Speechlessness, objectification, and stasis: the construction of footbinding terminology in Chinese–English dictionaries, 1815–2021

Abstract

This article examines the gendered politics embedded in Chinese–English lexicographical translations of footbinding terminology from the nineteenth century to the present. Drawing on feminist translation studies and critical lexicography, the study demonstrates that dictionaries function as culturally determining discourses rather than neutral linguistic repositories. Through a diachronic analysis, the research identifies three discursive mechanisms: structural silence, aestheticized objectification, and static reconfiguration. Early missionary lexicography displayed a systematic absence of footbinding terminology produced by gendered spatial segregation and a reliance on elite Confucian linguistic standards. From the late nineteenth century, the introduction of terms such as “golden lilies” leveraged the dictionary’s scientific authority to recontextualize bodily suffering into romanticized symbols for the Orientalist gaze. In modern dictionaries, the shift to seemingly neutral renderings like “bound feet” further attenuates violence through the nominalization of dynamic coercion into a static condition, thereby erasing agency and lived pain. The study concludes that the transition from aestheticization to scientific neutrality masks a persistent patriarchal discourse within the lexicographical record. It calls for a feminist lexicographical ethics that exposes the unilateral perspectives hidden behind the veneer of neutrality, restoring corporeal reality to women’s experiences in cross-cultural knowledge production.