**2. Plainness in self-identification**

But before the reading, we need to know some background information about the poet. Wu Xia (邬霞) was born in Sichuan province, China, in 1984 but has been working in factories in Shenzhen since the age of 14. As a factory worker, she has been writing online for two decades. She is known for her faithful representation of factory life and for the mixing of reality and dream in her poems. "The girls under Wu Xia's pen live a better life than hers. In 'The Sundress', we don't read the tragic and the repression in most poems written by migrant workers". <sup>1</sup> Both tendencies are brought to the fore in "The Sundress", which is collected in *The Verse of Us* (2015). The poem also exemplifies Wu's preoccupation with a range of mental and emotional experiences of being a female factory worker in contemporary China, particularly her desire of escaping factory life and of living a better life. We see the desires in her creating and self-identifying with another "me" in the poem.

 包装车间灯火通明 The packing area is flooded with light 我手握电熨斗 I hold the iron 集聚我所有的手温 Collecting all my hand's warmth 我要先把吊带熨平 I am going to press the straps flat 挂在你肩上不会勒疼你 So that they won't dig into your shoulders 然后从腰身开始烫起 And then press up from the waist 多么可爱的腰身 A lovely waist 可以安放一只白净的手 Upon which a fine hand can lay 林荫道上 And on the tree-shaded lane 轻抚一种安静的爱情 Caress a quiet kind of love 最后把裙裾展开 Finally I'll smooth the dress out 我要把每个皱褶的宽度熨的都相等 To iron the pleats to equal widths 让你在湖边 或者草坪上 So you can sit by the lake or on a grassy lawn 等待风吹 And wait for a breeze 你也可以奔跑 You can also run, but 一定要让裙裾飘起来 带着弧度 You must let the dress fly with curve 像花儿一样 Like a flower 而我要下班了 But I'm getting off work 我要洗一洗汗湿的厂服 I need to wash my sweaty factory uniform 我已把它折叠好 打了包 I have folded it packed it 吊带裙 它将被装箱运出车间 The sundress It will be taken out of the factory 走向某个市场 某个时尚店面 To some market Some boutique 在某个下午或晚上 Waiting in some afternoon or evening

<sup>24</sup> 等待唯一的你 Only for You.

<sup>1</sup> "Contemporary Chinese Workers' Poetry: Speaking the Inside Story" (http://www.xinhuanet.com/ politics/2015-02/06/c\_1114279855.htm, accessed: February 1, 2020). Migrant workers' poetry writing has been a cultural phenomenon in contemporary China. It is estimated that 20,000–30,000 peasant workers write poems in their blogs, QQ or on literary websites. In 2015,*The Verse of Us* was published, causing public attention. Qin Xiaoyu, the editor, also made a documentary of the same title, demonstrating the life and poetry of contemporary Chinese workers. In it the invited worker poets read their poems. Wu Xia reads "The Sundress" (http://www.docuchina.cn/2016/11/21/VIDEoulgdZbe LxxBCDTrS1go161121.shtml, accessed: February 1, 2020).

*Identity, Self-Identity and Beauty in Chinese Female Worker DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.92108*

> 25 陌生的姑娘 The girl unknown 26 我爱你 I Love you

the working hands. The "I" speaker is subjectified by her misidentification with the

But before the reading, we need to know some background information about the poet. Wu Xia (邬霞) was born in Sichuan province, China, in 1984 but has been working in factories in Shenzhen since the age of 14. As a factory worker, she has been writing online for two decades. She is known for her faithful representation of factory life and for the mixing of reality and dream in her poems. "The girls under Wu Xia's pen live a better life than hers. In 'The Sundress', we don't read the tragic

are brought to the fore in "The Sundress", which is collected in *The Verse of Us* (2015). The poem also exemplifies Wu's preoccupation with a range of mental and emotional experiences of being a female factory worker in contemporary China, particularly her desire of escaping factory life and of living a better life. We see the

desires in her creating and self-identifying with another "me" in the poem.

