（外国语言学及应用语言学专业论文）英语中的男性偏见研究.pdf

成都理工大学硕士学位论文 iii 英语中的男性偏见研究英语中的男性偏见研究 摘摘 要要 从某种程度上讲，语言是社会现实的反映，与此同时，它能让我们更清楚地 了解社会现实。语言的内涵中存在诋毁、贬低女性的现象，这种现象随处可见。 对女性诋毁、贬低这种现象已经被广泛研究。但是，对男性不利的语言现象很少 被研究。本文将从英语词汇，句型和模式化的社会形象三个方面对英语中的男性 偏见语进行研究。旨在揭示英语中存在文化和社会的男性偏见特征。本文同时给 出了处理这种语言现象的可行性策略。 这一研究同时也是试图从另一个角度改善 对女性的性别歧视。总之，本研究能帮助我们对语言和社会的关系有一个更好的 了解。 文章包括六个章节和结论。简介部分介绍文章的主要论点：语言是社会的镜 子。它不仅含有对女性的不利因素，同时也表达对男性的偏见。语言的内涵有时 否定女性并把她们置于从属和较低的地位，然而，很多情况下，它也包含有对男 性的不利因素。从本质说，语言本身并没有性别歧视，在某种程度上，男性和女 性都是陈旧观念的受害者。 简介勾勒了本文的计划并且是下面章节展开讨论的基 础。 第二章是文献综述，包含两个部分。第一部分陈述研究背景和意义；第二部 分是对国内外相关的研究做一个简单的介绍。与此同时，作者介绍萨皮尔沃尔 夫假设和预设理论以便获得理论支持。 第三章论述性别歧视的定义，sex 和 gender 的区别以及男性偏见。 第四章对英语中的男性偏见现象做详细的讨论。在词汇层面上，我们可以看 到不仅男性词汇可以作为通用表达，女性词汇也可以，例如：祖国、母语、母校 等等。还有，很多大众媒体在描述战争中或地区冲突中的受害总是用“无辜的妇 女和儿童” ，这很容易让人联想到“男人是有罪的” 。另外，有一些词如：无赖、 流氓、强奸犯等，这些词没有特殊的指男性或者女性的词缀，但人们很容易会把 这些词和男性联系在一起。最后一点，按照普遍的价值观，男孩们应该表现得勇 敢，如果他们做不到，他们就会被形容成娘娘腔。他们长大后应该是养家的人。 如果他们没有做到，就会被形容成：失败者、潦倒的人、寄生虫、附庸等等。因 此，在英语中存在对男性的偏见。 第五章追溯了英语中的男性偏见现象的起因。众所周知，任何一种语言现象 都有它的历史、社会和文化的原因。所以，作者从探究他们四者的关系入手，从 历史、社会和文化的角度探究原因。从历史的角度看，从劳动分工之初男人就被 视为繁重劳动的承担者和养家的人。从那时开始，男性的角色就被慢慢固定并认 为是理所当然的。从社会的角度看，因为很多社会领域都是由男性主导，因此女 性不满她们的社会地位和角色，有时她们会以一种极端的方式发泄。从文化的角 度看， 圣经在西方价值观的形成过程中有不可动摇的地位。在圣经中， 成都理工大学硕士学位论文 iv 当提到撒旦时，代词 he 就会被用来指它。因此， “he”总是和邪恶联系在一起有 它的文化渊源。 第六章探讨了消除英语中男性偏见现象的策略和方法。 西方一些激进的女权 运动者试图消除语言歧视，建立以女性为中心的语言。针对这一点，作者在肯定 她们对提升人们对英语中的性别歧视现象的认识所做出的贡献的同时保留了自 己在这一方面对她们的支持，因为她们在努力对女性肯定的同时，又导致了对男 性的性别歧视。作者认为，更具可行性的理论和策略应该包括言语学和社会两个 层面。从语言学的角度说，作者建议在交流中应用礼貌原则和合作原则以及中性 表达。从社会的角度看，最好的减少男性偏见的策略是让女性享有平等。这样， 可以减少女性的不满。最后，男女应建立和谐的关系。 最后是对本文的一个简要总结。同时，作者也期待在这一领域有更进一步的 研究。 关键词关键词：男性偏见；英语；性别歧视；起因；策略 成都理工大学硕士学位论文 i a study of anti-male bias in english language abstract the english language, to some extent, reflects the social reality. at the same time, it enables us to see the social reality more clearly. linguistic connotations of degrading and devaluing female can be found everywhere, which have been widely studied. but a linguistic phenomenon that is unfavorable to male is seldom studied. this thesis tries to explore linguistic biases that are against male in english vocabulary, sentence pattern and social stereotype. the purpose is to disclose the features of the english language that suggest cultural and social biases against male. in this thesis, the author also offers some feasible strategies to this linguistic phenomenon. the study also gives us an opposite perspective to better sexism. all in all, the study will help us to have a better understanding of the relationship between language and society. this thesis totally involves six chapters and a conclusion. in the introduction, the main argument point is introduced: language is the mirror of the society, and it not only has something that is unfavorable to female, but also conveys something that has biases against male. linguistic connotations sometimes deny women and relegate women to a subordinate or inferior position; however, in some cases, they also contain some elements that have adverse effects on men. naturally speaking, language itself is not sexist. in some degree, men and women are all victims of outmoded conventions of society. the introduction outlines the plan of this thesis and serves as the basis for the discussion in the following chapters. in chapter two the author will make literary review, which includes two parts. the first part is to present the background and the significance of the study, and then, make a brief introduction of relevant researches both at home and abroad. at the same time, the author will gain theoretical supports from sapir-whorf hypothesis and the theory of presupposition. chapter three involves the definition of sexism, the difference between sex and gender and anti-male bias. chapter four deals with in detail anti-male bias in the english language. on the morphological level, we can see that there are not only many generic masculine expressions in english, but also many expressions that are generic feminine expressions such as, mother land, mother tongue, alma mater and so on. what more, many mass media always use expressions, such as, “innocent women and children” to describe victims in a war or regional conflict, which easily enable people to relate that 成都理工大学硕士学位论文 ii “men are guilty”. in addition, there are some words, for instance, rascal, hooligan, rapist, and so on, all of which are without special affixes which can refer to male or female; however, people will easily associate with male. last but not the