain similarities in terms of the readership, themes, and discursive features.
Firstly, all texts are intended for urban, preschool, young children and their well-edu-
cated parents, a vast majority of whom are in their 20s or early 30s. Concerned (and
wealthy) parents purchase the books (all printed on glossy paper and in hard cover,
with the average cost being approximately 20 yuan renminbi (RMB) or an equivalent of
3 US dollars) and spend time at home to read with their children (often their only child
due to Mainland China’s one-child policy3), in the hope of equipping them with the
necessary biological knowledge about human reproduction, protecting them from poten-
tial sexual offenses and ensuring them a healthy and happy childhood (e.g. “The Story of
the Pee-pee”). However, for rural or less wealthy families, sex education picture books as
such, which are considered as being unnecessary and embarrassing, are seldom on their
book list.
Secondly, although each of the six texts has been published with texts of other themes
as a series, they are specifically collected for their unanimous focus on the following two
agendas: (1) to inform the children how to protect their private body parts and ward off
potential sexual offenses; and (2) to answer the questions of childbirth by introducing
issues such as sexual intercourse, fertilisation, conception, and pregnancy. For instance,
“The Story of the Pee-pee” (Text 1) is published with another picture book entitled “The
Story of the Breasts”. While Text 1 focuses on the protection of private body parts (both
the male and the female) and human reproduction issues such as fertilisation and child-
birth, “The Story of the Breasts” deals with the importance of breast-feeding in child
rearing. While texts of other themes serve as further supplements to education about
112 J. Y. LIANG ET AL.

sexuality, they do not directly address the issues of human reproduction and are thus not
examined in the present study.
Last but not least, in terms of the general discursive features, all six texts are designed in
the form of picture books that deploy both the visual and verbal semiotic modes to cater
to the literacy level of preschool children. Similar to other books for children, images play
an equal, if not more important, role in the construal of meaning. Therefore, a social semio-
tic analysis is conducted in this research to critically examine both the verbal and visual
representations of the roles, identities, activities, and relations of social actors. To that
end, this research adopts van Leeuwen’s (2008) framework on the representation of
social actors and conducts a critical multimodal discourse analysis on the ideological impli-
cations of the ways in which the identities, roles, and relations of social actors are rep-
resented (e.g. Tan 2014).

4. Research methodology and framework

Van Leeuwen (2008) draws from Systemic Functional Linguistics and provides a “sociose-
mantic inventory” to examine how particular ideological implications regarding social
actors are construed through representations in discourse. In this critical multimodal fra-
mework, the ideological construal of social actors is revealed by analysing the incongru-
ence between the social reality and the grammatical representations, such as the
following example (van Leeuwen 2008, 24):
Example (1):
People of Asian decent say they received a sudden cold-shoulder from neighbours and
coworkers.

In this clause, the attitude of being indifferent is initiated by “neighbours and co-workers”
towards “people of Asian descent” who, nevertheless, are grammatically represented as
the “actor”, responsible for both the acts of saying and receiving. The deliberate placement
of the sociological agent “neighbours and co-workers” within the prepositional phrase
“from … ” to serve as the circumstantial element backgrounds the unfriendliness of the
real agent and minimizes the negative meanings associated with them. Thus, a crosscheck
between the grammatical representation and the social reality highlights the incongru-
ence between discourse and reality that a pure linguistic analysis fails to reveal. In van
Leeuwen’s framework, a systematic set of linguistic as well as visual systems is included,
which can be categorized into three major categories of transformations: deletion,
rearrangement, and substitution.
Deletion refers to the exclusion of social actors motivated by the interests of the produ-
cers and their views towards the social actors. For example, in his analysis of “first day at
school” texts, van Leeuwen finds that fathers are “radically excluded in texts addressing
teachers, but are included in many children’s stories, even if only briefly, during the break-
fast preceding the first school day, or as givers of satchels, pencil cases, and other school
necessities” (2008, 29). In the linguistic mode, deletion can be further categorized into sup-
pression (social actors are not mentioned in text) or backgrounding (social actors are men-
tioned indirectly and can be inferred with reasonable certainty, such as the social actor of
“neighbours and co-workers” in Example (1)). It can be realized through grammatical
devices such as passive agent deletion (e.g. “Civilians were killed” as opposed to
 SOCIAL SEMIOTICS 113