5 挂在你肩上不会勒疼你 So that they won't dig into your shoulders

12 我要把每个皱褶的宽度熨的都相等 To iron the pleats to equal widths 13 让你在湖边 或者草坪上 So you can sit by the lake or on a grassy lawn

16 一定要让裙裾飘起来 带着弧度 You must let the dress fly with curve

19 我要洗一洗汗湿的厂服 I need to wash my sweaty factory uniform

22 走向某个市场 某个时尚店面 To some market Some boutique 23 在某个下午或晚上 Waiting in some afternoon or evening

21 吊带裙 它将被装箱运出车间 The sundress It will be taken out of the factory

<sup>1</sup> "Contemporary Chinese Workers' Poetry: Speaking the Inside Story" (http://www.xinhuanet.com/ politics/2015-02/06/c\_1114279855.htm, accessed: February 1, 2020). Migrant workers' poetry writing has been a cultural phenomenon in contemporary China. It is estimated that 20,000–30,000 peasant workers write poems in their blogs, QQ or on literary websites. In 2015,*The Verse of Us* was published,

demonstrating the life and poetry of contemporary Chinese workers. In it the invited worker poets read their poems. Wu Xia reads "The Sundress" (http://www.docuchina.cn/2016/11/21/VIDEoulgdZbe

causing public attention. Qin Xiaoyu, the editor, also made a documentary of the same title,

<sup>1</sup> Both tendencies

idealized "you-I". We can illustrate it through a close reading of the poem.

*Beauty - Cosmetic Science, Cultural Issues and Creative Developments*

and the repression in most poems written by migrant workers".

1 包装车间灯火通明 The packing area is flooded with light

3 集聚我所有的手温 Collecting all my hand's warmth 4 我要先把吊带熨平 I am going to press the straps flat

6 然后从腰身开始烫起 And then press up from the waist

8 可以安放一只白净的手 Upon which a fine hand can lay

10 轻抚一种安静的爱情 Caress a quiet kind of love 11 最后把裙裾展开 Finally I'll smooth the dress out

**2. Plainness in self-identification**

2 我手握电熨斗 I hold the iron

7 多么可爱的腰身 A lovely waist

14 等待风吹 And wait for a breeze 15 你也可以奔跑 You can also run, but

18 而我要下班了 But I'm getting off work

20 我已把它折叠好 打了包 I have folded it packed it

17 像花儿一样 Like a flower

24 等待唯一的你 Only for You.

LxxBCDTrS1go161121.shtml, accessed: February 1, 2020).

**24**

9 林荫道上 And on the tree-shaded lane

The poem consists of 26 lines which feature the voice of a clothing factory worker, who talks about her work as a steam press operator. Her job is to iron pieces of sundress before packaging. The speaker also describes her emotional involvement in the process of ironing the dress, represented in the form of her addressing a hypothetical hearer "you" about how the dress should be worn (we will explain below why we treat the speaker as female). The poem is divided into four stanzas; the first three describe, respectively, the scenes before ironing, during ironing and after ironing, which correspond to the time before her fantasy, in her fantasy and after her fantasy.

Of course, she feels pretty in her fantasy. Our study, however, is not on what that prettiness is but what causes that charming feeling, i.e. her self-acceptance and sense of control. Remarkably, the linguistic features in the poem show that her activeness and sense of control fluctuate as she enters and leaves the dream world. Her self-acceptance also rises when she prepares for the ironing and fantasizing. It goes to the peak when she invests herself into the fantasy and overlaps herself with the ideal image. When she has to leave the dream world, however, she loses her activeness, self-acceptance and sense of beauty. In the last stanza, her language indicates a great reluctance to be detached from the idealized image.

The "I" speaker only feels active and charm when she is not in her real body. The poem begins with plain language, describing the reality that she is in. But when she gets closer to the dream world, her language becomes more vivid and colourful. The first few lines establish the physical environment where the speaker is working:

1 包装车间灯火通明 The packing area is flooded with light


One of the first and most prominent features in these lines is the specificity of the here-and-now context in which the speaker is situated. This context not only involves the specific place, time and participants but also is "coloured" by a certain mood of commitment. First, the poem begins with the locative expression "the packaging area" which has the duo effect of anchoring the ongoing events in a particular place and also activating readers' frame knowledge about factory work. With this knowledge, readers are able to interpret the word "iron" in line 2 as specifying "I" as a steam press operator and also read the modifier "灯火通明" (literally meaning "fully lit up") as suggestive of the time of the day (i.e. late at night).

Also, the adjective "所有的" ("all") modifying "my hand's warmth" is used to indicate the high degree of temperature caused by the pressing work. Both these adjectives are used as amplifiers ([12], p. 429) which function to dramatize a tough working environment against which the speaker is about to begin her night shift. Against this setting, the speaker is presented, however, as physically static. The first verb "握" ("hold") in line 2 is a transitive stance verb, suggesting no change for the time being ([12], p. 747), while the second verb "集聚" ("collect") in line 3 is used metaphorically to refer to the accumulation of heat from my hands and the transmission of it to the iron (so that I could iron the dress with love). Altogether, these introductory lines help to position the reader within an immediate and close distance with the speaker who, while being physically static, is fully committed and prepared for the pressing work.

