Pride and/or Prejudice? Humans’ Attitudes toward Insects within Chinese Naming Terms

Abstract Chinese vernacular names of insects mirror diverse ecological “stories,” representing the interdependence of insects, humans, and the environment. However, there is insufficient research on attitudinal meanings and stories of Chinese insect names. To fill the gap, we collected 39 names of ladybugs and 34 names of cockroaches from authoritative sources as comprehensively as possible. Results and analyses show that the interaction between cognitive devices and environmental factors results in various attitudinal meanings of Chinese vernacular names of ladybugs and cockroaches. Ladybug names tend to evoke positive and neutral connotations while cockroach names evoke negative and neutral values. Their underlying stories manifest as reductionism under the influence of natural factors, speciesism, and biased empiricism under cultural factors and pragmatism under social ones. This article presents introspection into human-insect relations in the Chinese context.