“So-and-so killed the civilians”), nominalization (e.g. “support” instead of “someone sup-
ports”), and adjectivalization (e.g. the use of “legitimate fear”, without referring to the
actor who legitimizes the fear). Visually, social actors can be either included or excluded
from the image, which correspondingly acknowledges or denies their existence. For
example, the exclusion of black workers from a European Ford advertisement analysed
in van Leeuwen’s research suggests a particular racial stance of the producer of the
advertisement.
Rearrangement is mainly concerned with the re-allocation of roles to either activate or
passivate the social actors. While activation represents social actors as the “active, dynamic
forces in an activity”, passivation represents them as the “receiving end” of the activity
(van Leeuwen 2008, 33). Grammatically, activation can be realized by the representation
of the sociological patient as the grammatical actor (see Example (1)) and passivation
the vice versa. In the visual mode, rearrangement can be realized by representing social
actors in different roles and activities. For instance, in Nederveen Pieterse’s White on
Black: Images of Africa and Blacks in Western Popular Culture, van Leeuwen finds that a
majority of the social activities the black people engage in feature indecent and low-
level professions, such as begging, serving white people, doing physical labour and so
on. The roles the black people are featured in “symbolically oppresses them, symbolically
excludes them from certain roles and confines them to others” (van Leeuwen 2008, 143).
Last but not least, substitution, as “the most fundamental transformation”, refers to the
replacement of certain social actors by others (van Leeuwen 2008, 17). It involves a set of
sub-systems that feature either-or options from systems such as genericization versus spe-
cification, assimilation versus individualization, and personalization versus impersonaliza-
tion. Grammatically, substitution can be realized through devices such as the particular
choice made from the reference system (e.g. the generic versus specific reference; refer-
ence based on social actors’ functional roles). In the visual mode, it can be realized
through visual choices from specific versus generic, individuals versus groups, and so
on. For example, the representation of social actors as being specific highlights the
actors’ unique identities whereas the generic representation minimizes individual differ-
ences while prioritizing their similarities.
In sex education picture books, the discussion of sexuality is contextualised in domestic
settings with a focus on the family unit comprising father/male, mother/female, and the
child. While there are also other individuals that are featured outside the domestic set-
tings, they are only briefly referred to in terms of functionalisation (a subsystem under sub-
stitution) as doctors, nurses, police, etc. For the present study, van Leeuwen’s framework
for analysing social actors is adopted to focus on the members of the domestic settings
only, who can be categorized into two types of social actors that correspond with the
two types of bodies featured in sex education picture books: (1) the physical, corporeal
body of human beings, and (2) the institutional, disciplinary body of the family (Gannon
2013). The examination of the first type of social actor, the human physiological body, dis-
cusses how its role in human reproduction is represented. The analysis of the second type
of social actor, the family, presents how the representation is conditioned in contemporary
Chinese society and reflects the current sexual morality landscapes in modern China. In
what follows, the institutional social actor is first examined to set the scene for the discus-
sion of the human physical bodies presented in Section 6.
114 J. Y. LIANG ET AL.