### **3. Beautification in misidentification**

The impression that the speaker is fully prepared and committed in her work is reinforced by lines 4, 6, 11 and 12 which describe a series of actions that constitute the whole work of steam-pressing:

divide between the two interlocutors, the hearer referred to as "you" is hypothesized by the speaker and exists only in her future-related imagination. This understanding allows readers of the poem to interpret "you" as an anonymous, generic figure whom the narrator has constructed herself based on her knowledge and

*Identity, Self-Identity and Beauty in Chinese Female Worker*

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.92108*

In narrative comprehensive research, readers tend to first evaluate the trustworthiness of the narrator ([18], p. 81), which is done based on the readers' knowl-

The first characteristic feature suggestive of under-specificity includes a series of unprecise "world builders". There are altogether three hypothetical scenes, line 5 describing the illusionary addressee "you" putting on the dress, lines 7–10 going on a date and 13–17 being outdoors. The spatiotemporal frames for these imagined scenes are unprecise. For example, the locations in the latter two hypothetical scenes are specific in terms of type (tree-shaded lane, by the lake, on the grassy lawn) without giving specific information concerning exactly where. Moreover, the references for the imagined events are indefinite, suggested by the use of generic quantifiers "一只" in line 8 and "一种" in 10. All these features add up to create an

edge of the narrator, as well as on their perceptions of the narrator's level of knowledge. This is termed as "belief world" which consists of a package of knowledge and beliefs that are *only* related, and hence plausible, to this particular character [17, 18, 21]. In "The Sundress", the speaker is viewed as a reliable narrator whose personal knowledge concerning steam-pressing is recognized by her occupation. However, as the speaker continues to construct her future projection based on her own false belief or strong desire, the speaker's credibility begins to decline—interestingly, this process is indicated by a list of linguistic features which create the tone

effect of under-specification: the speaker seems to be engaged actively in constructing and experiencing an imagined yet unspecified fantasy.

actions, thereby foregrounding the sense of tenderness and tranquillity.

In addition to the vividness, the imagined scenes are also "coloured" by a tone of positivity. It is interesting to note, firstly, that the imagined lover, referred to by means of metonymy as "a hand", is modified by the adjective "白净的". The literal translation is white ("白") and clean ("净"). A quick search of the 780 million-word CCL corpus (developed by the Center for Chinese Linguistics, Peking University) shows that the expression is associated with both female and male. The maleassociated connotation suggests either neatness in appearance or physical weakness. In the poem, the collocation focuses on the good physical state of a male's hand as contrastive to a hand that is dark and dirty due to heavy labour work. In terms of discourse analysis, this value-laden adjective is viewed as an indicator of

Meanwhile, this effect is foregrounded by the contrastive effect of specificity which is generated by the same lines of the poem depicting the actions "you" have been engaged in. There are three verbs denoting "you" as an active participant (actor) in a material intention process ("wait" in 14, "run" in 15, "let" in 16) and three verbs denoting "you" as the passive recipient in the material event processes ("hang" in 5, "place" in 8, "caress" in 12). Material process is a term from systematic functional linguistics (SFL) to describe the roles of the subject and the object in a sentence and their relationship. Material intention process refers to the process in which the actor has the deliberation in performing the action and is commonly associated with a goal, whereas material event process does not necessarily have a subject (or actor) since its focus is on the goal or on the object that is being affected by the process. In the poem, the material intention processes mentioned above highlight "you" as an active actor engaging in a series of outdoor activities, all of which are indicative of freedom and happiness. The material event processes ("hang", "place", "caress") treat the participant "you" as the receiver of all gentle

belief.

of uncertainty.

**27**

 我要先把吊带熨平 I am going to press the straps flat 然后从腰身开始烫起 And then press up from the waist … 最后把裙裾展开 Finally I'll smooth the dress out 我要把每个皱褶的宽度熨的都相等 To iron the pleats to equal widths

The language describing the speaker's planning contains a number of linguistic features that are typically associated with making commitments. To begin with, there are four "把" (*bǎ*) in lines 4, 11, 12 and 20. The word often appears in what Chinese grammarians call the disposal construction, i.e. *bǎ* +NP+VP. The verb itself has been highly grammatized and acts only as a disposal marker instead of a verb, and the following NP+VP structure is often considered as a resultative complement that gives prominence to the causative result the object (recipient) receives from the subject (actor) ([13], p. 150, [14], p. 99). In Wu's poem, the *bǎ* +NP+VP structure serves the function of emphasizing the possible results that the speaker intends to achieve.