least, according to the universal value, boys should always behave bravely and courageously. if not, they will be described as sissy. when they grow up, they should be the bread-winner of the family. if they fail to do this, they will be dubbed as: loser、 deadbeat、parasite、leech and so forth. so there are some anti-male biases in the english language. chapter five traces the causes of anti-male bias in the english language. as is known to all, any kind of language phenomenon must have its historical, social and cultural causes. so the author presents their relations and then explores the causes from historical, social and cultural perspectives. historically, from the beginning of labor division, men have been regarded as the takers of heavy work and the bread-winner of the family. so from then on, the mens roles are fixed and taken for granted. socially, while the society is dominated by men in many fields, women are dissatisfied with their social status and roles and sometimes rent their dissatisfaction in an extreme way. culturally, the bible has its unmovable status in the formation of western values. in the bible, when satan is mentioned, the pronoun “he” will follow to refer to him. so “he” who is always related to evil image has his cultural origin. chapter six is devoted to discussing strategies and society methods of coping with anti-male biases in the english language. with regard to western radical feminists experiments of effecting linguistic disruption and creating a woman-centered language or degrading men, the author, on one hand, justifies their contributions to enhancing peoples awareness of sexism in english, but on the other hand, reserves his support in that respect, as their endeavors of seeking a perfect visibility of women causes the invisibility of men, which is a new type of sexism （that is anti-male bias）. more practical to the author are the theories and strategies that include both linguistic and social levels. linguistically, the author suggests using cp (cooperative principle) and pp (the politeness principle) principles and neutral expressions in conversation. socially, the best policy to alleviate anti-male biases is to enable women to enjoy equality. in that way, the dissatisfactions can be lessened. at last, men had better establish rapport with women. the last part is a brief summary of the whole thesis. at the same time, the author expects further research in this field. key words: anti-male bias; english language; sexism; causes; strategies 独创性声明 本人声明所呈交的学位论文是本人在导师指导下进行的研究工作及取得的 研究成果。据我所知，除了文中特别加以标注和致谢的地方外，论文中不包含其 他人已经发表或撰写过的研究成果， 也不包含为获得 成都理工大学 或其他教 育机构的学位或证书而使用过的材料。 与我一同工作的同志对本研究所做的任何 贡献均已在论文中作了明确的说明并表示谢意。 学位论文作者签名： 年 月 日 学位论文版权使用授权书 本学位论文作者完全了解 成都理工大学 有关保留、 使用学位论文的规定， 有权保留并向国家有关部门或机构送交论文的复印件和磁盘， 允许论文被查阅和 借阅。本人授权 成都理工大学 可以将学位论文的全部或部分内容编入有关数 据库进行检索，可以采用影印、缩印或扫描等复制手段保存、汇编学位论文。 （保密的学位论文在解密后适用本授权书） 学位论文作者签名： 学位论文作者导师签名： 年 月 日 acknowledgements my special gratitude goes to professor luo yijun first for his consent to be my supervisor, which is not only my great honor, but more importantly a great encouragement for me, for his insightful advice and unremitting instruction on my thesis in the whole process of writing. moreover, professor luos scrupulous attitude in doing research and teaching and his kindness to students leaves me a deep impression, which will benefit me a lot for my whole life. besides, my heartfelt gratitude also goes to professor liu yongzhi, professor luo runtian, professor duan cheng , professor kong fanjin professor zhu yan, and other honorable teacher whose wonderful lectures enhanced my interest in linguistics as well as inspired my academic view. i also want to thank my parents, my classmates and my beloved friends, whose love and encouragement have supported me to pursue my master degree. at last, i want to extend my thanks to chengdu university of technology for providing me such a cherish opportunity to increase my academic ability. chapter one introduction 1 chapter one introduction a major issue in sociolinguistic studies is about the relationship between sex and language, which is a hotly-discussed issue. as we know, one of the principle uses of the language is to establish and maintain social relationship. therefore, to do a research of sex and language can be significant. such kind of research can make us get a better understanding of the relationship between sex and language, language and society. through this research we