5. Representing the family

With sex education having been expanded to domestic settings, urban, middle-class, and
well-educated parents in their 20s and early 30s have started to undertake the mission to
introduce knowledge of human reproduction to their children. The six sex education
picture books are amongst those that are produced to equip the young parents with
the necessary amount of biological knowledge (cf. O’Donnell et al. 2007) as well as to
offer them a way of minimizing the awkwardness in discussing sex issues with their
young children. Nevertheless, various educationists (e.g. Bösche 1983; Thorogood 2000;
Weeks 1986) have expressed their concerns that leaving the responsibilities of sex edu-
cation to parents would lead to a “dismal failure in terms of quantity, relevance and accu-
racy”, precisely because of the vague definition of family which “presumably invokes the
ideological ‘normal, stable nuclear family’” (Thorogood 2000, 431). Following van Leeu-
wen’s framework, two salient characteristics of representations are found in the six sex
education picture books: (1) the specification of urban, middle-class, nuclear families and
(2) the deletion of the father from the role of narrator.
Firstly, the institutional social actor, the family, is construed consistently as a well-off,
nuclear family in the city. As introduced in the data description section, sex education
picture books circulated in the People’s Republic of China are mainly designed for and
purchased by urban, middle-class Chinese families in which the parents tend to be
well-educated and open-minded to discuss sex education matters with their young chil-
dren. Targeted at this specific readership, texts across the data exhibit a consistent effort
to represent social realities that are identical with the family structure and life style of the
readership. All six texts present a narrative taking place in an urban setting, mainly rea-
lized by a range of visual representations. For example, high-rise apartment buildings
(Text 2) and modern hospitals (Texts 2, 3, 5, and 6), which are still rare in most
Chinese rural areas, suggest a modern, urban life. Parents are featured either in casual
clothes (Texts 1, 2, and 4), indicating a leisurely life style, or in official attire (Texts 5
and 6), reflecting the parents’ professional status (see Figure 1). The exclusion of rural
life styles no doubt appeals to the particular urban and middle-class readership by
evoking a sense of sympathy and familiarity between the readers and the characters fea-
tured in the books.
Furthermore, all six texts present a contemporary nuclear family structure in urban
China that includes both the parents and their child, as opposed to the long valued Con-
fucianism family structure in which four generations (i.e. great grandparents, grandpar-
ents, parents, and children) lived in the same courtyard house (Sishitongtang; 四世同
堂). Grandparents are only briefly featured in Text 1 on the occasion of child birth and
are assigned the role of childcare in Text 2 on the precondition that the child’s father
has passed away and the mother needs to work. Other than that, grandparents are
excluded from all verbal and visual representations. The representations of the nuclear
family structure along with an urban life style reflect the transition of the present-day
familial landscape in China which is characterized by an increasing independence of the
younger generation as well as the growing mobility of society (for example, people
such as university graduates and young migrant workers leave their hometown to work
and live in bigger towns and cities) (e.g. Zhou 2009).
 SOCIAL SEMIOTICS 115

Figure 1. A man with shirt and tie, shaving (Text 5).

Secondly, while the father has been traditionally regarded in Confucianism culture as
the “educator and disciplinarian” (Abbot, Zheng, and Meredith 1992), he has been
excluded from the role of narrator in all six texts, whose educators include the author
(Texts 1, 5, and 6), the mother (Text 2) and even the child him/herself (Texts 3 and 4).
The deletion of father from the role of narrator can be attributed to the traditional division
of labour in child rearing within Chinese families (e.g. Zhang 2008). A stereotypic view of
“strict father, kind mother” prevails in Chinese culture and features the affectionate
mother–child relation, as opposed to the father–child relation that is characterized by
“greater affectional distance, perhaps even tension and antagonism” (Ho 1989, 155).
With the mothers assuming the roles of daily caring and nurturing (such as cooking, clean-
ing, and laundering), they are naturally deemed more suitable than fathers for the role of
narrator in sexual matters that is mainly conducted to ensure sexual hygiene and healthy
body and psychological development (e.g. Walker 2007).
However, despite the exclusion from the role of narrator, the father is still shown,
although only once in Text 1, “The Story of the Pee-pee”, in a scene where the father is
teaching the son how to properly wash his private parts, hence educating the male hygie-
nic issues. While only briefly featured, the father’s role in sex education echoes the increas-
ingly louder call that the male parent should be more involved in discussing sexual matters
with their sons (Walker 2007).
The ways in which the family as the institutional social actor is represented in sex edu-
cation picture books reflect the ideological landscape that characterizes the transition of
116 J. Y. LIANG ET AL.

the family structure and the diversification of education responsibilities in Chinese families.
Against that socio-cultural backdrop, the representations of the physical social actor, the
human body, are examined in the following section to reveal the ideological implications
in the construal of sexuality related knowledge as well as the moralities in sex education
picture books.

6. Representing the human body

Wright (1991, 51) regards the human body as “the site of contesting discourses, that is, the
site of contesting systems of values and beliefs about what is normal and desirable”. The
representations of human bodies in sex education picture books mainly involve issues
such as “what bodies are, what bodies know and what bodies do” (Gannon 2013, 372)
in the activities of human reproduction. Following van Leeuwen’s social semiotic frame-
work, this section first examines the verbal representation of human body in itself and
in relation to non-human social actors. It then moves on to the visual representation of
the human body in the construal of human sexuality, with a particular focus on how
naked body is visually represented.