In addition, the content of the plan is characterized by a detailed list of the particular parts of the dress ("straps", "waist", "pleats") and a series of adverbials denoting sequence ("first", "then", "finally"). Cognitive scientists and linguists studying narrative comprehension treat these linguistic devices as world builders that help readers mentally construct the story world depicted in a stretch of narrative text [15–18]. The more detailed a story world is described, the more concrete and vivid this world would be conceptualized by the reader. As such, expressions including temporal and spatial deixis and nominal and verbal references suggesting people, objects and actions play an important role in highlighting the scenic vividness [16] as well as encouraging empathy from the reader [19, 20].

There is, however, a contrastive effect of under-specification evolving from the process of plan-making. In particular, this comes from the description of a series of imagined situations resulting from the speaker's planned actions:

5 挂在你肩上不会勒疼你 So that they won't dig into your shoulders

… 多么可爱的腰身 A lovely waist 可以安放一只白净的手 Upon which a fine hand can lay 林荫道上 And on the tree-shaded lane 轻抚一种安静的爱情 Caress a quiet kind of love … 让你在湖边 或者草坪上 So you can sit by the lake or on a grassy lawn 等待风吹 And wait for a breeze 你也可以奔跑 You can also run, but 一定要让裙裾飘起来 带着弧度 You must let the dress fly with curve 像花儿一样 Like a flower …

One of the prominent linguistic features in depicting the speaker's imaginations is the introduction of "you" which invokes an illusionary addressivity. Despite the fact that the second-person pronoun has the effect of bridging the spatiotemporal

#### *Identity, Self-Identity and Beauty in Chinese Female Worker DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.92108*

**3. Beautification in misidentification**

4 我要先把吊带熨平 I am going to press the straps flat 6 然后从腰身开始烫起 And then press up from the waist

*Beauty - Cosmetic Science, Cultural Issues and Creative Developments*

11 最后把裙裾展开 Finally I'll smooth the dress out

the whole work of steam-pressing:

…

intends to achieve.

…

…

…

**26**

The impression that the speaker is fully prepared and committed in her work is reinforced by lines 4, 6, 11 and 12 which describe a series of actions that constitute

12 我要把每个皱褶的宽度熨的都相等 To iron the pleats to equal widths

The language describing the speaker's planning contains a number of linguistic features that are typically associated with making commitments. To begin with, there are four "把" (*bǎ*) in lines 4, 11, 12 and 20. The word often appears in what Chinese grammarians call the disposal construction, i.e. *bǎ* +NP+VP. The verb itself has been highly grammatized and acts only as a disposal marker instead of a verb, and the following NP+VP structure is often considered as a resultative complement that gives prominence to the causative result the object (recipient) receives from the subject (actor) ([13], p. 150, [14], p. 99). In Wu's poem, the *bǎ* +NP+VP structure serves the function of emphasizing the possible results that the speaker

In addition, the content of the plan is characterized by a detailed list of the particular parts of the dress ("straps", "waist", "pleats") and a series of adverbials denoting sequence ("first", "then", "finally"). Cognitive scientists and linguists studying narrative comprehension treat these linguistic devices as world builders that help readers mentally construct the story world depicted in a stretch of narrative text [15–18]. The more detailed a story world is described, the more concrete and vivid this world would be conceptualized by the reader. As such, expressions including temporal and spatial deixis and nominal and verbal references suggesting people, objects and actions play an important role in highlighting the scenic vivid-

There is, however, a contrastive effect of under-specification evolving from the process of plan-making. In particular, this comes from the description of a series of

ness [16] as well as encouraging empathy from the reader [19, 20].

imagined situations resulting from the speaker's planned actions:

8 可以安放一只白净的手 Upon which a fine hand can lay

10 轻抚一种安静的爱情 Caress a quiet kind of love

7 多么可爱的腰身 A lovely waist

14 等待风吹 And wait for a breeze 15 你也可以奔跑 You can also run, but

17 像花儿一样 Like a flower

9 林荫道上 And on the tree-shaded lane

5 挂在你肩上不会勒疼你 So that they won't dig into your shoulders

13 让你在湖边 或者草坪上 So you can sit by the lake or on a grassy lawn

16 一定要让裙裾飘起来 带着弧度 You must let the dress fly with curve

One of the prominent linguistic features in depicting the speaker's imaginations is the introduction of "you" which invokes an illusionary addressivity. Despite the fact that the second-person pronoun has the effect of bridging the spatiotemporal

divide between the two interlocutors, the hearer referred to as "you" is hypothesized by the speaker and exists only in her future-related imagination. This understanding allows readers of the poem to interpret "you" as an anonymous, generic figure whom the narrator has constructed herself based on her knowledge and belief.

