英语中的性别歧视2

英语中的性别歧视
Abstract
Sexism in English language has launched along with the vigorous development of w omen’s liberation movement since the end of 1960s. As a mirror reflecting the socie ty, language images the social views and values. Sexism in society is thus inevitably reflected in the use of language.
The paper based on the analysis of sex discrimination in English explores that it is by no means an extinction of sexist language so long as the sexism in society exist s. The causes of sexism in this thesis are the inequality between male and female. In ancient time, the thoughts that males host females and the treatment of women as inferiors to men are in vogue. Men are always at superior positions to women i n the social economy, in the politics, as well as in the people’s tradi tional ideas, so the idea of sex discrimination has reflected in the language. The thesis summarizes the phenomena of sexism in English by using universal evidence, and they are sho wn and discussed in four aspects: English proverbs, English expressions, English voc abulary and the meanings of English words. Lastly, the thesis introduces two feasibl e strategies to erase sexism in English language, and they are: language reform an d social reform. The most important one is to erase the sexist conceptions and imp rove women’s status, respect and support them. The language transformation can b e realistic on the basis of the social reform.
Key Words
Sexism; female words; masculine words; strategies
摘要
自20世纪60年代起，语言性别歧视已随着女性解放运动的展开而得到蓬勃发展。

语言是社会现实的一种反映，因此由于历史发展、文化、社会价值及男女两性之间在生理等方面的差异而引起的性别歧视，尤其是社会对女性的性别歧视一览无余的体现在语言上，英语语言中也存在性别歧视。

本篇论文阐述了性别歧视产生的原因是男女地位的不平等，在人类早期，男尊女卑的思想盛行，男子在社会经济、政治、文化领域以及人们的传统观念中，总是处于比女性优越的地位,人们在观念上形成的对妇女特有的歧视观念慢慢形成并反映在语言中。

本文分析了性别歧视在英语中的四个方面的表现：在谚语中；在词汇中；在词语中和在词义中，通过大量的举例和分类来系统阐述。

最后着重讨论了消除性别歧视语所应采取的一些策
略，从语言策略和社会策略两方面入手，要消除性别歧视，关键在于根除社会上存在的性别歧视观念，进一步提高妇女的社会地位，语言的变革只能在社会变革的基础上才能实现。

关键词
性别歧视；女性词；男性词；策略
Introduction
Language is a social phenomenon, and it has a close relationship with the social lif e, the language is used in a specific social group and it is not only the carrier of t he ideological content, but a mirror of social life, it reveals people’s traditional thou ghts that sex discrimination against women in the society. From the development a nd changes of the language, people can conclude that sex discrimination does not only exist in China, but in all the countries. Therefore, how does English language r eflect the social phenomenon?
The first person who did research on the gender and language is the Denmark ling uist Otto.Jespersen, he regards English as the most masculine language that is famil iar to him, and it is a man centered language. The domestic scholars and experts, Yang Yonglin, Bai Jiehong, and so on, have done thorough research about sexist el ement in the English language, they also have introduced some feasible strategies t o erase the sexism, but they just have done thorough research from the language strategy aspect. In the thesis, the author does the research from the combination o f the social reforms and language reforms, and it is essential to erase the sexism fr om people’s minds. English, as one of the most widespread languages, its sexist ele ment shall not be suitable to the intercultural communications, but there is massive discrimination in it, people should pay much more attention to the sex equality an d the improvement of women’s social positions. Understanding the sexist phenomen on in English language helps people study the language culture, and correctly treat the changes of the language in the historical development. The thesis emphatically i ntroduces and analyzes the specific phenomena of sexism and also provides corresp onding strategies that can be used to eliminate sexism in English language.
Ⅰ. A Definition to Sexism in English Language
Sexism, in the Oxford Advan ced Learner’s English-Chinese dictionary, it means that disapproving action based on the ideas or belief that the members of one sex are l ess intelligent, able, and skillful, etc, than the members of the other sex, especially that women are less able than men and those particular jobs and actions are suitab le for women and others are suitable for men. Sexism in English refers to English e xpresses sexist assumptions about differences between men and women as in the p rejudicial use of female or male words
Sexist language expresses unfair assumptions and differences, and it can be either explicit, as in the prejudicial use of male or female pronouns, or implicit. Using univ ersal evidence, the thesis here reveals how often English expresses sexist assumptio ns about differences between men and women.