6.1. Verbal representation of the human body

In representing the human body in human reproduction, a carefully thought-out discur-
sive representation is required to introduce human sexuality in a socio-culturally accepted
manner. Liang, O’Halloran, and Tan (under review) found, for example, that, in order to
mitigate the sensitiveness, personification metaphors are frequently featured that
endow non-human, inert, objects (e.g. sperm cells and uterus) with human capacities
such as running and talking and human characteristics such as being shy (for uterus)
and energetic (for sperm cells). From a different perspective, this section adopts par-
ameters from van Leeuwen’s (2008) framework and examines how the human body is
grammatically represented in relation to the personified non-human objects. For this
study, all the verbal representations of human bodies featured in human reproduction
are literally translated into English, while retaining, to a great extent, their original gram-
matical structures in Chinese. There are altogether 33 clauses, with 20 covering the topics
of human sexual organs and fertilization and 13 on sexual intercourse. An examination of
the verbal representations reveals two significant patterns in the representation of the
human body in reproduction activities: (1) the functionalisation of human bodies according
to their domestic roles and (2) the backgrounding of human bodies while foregrounding
non-human objects.
Firstly, out of the 33 verbal clauses, 26 refer to human beings in terms of their functional
roles in domestic settings, that is, as mothers and fathers. For example, all three instances
in Text 3 refer to the male and female bodies as “dad’s body” and “mom’s body”
respectively:
Examples (2–4):
(2) There is uterus in mom’s body;
(3) There are sperm cells in dad’s body;
(4) Countless sperm cells in dad’s body run towards the uterus in mom’s body;
 SOCIAL SEMIOTICS 117

Unlike the representation in terms of their biological sex, male and female, in, say, bio-
logical textbooks, the functionalisation of human bodies based on their domestic roles
takes into account the particular readership of sex education texts, that is, young children
and their parents, and construes a familiar pedagogical environment by referring to the
represented participants as those that the children feel closest to. In the above three
examples, the account of human reproduction, which falls under the field of science edu-
cation, is conducted in a way that is contextualised in the child’s living environment in
order to minimize the cognitive distance between discourse and reality.
The second significant pattern in the verbal representation of the human body is the
backgrounding of human bodies as opposed to the foregrounding of non-human
objects. In discussions about human reproduction, the actual sociological agents, the
male and female bodies, however, tend not to be represented as active roles in the
grammar. Of the 33 clauses, only three directly feature human bodies, which are referred
to as “dad” and “mum”, as the grammatical actor (see Examples (5–7)):
Examples (5–7):
(5) Dad and mom together created my life. (Text 4)
(6) Dad tries to send sperm cells to mom’s ovum. (Text 5)
(7) Dad would put penis inside mother’s vagina. (Text 6)

In the rest of the 30 clauses, the grammatical device of “circumstantialization” is consist-

ently employed that deprives the agentive roles of the male and female bodies through
prepositional phrases such as “in … ”, “inside … ” and so on.
Example (8):

Sperm cells swim out of dad’s “pee-pee”. (Text 5)

Discourse: Actor Location
Reality: Goal Agent

Example (8) depicts the biological act of male ejaculation. While the agent in the socio-
logical sense is the male participant, referred to as “dad”, it is grammatically embedded
within a prepositional phrase (i.e. “out of dad’s pee-pee”), serving as the location of the
act of ejaculation. In this clause, the sociological agent is grammatically embedded
within a prepositional structure as the circumstance of the act, foregrounding the non-
human sperm cells and backgrounding the real agent – the male human body.
In a similar example that describes male ejaculation and human fertilization, the follow-
ing clause from Text 4 shows a contradictory representation of the male body by empha-
sizing the father’s role in the emphatic pattern while de-emphasizing his role by
backgrounding the male in a prepositional phrase.
Example (9):
It is thanks to dad that I enter mom’s body. (Text 4)

Although this clause appears to give priority to the active role of the male body through
the emphatic “it is … that” sentence pattern, its role in sexual intercourse is nevertheless
moderated and gives way to the first-person “I”, which refers to the child as the narrator.
The effect of backgrounding the male body is the mitigation of the psychosexual and
sociosexual sensitivity evoked by the “penetrative” role the male body plays in sexual
intercourse. Furthermore, the biosexual information construed in the clause is far from
118 J. Y. LIANG ET AL.