In narrative comprehensive research, readers tend to first evaluate the trustworthiness of the narrator ([18], p. 81), which is done based on the readers' knowledge of the narrator, as well as on their perceptions of the narrator's level of knowledge. This is termed as "belief world" which consists of a package of knowledge and beliefs that are *only* related, and hence plausible, to this particular character [17, 18, 21]. In "The Sundress", the speaker is viewed as a reliable narrator whose personal knowledge concerning steam-pressing is recognized by her occupation. However, as the speaker continues to construct her future projection based on her own false belief or strong desire, the speaker's credibility begins to decline—interestingly, this process is indicated by a list of linguistic features which create the tone of uncertainty.

The first characteristic feature suggestive of under-specificity includes a series of unprecise "world builders". There are altogether three hypothetical scenes, line 5 describing the illusionary addressee "you" putting on the dress, lines 7–10 going on a date and 13–17 being outdoors. The spatiotemporal frames for these imagined scenes are unprecise. For example, the locations in the latter two hypothetical scenes are specific in terms of type (tree-shaded lane, by the lake, on the grassy lawn) without giving specific information concerning exactly where. Moreover, the references for the imagined events are indefinite, suggested by the use of generic quantifiers "一只" in line 8 and "一种" in 10. All these features add up to create an effect of under-specification: the speaker seems to be engaged actively in constructing and experiencing an imagined yet unspecified fantasy.

Meanwhile, this effect is foregrounded by the contrastive effect of specificity which is generated by the same lines of the poem depicting the actions "you" have been engaged in. There are three verbs denoting "you" as an active participant (actor) in a material intention process ("wait" in 14, "run" in 15, "let" in 16) and three verbs denoting "you" as the passive recipient in the material event processes ("hang" in 5, "place" in 8, "caress" in 12). Material process is a term from systematic functional linguistics (SFL) to describe the roles of the subject and the object in a sentence and their relationship. Material intention process refers to the process in which the actor has the deliberation in performing the action and is commonly associated with a goal, whereas material event process does not necessarily have a subject (or actor) since its focus is on the goal or on the object that is being affected by the process. In the poem, the material intention processes mentioned above highlight "you" as an active actor engaging in a series of outdoor activities, all of which are indicative of freedom and happiness. The material event processes ("hang", "place", "caress") treat the participant "you" as the receiver of all gentle actions, thereby foregrounding the sense of tenderness and tranquillity.

In addition to the vividness, the imagined scenes are also "coloured" by a tone of positivity. It is interesting to note, firstly, that the imagined lover, referred to by means of metonymy as "a hand", is modified by the adjective "白净的". The literal translation is white ("白") and clean ("净"). A quick search of the 780 million-word CCL corpus (developed by the Center for Chinese Linguistics, Peking University) shows that the expression is associated with both female and male. The maleassociated connotation suggests either neatness in appearance or physical weakness. In the poem, the collocation focuses on the good physical state of a male's hand as contrastive to a hand that is dark and dirty due to heavy labour work. In terms of discourse analysis, this value-laden adjective is viewed as an indicator of

the speaker's "world-view" ([22], pp. 130–134) or "ideological viewpoint" ([23], p. 277) about social superiority of "you". The ideological assumptions of this description are carried by further an abundance of positively charged adjectives including "lovely", "fine", "tree-shaded" and "quiet", which help create a first-date scenario that is correlated with the ideological associations the speaker has for the middle class ([8], p. 60).

overlapped meaning of volition (intrinsic) and prediction (extrinsic)" ([12],

19 我要洗一洗汗湿的厂服 I need to wash my sweaty factory uniform

18 而我要下班了 But I'm getting off work

*Identity, Self-Identity and Beauty in Chinese Female Worker*

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.92108*

fact that she does not own the dress.

24 等待唯一的你 Only for You.

on the speaker's fantasy than on her knowledge.

25 陌生的姑娘 The girl unknown

26 我爱你 I Love you

**29**

manifested linguistically through the following features:

20 我已把它折叠好 打了包 I have folded it packed it

22 走向某个市场 某个时尚店面 To some market Some boutique 23 在某个下午或晚上 Waiting in some afternoon or evening

sundress she has pressed nor has the idea as to who would buy the dress.

