A Study on the Underlying Causes Behind the Declining Trend of Chinese Male’s Authority in Families: A Socio-functional Perspective —Taking a Chinese Dialect Episode: Go! The Whole Family as an Example

Males have had greatest authorities in Chinese families since ancient times. However, it can be sensed that their authorities in families are declining in recent decades. Then such questions arise: first, are there any concrete evidences that can show us that Chinese male’s authority in families is declining? Second, what are the underlying causes behind this declining trend? In this article, based on Halliday’s systemic-functional grammar, esp. the idea about the construction of interpersonal meaning through mood structure, and Bakhtin’s dialogue theory, we did quantitative and qualitative analyses of the data selected from a Chinese dialect episode: Go! The Whole Family. The study reveals that the declining of the Chinese male’s authority in the family has become a publicly recognized convention, and this declining trend is not simply a social phenomenon, rather, it also reflects the universal human nature, that is, the pursuit of equality and humanism.