being scientific and provides a misleading message by referring to what enters the female
body as “I”, the child, as opposed to the male penis and sperm cells. This mis-represen-
tation of sexual intercourse serves as another compromise of biosexuality in order to mini-
mize the degree of sensitivity in representing the human “penetrative” sexual intercourse
that is largely considered as a psychological and social taboo.
Apart from “circumstantialization”, the “personalization” of non-human objects and
“adjectivalization” of human beings are also employed to background the role of
human body while foregrounding that of non-human objects. As the active role of
social actors is directly realized through the material process (that represents the “pro-
cesses of doing”) (e.g. Halliday 2014), the clauses that feature material processes are exam-
ined here. Of the 16 clauses employing the material process, 9 contain personalise non-
human actors (featuring sperm cells and ova as the grammatical actor), 4 contain
human beings in the pattern of adjectivalization (e.g. “mom’s body”), and 3 contain
human actors (See Table 1, with the grammatical actors underlined).
With regard to the first type of social actor, the human yet non-human sperm cells and
ovaries, the processes of “running”, “hiding”, “living”, “finding” “swimming”, and “entering”
are initiated by the inert sperm cells and ovaries which have been personalised in the dis-
course (van Leeuwen 2008). Comparatively, human bodies are impersonalised and circum-
stantialized, through prepositional phrases such as “in … ”, “out of … ”, and so on. The
second type of social actor, the adjectivalized human being as the pre-modification of
the non-human actor, seems to endow the human being with an agentive role by
placing it in the position of grammatical actor, but fails to do so since non-human
objects (penis, ovaries, and testicles) are still the real grammatical actors that are modified
by human beings through the possessives structure. Compared with the clauses featuring
personalised non-human actors, the active role of the human body, which is adjectivalized

Table 1. Types of actors in the material processes regarding human reproduction.

Type of actor Clauses
Personalised non-human actor (1) Sperm cells run into mom’s vagina to meet the ova in mom’s
uterus. (Text 2)
(2) Sperm cells … need to run out of dad’s penis. (Text 2)
(3) The seeds of love – sperm cells – hide inside dad’s body. (Text 2)
(4) Countless sperm cells in dad’s body run towards the uterus in
mom’s body. (Text 3)
(5) A large number of sperm cells in dad’s body are ejected from
the head of penis. (Text 4)
(6) Ova live inside Xiaomi’s belly. (Text 5)
(7) Sperm cells … find the ova along mom’s vagina. (Text 5)
(8) Sperm cells swim out of dad’s “pee-pee”. (Text 5)
(9) Sperm cells enter mom’s vagina. (Text 6)

Adjectivalized human being as the pre- (1) In order for dad’s sperm cells to meet mom’s ova, dad’s penis
modification of non-human actor would enter mom’s vagina. (Text 4)
(2) Mom’s ovaries generate ova. (Text 6)
(3) Dad’s penis would eject sperm cells. (Text 6)
(4) Dad’s testicles generate sperm cells. (Text 6)

Human actor (1) Dad and mom together created my life. (Text 4)
(2) Dad tries to send sperm cells to mom’s ovum. (Text 5)
(3) Dad would put penis inside mother’s vagina. (Text 6)
 SOCIAL SEMIOTICS 119

to pre-modify non-human objects, has been given prominence to a certain degree, but not
as significantly as with the third type, where the active role of the human body in repro-
duction has received greater recognition. The following two clauses are sufficient to illus-
trate the point:
Examples (10–11):
(10): In order for dad’s sperm cells to meet mom’s ova, dad’s penis would enter mom’s vagina.
(Text 4)
(11): Dad would put penis inside mom’s vagina. (Text 6)