also can get a good guideline of language use in our daily life. this thesis will focus on the relation of sex and language, especially on the anti-male bias in english. why does the author choose this research orientation? generally speaking, researches on sexism are very popular, but the author goes to the opposite direction. because numerous studies of sex bias in language have been made, but studies of anti-male bias have rarely been made. however, as is known to all, language biases against males really exist, which is not as eye-catching and widely studied as sexism. some linguists, including hudson, claim that“theoretically, we can put forward a similar question, which is the same as studies focus on language discriminating against women. as a matter of fact, language that is against men can be studied, but few people tried to do it, because they took it for granted that it was unnecessary to consider such questions. ” as is claimed by the popular point of view, language, society and culture are so closely related to one another. to do researches on language, we cannot ignore the elements of culture. nevertheless, if one culture contains something unfavorable to female, it must also have something that is unfavorable to male. in fact, the study of language and gender began in the late 1960s. if we take a fast look on the development of the study of sex and language, we can see that at the first beginning, all of the studies that concentrate on the language bias favor male to the detriment of female. yes, there are really many researches on sexism have shown that sexist languages exist in english, which is undoubted. but at the same time, the anti-male bias language has been neglected. “a theory claims that women and men are all victims of outmoded conventions of a certain social culture. the only difference between them is the degree to which they are victimized. in addition, men are usually covert prey (direct victims) of crypto-type language that has anti-male bias.”(杨永林， 2004：227) so, the study on anti-male bias in the english can be made. furthermore, the research on the anti-male language enables people to pay more attention to the neglected perspective of language study, avoids the mutual bias between male and female and establishes some kind of rapport between them on the level of language use. 成都理工大学硕士学位论文 2 chapter two literature review 2.1 background and significance of the study sociolinguistics is the science which studies the relationship between language and society, between the use of language and the social structures in which the users of language live. it is a field of study which assumes that human society is made up of many related patterns and behaviors, some of which are linguistic. the term sociolinguistics was first used by harver c. currie in 1952.however, it is generally recognized that sociolinguistics as an independent discipline arose in the mid 1960s.it is on the relation of language and context, language and culture, the social meanings of the words and so forth. so the key point of sociolinguistics is the relation of language and culture and society. the famous american linguist edward sapir said that“language is a guide to social reality.”language is the product of society; it is just like a mirror that reflects the social reality. society can greatly influence the language which is the communicative method and vice versa. as a symbolic system of human communication, language is a part of conventional culture. most languages are contained within their cultures, and a societys language is an aspect of its culture. （王 立非，2001：202） language and society are as intertwined as chicken and egg. the language culture uses its evidence of the values and beliefs of that culture. language is an important window through which one can understand the culture and society of the people, because peoples socio-cultural behaviors and attitudes as well as thoughts are reflected in their use of the language. as an essential part of culture, language is bound to be affected by social and cultural changes and the changes in language, in turn, faithfully reflected the socio-cultural changes. none of these changes does not embody such socio-cultural factors as : concepts, attitudes, and values. sexism is one of the prominent examples. (李学珍，2001：398) however, language is not just favorable to one side and unfavorable to the other side . if language has its bias, it must be two-sided. a major issue in sociolinguistic studies has been the relationship between sex and language, which is a hot-discussed issue. this thesis will focus on the relation of sex and language, especially on the anti-male bias in english. just as discussed in the above part, language, society and culture are so closely related to on another. we can not ignore the element of culture. so, if one culture contains something unfavorable to female, there must be also something unfavorable to male. in fact, the study of language and gender began in the late 1960s.