摘要：This study aims to investigate the issue of female identity construction in advertisements inChinese and in English languages respectively from a contrastive perspective. The researchquestions asked are: (1) What kinds of female identities are presented in Chinese and Englishadvertisements for the same-brand and the same-type products? (2) In what ways are thepresented female identities similar and/or different? (3) What other categories of productsmight involve female identity construction? In order to answer these questions, nine Chineseadvertisements that involve female identity construction have been selected from the Chineselanguageeditions of three popular international female magazines published in Taiwan: Elle,Marie Claire, and Beauty as well as nine English advertisements that involve female identityconstruction from three popular American magazines, Good Housekeeper, Ladies’ HomeJournal, and Health. Out of the 18 advertisements, five same-brand products and one sametypeproduct were found and compared for their similarities and/or differences between theads of the two languages. In three out of the five same-brand products, there were not enoughdata from the magazines, so the Internet was used as a supplementary resort for any possibleclues. The purpose is to do a precise or near-precise comparison between the female identitiesconstructed for the audiences of two different sociocultural backgrounds. The last sixadvertisements (found only in the English magazines) are discussed for their female identitypresentation in gender-neutral products. The results show some interesting differences infemale identity construction in the Chinese-language and English-language ads. Finally, adirection for future research in this area is proposed.