The actors of both clauses have been underlined, with Example (10) containing the adjec-
tivalized human being as the pre-modification of the non-human actor and Example (11)
directly featuring the human being “dad” as the grammatical actor. While both representing
heterosexual intercourse, the first clause, different from the second one, backgrounds the
active role of the male body and also legitimizes the construal of “penetrative” sexual inter-
course through the parameter of goal-oriented instrumental rationality by prioritizing the
“motives, aims, intentions, goals, etc” (van Leeuwen 2008, 114). Here, the act of sexual inter-
course is construed explicitly for the purpose of human procreation, excluding all other
associations with sexuality, such as desire, violence and so on. The second clause, on the
other hand, straightforwardly represents the sociological agent in the position of gramma-
tical actor, construing, as it is, the “penetrative” sexual intercourse which inevitably evokes
sensitivity and awkwardness in the course of sex education.
This somewhat bold representation of sexual intercourse in Example (11) is from Text 6,
which also contains three other clauses featuring the adjectivalized human being as the
pre-modification of the non-human actor. Although its electronic version is widely circu-
lated online in Mainland China, Text 6, which is published by the Family Planning Associ-
ation of Hong Kong, has not yet been officially published by Chinese publishers. In fact, it is
also one of the two texts (along with Text 4) that provide vivid visual representations of
childbirth (i.e. a baby emerging from a woman’s vagina) and the juxtaposition of male
and female organs in the act of sexual intercourse. The rather straightforward represen-
tations of the human body may be one of the reasons why the text has not yet been
printed in Mainland China.
To summarize, the linguistic representations of the roles of human bodies in reproduc-
tion serve for a carefully construed discourse that introduces human sexuality on the one
hand and minimize the morality concerns on the other. Sexuality in the data is linguisti-
cally represented in the way that suggests the most involvement of family ties but the
least involvement of individual human beings. The next section examines the visual rep-
resentations of human bodies, with a particular focus on how naked body is represented in
introducing human sexuality.

6.2. Visual representation of the human body

With sex education texts predominantly relying on images to cater to the pedagogical
level of preschool children, the visual representations of human bodies are ideologically
significant for achieving an effective as well as appropriate sex education that both
satisfies the concerns of the parents and minimizes the discomfort and awkwardness in
talking about sexuality to young children. In visually representing the human body, the
120 J. Y. LIANG ET AL.

ways in which naked human bodies are featured merit critical examination here as they are
mostly likely to trigger anxieties amongst parents and cause discomfort in their inter-
actions with their children. In the six sex education texts examined in this research, two
(Texts 3 and 5) exclude any visual representations of human naked body, reflecting a
thorough compromise of biosexuality to psychosexuality and sociosexuality. In the
other four texts where naked bodies are visually featured, the ways in which they are rep-
resented are examined in terms of the roles and activities the naked bodies are in. Of the
four texts, naked human bodies are featured as either involved in action or not, depending
on what the topic is.
Firstly, in introducing the male and female biological differences, all four texts place the
male and female naked body side by side, in a standing position and not engaged in any
material process. Take Figure 2 for example, where the image features a visual process
that resembles an existential process in grammar (Halliday 2014), suggesting a sense of
pure existence. The naked human bodies are featured both naturalistically (in coloured draw-
ings that highlight male and female body differences, for example, the slender female body
and the muscular male body) and abstractly, showing the internal sexual organs “as if the
body had been dissected” (Allen 2004, 155). The generic representation of naked human
bodies by focusing on their different body parts serves the following purposes:

Figure 2. A visual representation of male and female human bodies (Text 2).
 SOCIAL SEMIOTICS 121

This concentration on internal organs rather than the more sexualized external contours
of bodies, serves to draw our attention away from its sexuality and place it firmly on its
(reproductive) function. … the definitive effect of these representations is to de-eroticize
the body and dissociate it from embodied feelings of desire and pleasure. (Allen 2004,
155)