Just as a proverb goes in England: “If you see an old man, sit down and take a le sson; if you see an old woman, throw a stone.” what expresses English version of the sexism prescribed for women, is particularly confining. English jokes and folklore are blatantly sexist. (Nilsen Alleen Pace, 1990). In fact, woman in the world no m atter in which country she lives, the roles designated to them is unfair in the societ y.
Ⅱ. Sexism in English Language
The paper presents the sexist phenomenon, which is very universal in English langu age. And it is shown and discussed in four aspects: English proverbs, English expre ssions, English vocabulary and the meanings of English words.
A. Sexism in English Proverbs
Proverb is crystallization of human wisdom and incarnation of the concise language. The linguists consider the proverbs as a mirror of the ethnic, the live fossil of the language. In recent years, with the further study of the language, the linguists hav e found what refers to both genders, most proverbs in every kind of language unav oidably express the affection of the male chauvinism and feudal consciousness of th e treatment of females are inferior to males, and followings are some usual pheno mena of the sexist language in English proverbs.
1. Role category
The women are considered as delicious food in the society, the roles of women in t he society and culture in every country are very passive, but men are active, for ex ample: “A fair woman without virtue is like palled wine”, “all women may be won”,“words are women, and deeds are men”. The sentence “long hair and short wit” e
xpresses women is lack of wisdom, but men are clever, another example goes like this: “when an ass climbs a ladder, we may find wisdom in women” （庄和诚，2002）, the sexist language expresses women are lack of wisdom and they are capricious.
2. Manner Category
In modern society, most people hold such mind that men are successful but women are sexy. In American culture, a woman is valued for the attractiveness and sexine ss of her body, while man is valued for his physical strength and accomplishments.
A persuasive piece of evidence supporting this view is that female eponyms relate c losely to a woman’s physical anatomy, while the masculine eponyms have nothing t o do with the namesake’s body, but instead, honor the man for his achievement an d accomplishment.
3. Marriage Category
In relation to marriage, there is much linguistic evidence showing that weddings are more important to women than to men. Many proverbs reflect such feudal conscio usness that girls are not important in a family. For example: “it is a sad house whe re the hen crows louder than the cock”, “Marry your son when you will, your daug hter when you can”, “there are many good women, it is true but they are in their graves”. （庄和诚，2002）Such examples have revealed women are inferior and su bordinate to them.
B. Sexism in English Expressions
English has gradually formed the tendency that the expressions referred to the male generalize the ones pointed to the two genders during its development. Although p eople do not mind to discriminate against women during their communications, the phenomena that people discriminate against women reflect the gender bias of societ y, and sometimes, women feel insult from other people. Moreover, some expression s structure that elaborate the meanings of discriminating against woman have emer ged, and therefore people call English a sexist language.
1. The Summary of Masculine Expressions on Two Genders
Masculine English expressions summarize two genders. People often meet such sent ences during our study and daily life: “any patient is free to bring his complaint to me if he feels aggrieved”, “we hope the reader will use his own judgment”, “everyo ne should hand his homework tomo rrow”. From the above examples, it is clear that the words “his” or “he “in the sentences refer to two genders, not the single gend er, that is to say, “he” contains “she”, “his” contains “her”. Besides, to begin a lett
er, words referred to males contain two genders in salutations of a letter, people of ten use the words referred to man summarize man and woman when they do not know the receiver’s specific sex of the people, for example, in formal letters, people often use “Dear sir or Dear gentlemen”, but do not care for the receiver’s sex. Th e sexism exists in every field, so people should pay much attention to the sexist ph enomenon in the language.