(杨永林， 2004： 222) however, at the first beginning all of the studies concentrated on the sexism that favors male to the detriment of female. yes, there are really many researches on sexism have shown that chapter two literature review 3 sexist languages exist in english, which is undoubted. but at the same time, anti-male bias language studies have been neglected. “a theory claims that women and men are all victims of outmoded conventions of a certain social culture. the only difference between them is the degree to which they are victimized. in addition, men are usually convert prey(direct victims) of crypto-type language that has anti-male bias.(杨永林， 2004：227)” the research of anti-male language can let people pay attention to the neglected perspective of language study, avoid the mutual bias between male and female and establish some kind of rapport between them on the level of language use. 2.2 research of anti-male bias at home and abroad sexism exists in various socio-cultures. there is no exception in english. as early as 1920s, the prestigious linguist jespersen has noticed that there were many words in english that only referred to men. he wrote that: there are many nouns that can refer to both men and women and ignore the sex of the person. such as, professor, inhabitant, christian, aristocrat, fool, stranger, neighbor. however, there are also many words, because of the corresponding social functions, only refer to one side and can not be shared by both. such as: minister, bishop, lawyer, baker, shoemaker, nurse, dresser, miller.(jespersen, 1924:232) however, the formal research on sexism is corresponding to the development of socio-linguistics which arose in the 1960s. we can not forget the forerunner of this fieldthe american scholar r. lakoff who did a lot of significant contribution to it . as for the research of sexism, it can be divided into 4 stages. the first stage was nearly from the middle of 1960s to the middle of 1970s, which was called searching challenging sexist language will raise awareness about sexist assumptions.” by the same logic, the existence of anti-male bias language is the mirror of the dissatisfactory thought of man and influenced by it. chapter two literature review 7 2.3.2 the theory of presupposition presupposition is originated in the field of philosophy，and then it has been studied in the field of semantics and pragmatics. there are various definitions of presupposition. we shall take the view that the notion of presupposition in pragmatic is not unique. it has defined by many linguists, but the representative and most popular view is that: presuppositions are what are taken by the speaker to be the common ground of the participants in the conversation.( stalnaker, 1978:321 转自 brown, gillian esp. discrimination against women”. while in oxford advanced learners dictionary of current english, “sexism” is defined as “unfair or unreasonable discrimination between the sexes; unreasonable maintaining of traditional sexual rules (e.g. that men are strong and women are weak)”. in addition, in oxford advanced learners english-chinese dictionary, “sexism” is“the unfair treatment of people, esp. women, because of their sex”.there is no exception in longman dictionary (1972), american heritage 1982) , randon house (1987) and other authoritative dictionaries. all of these dictionaries explain sexism is against women and it has nothing to do with men. to make a conclusion from all these explanations, sexism is a system of beliefs and practices that affirm the dominance of men over women. so we know that sexism is the attitude against women. apprehended by most people as “only natural,” sexism pervades social relations and convention, affecting many aspects from peoples domestic arrangements to their career choices. with the arrival of the feminist movement within englishspeaking countries, attention has been