In order to further counterbalance the sensitivity construed by the rather detailed visual
representation of the naked bodies, three significant visual devices have also been
employed that: (1) exclude the heads from the picture frame to construe genericity and
anonymity, (2) personalise human sexual organs to evoke familiarity and positivity, and
(3) depict the male and female as a group of unity by showing them holding each
other’s hand. By cropping the heads out of the picture, naked bodies are deprived of
their individual identities, and are presented as though they were scientific specimens
devoid of emotions and desires. On the other hand, the inert sexual organs, cohesive to
their linguistic representation, are personalised. For example, the female reproductive
system is depicted as a smiley face, adding a sense of liveliness to the objective represen-
tation of biological knowledge and thereby minimising the discomfort evoked by the
straightforward representation of sexual organs. Furthermore, the depiction of holding
hands also symbolizes the positive, romantic love that is construed as the fundamental
emotion, as opposed to other emotions of sexual desire or violence. Along with the lin-
guistic reference of “dad” and “mom” for the male and female body, the priority on roman-
tic love between the parents depicts a harmonious family relation and highlights the
particular ideology that “there are no children without love and what differentiates us
from other animals is the nuclear family ‘of fathers and mothers and children together’”
(Gannon 2013, 376).
Apart from being represented in the existential process, the naked human bodies are
also visually featured in one material process in Text 4 to indicate the act of sexual inter-
course (see Figure 3). In this figure, a simple line drawing portrays the outline of two
human bodies (from waist down), featuring the contour profile of both the bodies and
the reproductive organs.
However, as compared with Figure 2, the use of a simple line drawing realizes a low
level of the representations of details, or visual modality (e.g. Kress and van Leeuwen
2006; van Leeuwen 2005), by only presenting the “essential attributes” of human sexual
intercourse. Instead of a naturalistic representation which would certainly evoke porno-
graphic associations, the simple line drawing is employed to minimize the likelihood of
triggering any connotations related to other connotations such as sexual desires (see, e.g.
Martinez Lirola and Chovanec 2012 for the representation of female body in women’s
magazines), violence and so on.
In the visual representation of the human naked bodies in sex education texts, the dis-
course of romantic and familial love is highlighted as the fundamental emotions in human
sexuality, excluding other types of sexual discourses that are considered inappropriate or
pre-mature for young children. Meanwhile, in order to minimize discomfort, human naked
bodies are seldom featured in the act of sexual intercourse. In the only case where they are
featured, a low visual modality is employed to only show the essence of the act in an
abstract way while dissociating it with erotic connotations.
122 J. Y. LIANG ET AL.

Figure 3. A simple line drawing featuring heterosexual intercourse (Text 4).

7. Conclusion: Sexuality and morality in modern China

Ideologies indeed play a central role in regulating sexuality through formal, institutional,
and scientific discourses to “guarantee [ … ] the continuation of labour and support of
the economic system and/or the nation” (Lemish 2011, 273; also see e.g. Foucault
1976). From the repression of public discussion about sexuality in feudal China to the
importance attached to sex education for small children in the contemporary era, sex edu-
cation picture books for young children are “positioned as part of more complex pedago-
gical apparatus within which parents and children engage in sex education in historically
and culturally specific moments” (Gannon 2013, 380).
In feudal China where there were rarely public discourses about sexuality, sex education
was viewed from a “restricted information perspective” (as opposed to a “liberal perspec-
tive”, see Thorogood 2000). This restrictive and conservative approach viewed sex edu-
cation for the younger generation as a potential danger due to the information
introduced and values promoted at an immature age. In Confucianism ideologies, all
human beings are deemed to be born ‘good’, which is a representative view of
Mencius, a well-known Confucian philosopher. If conducted at an early age, sex education
would likely spoil the purity and innocence of childhood. However, as the socio-cultural
landscape evolves in modern China, sex education picture books are produced for con-
cerned parents. A more liberal stance is found to be employed in modern China, which
regards sex education practices as being “essential for promoting the ‘right’ values and
behaviours” (Thorogood 2000, 429). In this paper, a social semiotic analysis has certainly
revealed what are regarded as the “right” values and behaviours of sexuality as promoted
in contemporary China through the “battle” among biosexuality, psychosexuality, and
sociosexuality. The analysis has exhibited a frequent compromise of biosexuality over
the other two by means of grammatical as well as visual devices. With the readers
being urban, middle-class, well-educated, young parents and their preschool children,
the discourse of sexuality construed in sex education books is one that focuses on the pro-
motion of appropriate sexual values and moralities (see Fine 1988 for the discussion of the
four types of sexuality discourses: (1) sexuality as violence, (2) sexuality as victimization, (3)
sexuality as individual morality, and (4) sexuality as desire)). These particular moralities
 SOCIAL SEMIOTICS 123

reflect the mainstream values attached to the discussion of sexuality in contemporary