2. Sex Orders in Expressions and Words
Female words are behind male words, in some English expressions, when referring t o men and women, the two genders are not equal, female words are behind male words, for instance: brother and sister, father and mother, boys and girls, husband and wife, man and woman. Those do not elaborate the sexist meanings in form bu t with sexism in sense. The jobs teacher, nurse, secretary, model, and etc, these n eutral words are designated to female, but professor, lawyer, doctor, etc. are recog nized as masculine words and designated to males. All these customaries are a soci al bias, just l ook at another example: “professional”, when a man is called a profes sional, he is thought to be a doctor or a lawyer, but when people hear a woman r eferred to as a professional, and they are likely to think of a prostitute. But it is n ot true today, because so many women have become doctors and lawyers that it is no longer incongruous to think of women in those professional roles. People should change their traditional conceptions that females are inferior to males.
3. The Changes of Female Words’ Meanings
During the development of English, many female words’ meanings have taken place during the history. For example, “governor”, in old English, it referred to the perso n in charge of a particular unit, and now it keeps the same meaning. However, the relative word “governess” means another thing, it has changed its former meaning from family tutor into prostitute, and another example, “master” and “mistress” ref erred to the male and female school teacher, but now the word “mistress” refers to a woman who is having a sexual relationship with a married man, and so do man y other words, lord and lory, sir and Madame, temper and temptress. The female w ords have changed their former meanings and they have been endowed with a belit tled meaning, which is the sexist reflection in English language.
C. Sexism in English Vocabulary
Sexism exists in English language, it shows that masculine vocabulary refer to both genders, that is to say, the generalization of the masculine words.
1. Sex Discrimination and Job Titles
Inferior job titles refer to both genders, but higher ones only refer to male. In Engl ish, there are both feminine words and masculine words referred to the inferior job s in social status. For instance, waiter and waitress, steward and stewardess. But w hen referring to the higher post titles, there are only masculine words, such as doct or, professor, engineer, etc. are suitable for both genders. However, these words ar e usually associated with masculine, if they are used to designate female, they woul d always be added on a word “woman” or “lady”. Such as these words a lady-doct or, a business woman-lawyer. In English, the words used to describe woman are pe jorative and belittled, but the words used to describe man are positive and praised, although the man and woman do the same work in a company, people used to d escribe them with different words due to the social bias, for example, a businessma n is aggressive, and a businesswoman is pushy. In addition, one often meets these phenomena during our daily lives
2. Man and Woman
Male are superior to females. Woman is subordinate to man. In vocabulary, the nou ns ending with –er, –or are neutral words, but people think they are masculine, suc h as doctor, professor; engineer, etc. If they are designated to females, they alway s add woman or lady before them, and many professional nouns take “man” as the ir suffix, such as chairman, mailman, etc. Although there are many women working in the field, the word he always indicate the both genders, just as English teachers often say th at nobody in the class can be proud of his English, here, “his” stands for girls and boys, no matter that there are many boys and girls in the class. The generalization of the word “he” reveals men are superior to women and men are th e center of the society.
D. Sexism in the Meanings of English Words
A word, when it is used in different genders, it is endowed with different meanings. For example, “prudent man” refers to a man who is careful and cautious to the u ncertainties and he acts care and foresight, but “prudent woman” is the woman wh o behaves in an extremely manner. And another example: “imposing man” refers to the man who looks important or causes admiration, but “imposing woman” refers t o the woman who is indifferent, ruthless and horrible.
Further more, another word “tramp” which is used to refer to the man without famil y, job or money, who travels around and asks for money from others ,but when “tr amp” refers to a woman, it is a mistress, obviously it is a semantic choice of social
bias. Sometimes, two words point to the same thing, the linguistic senses are diffe rent, for example, bachelor refers to the single man, but the word spinster refers t o the unmarried old woman, the two words are unequal in the linguistic sense. Just because of the social bias, the society treats the single man and woman differently. For English itself, there is no sex discrimination, even no gender difference in it, m asculine meanings are endowed with gender inequality by people purposely. From t he above evidences, people can find factors about the gender discrimination in Engli sh language
.
Ⅲ. The Causes of Sexism in English Language
English language, as a social phenomenon, it surely reflects the society, and it has the features which are changeable and profound. As a mirror reflecting the society, language images the social views and values. Sexism in society is thus inevitably ref lected in the use of language, it reveals the gender bias of the society.