Nevertheless, the reader can sense her unwillingness to detach herself from the fantasized "you-I". It is interesting to note that the buyer of the sundress is characterized by concrete referencing of "you" in line 24. So even the text world switches to a future world that is beyond the speaker's knowledge, i.e. a hypothetical future world that the speaker still tries to place the imagined "you" inside of it. Therefore, lines 21–24 are arguably still a presentation of hypothetical future world based more

The same modal verb "yào" underlined in lines 18 and 19, however, suggests a different sense from the previous one in lines 4 and 12, thereby signalling a change

The first thing to notice in the above lines is the connective "ér" (literal meaning "but; however") that is associated with the notion of contrast. Prior to these lines, the speaker was described as being actively and closely engaged in her fantasy. Her engagement with the fantasy, parallel with the steam-pressing work in reality, is now drawn to an end as she ends her work shift. Also, the sense of authoritarian control resulting from her fantasizing, however, has been challenged since the sundress is to be sent away and that she has to draw herself out of the fantasy. Therefore, the connective "but" is indicative of a tone of loss, which in turn helps us to interpret the modal verb "yào" in 18 and 19 as an expression of self-obligation (paraphrased as "have to get off work") in which the speaker appeals to her own sense of duty, and this "duty", apparently, is driven by the external force, i.e. the

From this point onwards, the "tone" of the poem starts to change, from an intimate and engaging kind to the one with distance, loss and lack of control. This is

21 吊带裙 它将被装箱运出车间 The sundress It will be taken out of the factory

First, the reference to the object "sundress" changes from the second-person pronoun to the inanimate third-person pronoun "it". In terms of deictic shift theory, the change of pronoun signals the speaker's perceptual shift in relation to the sundress, as becoming more distal in terms of attitude. This perceptual shift is also consistent with our previous interpretation of lines 18–19 that the emotional bounding between the speaker and the sundress was broken by the fact that the speaker has completed her work in relation to the dress. Even though the pressing worker has devoted her time, effort and even emotion to the sundress, the latter, yet still, leaves her behind. The sense of loss is further reinforced by the multiple uses of indefinite references such as "某个" (literal meaning as "some") and the connective "or". From these references, it is clear that the speaker has no idea what would happen to the

p. 219).

of attitude:

The set of ideological assumptions discussed above tend to foreground (i) the speaker's belief world that it would be the middle-class girls who can buy and wear the sundress and also (ii) a wish world that she could be one of them. It is arguable that the specificity of the imagined scenes is associated with the speaker's wish in a "you" that can realize all her fantasies by wearing the sundress, whereas the effect of vagueness is contributed by the fact that the speaker's limited amount of knowledge about how these scenes might be played out in real life (i.e. *prospective extension of a character's knowledge-world*, 21: 116). In general, the high degree of idealization of these hypothetical futures in turn implicates a mixed attitude of unsatisfaction, compromise and hope that the speaker holds towards her real-life situation.

This attitudinal combination of belief and wish is supported by the combination of boulomaic, deontic and epistemic modalities. All the features identified so far contribute to vivid representations of the steam-press work and the dress-wearing that do not take place in reality by the speaker. For the dress-wearing scenes, the unrealized status of the actions is implied by the modal verbs "可以" ("*kě-yˇı*") in 8 and 15 that express not only the speaker's notion of possibility (paraphrased as "it is possible to") but also her permission (paraphrased as "be allowed to"), thereby also conveying some degree of intrinsic human control over the hypothetical situations ([12], p. 219, [18], p. 99).

The sense of control is further intensified by the modal verb "一定要" ("yī-dìngyào"; literal meaning "must") in line 16. Similar to the English modality, the Chinese expression "yī-dìng-yào" expresses the intrinsic modality of duty while conveying the extrinsic sense of necessity. In the poem, from "you can run" to "you must let the dress fly", the speaker apparently maximizes her control over the imagined addressee, a process which could be interpreted as the speaker's increasing involvement in constructing a hypothetical world, alone with which also her increasing desire in living in this fantasy world.

#### **4. Loss in demisidentification**

Whereas the dress-wearing scenes are supported by the speaker's strong desire, the dress-pressing scene can then be argued to be in line with her sense of determination. Different from the modal verbs used for depicting the dress-wearing situations, the work scene is mainly delivered through the modal verb "要" (yào), first in lines 4 and 12 and then in 18 and 19. According to the *Modern Chinese Dictionary* [24], three senses are mostly relevant to the understanding of "yào": (i) "to want, to wish"<sup>2</sup> ; (ii) "being determined to"; and (iii) "being going to". The verb "yào" in lines 4 and 12 is conceptualized based on a combination of the last two senses, denoting a semantic mixture of planning and determined willingness to carry out the plan. This is similar to the modal verb "will" in modern English which has an

<sup>2</sup> According to grammarians (Po-Ching & Rimmington, 2003, p. 284), "yào", when denoting wish, tends to suggest a strong desire in comparison to the modal verb "xiǎng" (lit. want) indicative of a lighter degree of desire. Also, it is the first sense of "desiring" that is used in the published version.