Chinese society.
Firstly, familial values are given the utmost priority. The familial landscape as painted by
sex education texts fits with a post-reform Chinese society that is characterised by the
increasing urbanization, improving life quality and heightening education levels of its
people, which are largely attributed to the socio-economic development taking place in
the last few decades. As the analysis shows, the family as the institutional social actor is
consistently featured as an urban, well-off, nuclear family that is concerned with the
sound psychological and physical development of their children. Due to the complicated
nature of sexuality, sex education is rarely the responsibility of the father, who is tradition-
ally dissociated from most of the domestic chores. The representation of the nuclear
family, with the father, mother, and child as the unit, also excludes other types of sexuality
and only features the “monogamous, heterosexual, married fertile and penetrative sex” as
the norm (Thorogood 2000, 433).
Secondly, romantic love between the couple is highlighted but still restrained by the
morality of pre-marital abstinence. As the visual representation of the naked body
shows, romantic love between the male and the female is construed by featuring them
holding each other’s hand. Furthermore, as Liang, O’Halloran, and Tan (under review)
find out from the same data, the taboo topic of sexual intercourse is metaphorically
referred to as “love making” or visually “adorned” with heart symbols as tokens of romantic
love. From arranged marriages to marriages based on free will, the ways in which families
are formed is motivated by a series of socio-economic factors. For instance, female status
has been significantly elevated in post-reform China where “an egalitarian attitude toward
gender preference in offspring” has gradually formed (Shu 2004, 327). The execution of
family planning policy since the late 1970s has also remoulded the demographic structure
in China and “empowered” urban women by practising equal educational and job oppor-
tunities between men and women (e.g. Fong 2002). The gradual liberation of women from
domestic chores and the increase of their subjectivity contribute to their pursuit of mar-
riages that are based on mutual admiration and romantic love. However, the increase of
sexual subjectivity is still confined by traditional values and moralities in China that
revere virginity and disdain pre-marital sex. The analysis in this paper has shown that all
six texts feature domestic settings where the male and the female are referred to as
“father” and “mother” respectively. The act of sexual intercourse is directly associated
with the purpose of procreation, excluding the discourse of “sexuality as desire” altogether
(Fine 1988). Furthermore, four texts (Texts 2, 3, 5, and 6) have included the narratives of the
man and woman falling in love and getting married, all preceding the introduction of
human reproduction. Following van Leeuwen’s (2008) framework for the discursive con-
struction of legitimation, instead of an explicit “moral evaluation” of what are “right”
values and behaviours, the way the narratives are arranged legitimizes marriage as the
pre-requisite of sexual intercourse through the “authority of conformity”, that is, “every-
body else is doing it, and so should you” (van Leeuwen 2008, 109).
The present research reveals the central role of ideology in the construction of dis-
courses in sex education practices for preschool young children in China. It is found
that sex education materials as such integrate science education with morality education
and the “open and frank discussion” about sexuality largely aims to instil in young children
what are considered as the right moral values and behaviours in dealing with sexuality
124 J. Y. LIANG ET AL.

after they mature. Overall, despite the socio-economic transformation in contemporary

China, sex education for young children still depicts “childhood [as] a naïve pre-sex
time that needs to be preserved by clear limits and the ‘sayable’ and ‘unsayable’”
(Lemish 2011, 275).

Notes
1. Texts 1 to 6 are: (1): “Story of the Pee-pee”; (2): “Dad and Mum, How was I Born?”; (3): “How was
I Born?”; (4): “My story: Boys”; (5): “How did Mum and Dad Have Me?”; (6): “Where did I Come
from?”.
2. The Text from Hong Kong was issued by Family Planning Association of Hong Kong and is only
available through online purchasing.
3. However, the one-child policy in Mainland China was ended in 2015 by allowing families to
have two children.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding
This work was supported by the Project of Humanities and Social Sciences, Ministry of Education,
People’s Republic of China [grant number 14YJC740047].

Notes on contributors
Jennifer Yameng Liang is a Lecturer at the University of Science and Technology Beijing, China. Her
research interests centre on both theoretical explorations and practical applications of Systemic
Functional Linguistics (SFL), in particular, the concepts of context and ecosocial environment and
multimodal/multisemiotic studies.
Sabine Tan is a Research Fellow at the School of Education, Faculty of Humanities, Curtin University.
Her research interests include critical multimodal discourse analysis, social semiotics, and visual com-
munication. She is particularly interested in the application of multidisciplinary perspectives within
social semiotic theory to the analysis of institutional discourses involving traditional and new media.
Kay O’Halloran is Associate Professor, School of Education, Faculty of Humanities, Curtin University.
Her areas of research include multimodal analysis, social semiotics, mathematics discourse, and the
development of interactive digital media technologies and visualization techniques for multimodal
and socio-cultural analytics.

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