A. The Causes of Social Position and Power
The sexist language reveals discrimination against women in social life. In ancient ti mes, man was the center of the society and more important than woman, no matt er in which field, such as in the social economics, politics, culture fields and traditio nal conceptions, woman was inferior to man and was subordinated and dominated by man, they have been looked down upon gradually. As a result, the idea that wo man is inferior to man has been revealed in the language.
Sexism exists in people’s minds. Sexism does not only exist indepen dently in the lan guages, but also exists in people’s minds. Language is like an X-ray in providing visi ble evidence of invisible thoughts. The most important thing people are interested i n is to discuss sexist language as they make conscious decisions about what pronou ns they will use, no matter what jokes they will tell or laugh at, how they will writ e their names, or how they will begin their letters, they are forced to think about t he underlying issue of sexism. Sexism in English is the remnant of sexism in one c ulture reflected in the English.
B. The Effect of Traditional Conception and Culture Consciousness
Social bias has engendered with the impact of the social surroundings and the tradi tional conceptions, the discrimination against woman in English language has formed a kind of vicious circle, the bias and discrimination against woman is a part of cult
ure values, and the propagation of the culture values has strengthened the sexism. The first woman Eve reported in the Bible is created by the rib taken from Adam (t he first man made by God), it proves that woman belongs to man, woman is creat ed for man, and the religion supports the idea that female is inferior to man. Sexis t phenomenon in language reveals the social life. To some extent, language is a mi rror of social life, and it reflects the relationships between moral sense and ideology of treatment of females as inferior to males. Therefore, the sex discrimination in la nguage cannot be eliminated if sexism exists in the society. The unfair positions bet ween man and woman is one causes of the society, in primitive time, and man wa s at superior position in the social economics, politics and people’s traditional ideolo gy, women were inferior and subordinated to men, so people have formed the tradi tional conceptions that belittle woman, the false idea reflected the discrimination ag ainst women have gradually permeated in the language, and then there have been sexist language.
Ⅳ. The Strategies of Eliminating or Avoiding Sexism in English
In English language, people can find universal phenomena of sexism, but with the v igorous developing of women’s liberation movement and the improving of women’s status, the sexism in English language have desalinated. Two ways are used to elim inate the sexist English, they are: language strategy and social reform.
A. Language Strategies
Eliminating the sexist language is to apply standard language, and populate the neu tral words and expressions, and avoid the masculine words in the communication.
1. Population of Neutral Words and Expressions
The most important thing to erase the sexism in English language is to spread the neutralization of words and expressions, the neutralization of them is to stop the ge neration of the sexist words with “man” as their suffix and the usage s of the sexist job titles, to populate the usages of affix “person” to replace the words with “ma n”, such as chairperson replaces chairman, mailperson replaces mailman, salesperson replaces salesman, etc. It’s a new trend to spread neutral words and use t he gend er-free words. Such as the words teacher, officer, dealer, coach, child, clerk, politici an, leader, tutor, writer, and expert, etc. and try to avoid the words ending with su ffix “man”. For instance, use firefighter instead of fireman, supervisor ins tead of for eman, and seller instead of salesman, and so on.
2. Avoiding of the Generalization of Masculine Word “He”
One of the most difficult problems is the lack of a singular personal pronoun with which to refer to one person whose sex is unknown or ir relevant. Traditionally “he”has been used, with “his” as the possessive, but the use of “his” is open to the s ame objection as the use of man. The solutions are: first, changing to a plural and use “they” and “their” for the singular, so change the sentence: “if a student can't be in class, he'll have to do the work in his own time” to: “If a student can't be i n class, they'll have to do the work in their own time”. Another example: “Anyone who wants to go to the game should bring his money tomorrow”, this one is sexist, and people should revise it as “anyone who wants to go to the game should bring their money tomorrow”. Second, the third person plural pronouns “they”, “them”, “their” not only refer to the plural, but the single. For instance: “everyone sh ould b ring their books tomorrow” is equal to “everyone should bring his or her book tomo rrow” In the intercultural communications, trying to avoid the sexist language, and people should possess prudent attitudes, using the standard words to replace the se xist ones, so as to get an equal language environment.