*Identity, Self-Identity and Beauty in Chinese Female Worker DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.92108*

the speaker's "world-view" ([22], pp. 130–134) or "ideological viewpoint" ([23], p. 277) about social superiority of "you". The ideological assumptions of this description are carried by further an abundance of positively charged adjectives including "lovely", "fine", "tree-shaded" and "quiet", which help create a first-date scenario that is correlated with the ideological associations the speaker has for the

*Beauty - Cosmetic Science, Cultural Issues and Creative Developments*

The set of ideological assumptions discussed above tend to foreground (i) the speaker's belief world that it would be the middle-class girls who can buy and wear the sundress and also (ii) a wish world that she could be one of them. It is arguable that the specificity of the imagined scenes is associated with the speaker's wish in a "you" that can realize all her fantasies by wearing the sundress, whereas the effect of vagueness is contributed by the fact that the speaker's limited amount of knowledge about how these scenes might be played out in real life (i.e. *prospective extension of a character's knowledge-world*, 21: 116). In general, the high degree of idealization of these hypothetical futures in turn implicates a mixed attitude of unsatisfaction, compromise and hope that the speaker holds towards her real-life

This attitudinal combination of belief and wish is supported by the combination of boulomaic, deontic and epistemic modalities. All the features identified so far contribute to vivid representations of the steam-press work and the dress-wearing that do not take place in reality by the speaker. For the dress-wearing scenes, the unrealized status of the actions is implied by the modal verbs "可以" ("*kě-yˇı*") in 8 and 15 that express not only the speaker's notion of possibility (paraphrased as "it is possible to") but also her permission (paraphrased as "be allowed to"), thereby also conveying some degree of intrinsic human control over the hypothetical situations

The sense of control is further intensified by the modal verb "一定要" ("yī-dìngyào"; literal meaning "must") in line 16. Similar to the English modality, the Chinese expression "yī-dìng-yào" expresses the intrinsic modality of duty while conveying the extrinsic sense of necessity. In the poem, from "you can run" to "you must let the dress fly", the speaker apparently maximizes her control over the imagined addressee, a process which could be interpreted as the speaker's increasing involvement in constructing a hypothetical world, alone with which also her

Whereas the dress-wearing scenes are supported by the speaker's strong desire, the dress-pressing scene can then be argued to be in line with her sense of determination. Different from the modal verbs used for depicting the dress-wearing situations, the work scene is mainly delivered through the modal verb "要" (yào), first in lines 4 and 12 and then in 18 and 19. According to the *Modern Chinese Dictionary* [24], three senses are mostly relevant to the understanding of "yào": (i) "to want, to

; (ii) "being determined to"; and (iii) "being going to". The verb "yào" in

lines 4 and 12 is conceptualized based on a combination of the last two senses, denoting a semantic mixture of planning and determined willingness to carry out the plan. This is similar to the modal verb "will" in modern English which has an

<sup>2</sup> According to grammarians (Po-Ching & Rimmington, 2003, p. 284), "yào", when denoting wish, tends to suggest a strong desire in comparison to the modal verb "xiǎng" (lit. want) indicative of a lighter

degree of desire. Also, it is the first sense of "desiring" that is used in the published version.

middle class ([8], p. 60).

([12], p. 219, [18], p. 99).

increasing desire in living in this fantasy world.

**4. Loss in demisidentification**

situation.

wish"<sup>2</sup>

**28**

overlapped meaning of volition (intrinsic) and prediction (extrinsic)" ([12], p. 219).

The same modal verb "yào" underlined in lines 18 and 19, however, suggests a different sense from the previous one in lines 4 and 12, thereby signalling a change of attitude:

18 而我要下班了 But I'm getting off work 19 我要洗一洗汗湿的厂服 I need to wash my sweaty factory uniform

The first thing to notice in the above lines is the connective "ér" (literal meaning "but; however") that is associated with the notion of contrast. Prior to these lines, the speaker was described as being actively and closely engaged in her fantasy. Her engagement with the fantasy, parallel with the steam-pressing work in reality, is now drawn to an end as she ends her work shift. Also, the sense of authoritarian control resulting from her fantasizing, however, has been challenged since the sundress is to be sent away and that she has to draw herself out of the fantasy. Therefore, the connective "but" is indicative of a tone of loss, which in turn helps us to interpret the modal verb "yào" in 18 and 19 as an expression of self-obligation (paraphrased as "have to get off work") in which the speaker appeals to her own sense of duty, and this "duty", apparently, is driven by the external force, i.e. the fact that she does not own the dress.