3. Ms. as an Alternative to Both Mrs. and Miss.
Women are labelled as married or unmarried women when they give their title as Mrs or Miss, but men are all Mr and don’t have to reveal their marital stat us in soc iety, so feminists have proposed Ms as a equivalence of Mr, there is an incresing tr end to drop the titles and a person’s first name and surname in letters, public notic es, and so on. For example, when people want to write a letter to a company, but do not know the sex or name of that person, they can start the letter “Dear Mr. and Ms.” or “Dear Agent”. The examples show that it is incorrect and not accetable to ignore women in business and some other fields, it’s also not good to offend p eople with sexist words and expressions.
B.Social Strategy
First of all, it is significant to establish the social consciousness that women are equ al to men, language is a mirror of the society, there is no sexism even gender diff erence in the English itself. The sexism is naturally revealing the social values and cultural consciousness. In order to eliminate the sexism in English language, the mo st urgent thing is to eliminate and critize the backward traditional conceptions that man is the center of the society and more supperior to woman. In fact ,women , a s a part of the socity , have contributed a lot to the society. Therefore, people, no matter in which country, have the right to enjoy the equality of both sexes.
Moreover, it is important to publish the modern ideology that women enjoy equal ri ghts with man, to propagate and educate people that society consists of men and women, they are equal in all the fields. Moreover, women should be confident in th emselves and goad themselves. Only the women get equal positions with men can t hey get the respects and supports from men .When people in the society set up th e ideas that women are equal to men, there is hope to eliminate the sexism in En glish. From the above, the best thing that people know is to eliminate sexist conce ptions from people’s minds, then eliminate sexism in English has realistic significanc e.
Conclusion
People not only s pay attention to the English language itself, but the sexism in it. It is inevitable to remove the sexist conceptions from people’s minds, and it is the general trend of current social development, the equal dialogue and culture exchang e. The society consists of male and female. How will they apply their own language s to communication and what they hold in common will be the humanity’s eternal t opics.
Language is a social phenomenon, and it develops along with the advancing of the society. The sexism in English cannot disappear if sex discrimination exists, if people only abolish the words accompanied with sex discrimination instead of changing pe ople’s traditional minds, and then there will be new sexist words to come one day. English language, which is regarded as one of the most widespread languages, is a n important tool for intercultural communication. To some extent, those who are en gaged in multinational communication are bound to understand the cultural backgro und of English words and the meanings of them in different context correctly. As fo r the sexist words, people should be careful to use them, lest they will make some mistakes unconsciously during their communication or cause some unnecessary mis understandings. With the developing of the women’s liberation movement and the i mproving of their social status, the sexism has desalinated a lot, its current trends are the appearance of the neutralized English words and the disappearance of sexis t English language. The thesis analyzes the phenomena of sexism in English in thre e aspects: the specific phenomena, the causes, and the strategies of eliminating sex ism in English language. The thesis aims at helping people erase the sexist phenom ena and apply the standard language. The thesis plays an important role in English teaching, what’s more, it helps these English learners to get better understandings about English language.
Acknowledgements
I would like to express my indebtedness to my tutor------Ms. Zhu Quanquan, my B.
A. Thesis supervisor, whose detailed advice and painstaking and invaluable criticism of earlier drafts had a major impact to the final shape of the paper, without her re markable insights and her invaluable suggestions for improvement of the thesis, the completion of the paper would have been impossible.
And I also greatly appreciate the help coming from my respectable teachers Profess or. Tang Guoping, Mr. Ma Dong and Ms. Tan Changlian, and Ms. Zhang Yihua.
At the same time, I want to thank my roommates Zhu Yan and Zhu Yuan Hong, a nd my best friends Miss Huang Rong, Liu Juan. They offer me excellent suggestions to write my paper. I hope I can apply my knowledge to my job in the future. Finally, I would like to offer my sincere gratitude to those who spend their precious time in reading this thesis.
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