From this point onwards, the "tone" of the poem starts to change, from an intimate and engaging kind to the one with distance, loss and lack of control. This is manifested linguistically through the following features:

20 我已把它折叠好 打了包 I have folded it packed it

21 吊带裙 它将被装箱运出车间 The sundress It will be taken out of the factory

22 走向某个市场 某个时尚店面 To some market Some boutique

23 在某个下午或晚上 Waiting in some afternoon or evening

24 等待唯一的你 Only for You.

First, the reference to the object "sundress" changes from the second-person pronoun to the inanimate third-person pronoun "it". In terms of deictic shift theory, the change of pronoun signals the speaker's perceptual shift in relation to the sundress, as becoming more distal in terms of attitude. This perceptual shift is also consistent with our previous interpretation of lines 18–19 that the emotional bounding between the speaker and the sundress was broken by the fact that the speaker has completed her work in relation to the dress. Even though the pressing worker has devoted her time, effort and even emotion to the sundress, the latter, yet still, leaves her behind. The sense of loss is further reinforced by the multiple uses of indefinite references such as "某个" (literal meaning as "some") and the connective "or". From these references, it is clear that the speaker has no idea what would happen to the sundress she has pressed nor has the idea as to who would buy the dress.

Nevertheless, the reader can sense her unwillingness to detach herself from the fantasized "you-I". It is interesting to note that the buyer of the sundress is characterized by concrete referencing of "you" in line 24. So even the text world switches to a future world that is beyond the speaker's knowledge, i.e. a hypothetical future world that the speaker still tries to place the imagined "you" inside of it. Therefore, lines 21–24 are arguably still a presentation of hypothetical future world based more on the speaker's fantasy than on her knowledge.

25 陌生的姑娘 The girl unknown 26 我爱你 I Love you

In the last two lines, two textual features interrelated with one another deserve our attention. The first to notice is line 26 which writes "I love you". This sentence, in relation to the whole poem, serves as a register signaling the literary convention of a love letter. The researchers of this paper have conducted a seminar, surveying the students' readings of this poem. After their first reading, three out of eight postgraduate students majored in literature and linguistics have identified, based mainly on line 26, the speaker as a male and the poem a love letter. Interestingly enough, it is also this kind of taken-for-granted identification that evokes a schematic deviation within these two last lines of the poem.

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*Identity, Self-Identity and Beauty in Chinese Female Worker*

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Her wording, however, indicates that despite her reluctance to accept it, she is aware somehow that the fantasy world is leaving her. Conventionally speaking, we should have a good, if not full, knowledge about the person whom we claim to love. In the above lines, however, the love is associated with the person whom the poetic speaker refers to as "the girl unknown". It is odd to refer to someone we have attached such a strong emotion to as being simultaneously specific ("the only" in 25 and "the" in 26) and unspecific ("unknown" in 25). The only interpretation from this contrastive pair of references is that the sense of specificity is related to the hypothetical enactor constructed by the speaker's fantasy, while the non-specificity results from the limited knowledge the speaker has in relation to her fantasy.

Similar to all the paradoxical connotations described above, the "girl", projected by the strong desire and a close identification from the speaker, is however, underspecified due to the speaker's lack of real-life experience. There does exist an actual future domain in which *some* girl would buy the sundress, and when this happens, the actual "you" would not overlap with the hypothetical "you". We hence argue that the paradoxical contrast between "I wish to become" and "I know how to become" further reinforces the poetic theme of loss.

In short, she is reluctant to leave the fantasy world because it is a great loss. She is losing the most important part of her. She knows it but she also knows that any effort to cling to it is in vain. We see in this (mis)identification her desire to change her class status. It is a reverse of her identity as the working class. And as we have pointed out above and elsewhere, this reversal is caused by the "fall" of the working class in the economic and political system in contemporary China. The economicopolitical plays an important role in shaping her sense of beauty and self-acceptance.

#### **Author details**

Li Yun\* and Rong Rong School of Foreign Languages, South China University of Technology, China

\*Address all correspondence to: flly@scut.edu.cn and flrrong@scut.edu.cn

© 2020 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

*Identity, Self-Identity and Beauty in Chinese Female Worker DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.92108*
