An Analysis of Sexism in English Vocabulary.doc

毕业论文(设计)An Analysis of Sexism in English Vocabulary1. Introduction12. What is sexism in English33. Origins of sexism in English vocabulary43.1 Religious culture43.2 Traditional prejudice53.3 Social factor63.3.1 Social status63.3.2 The womens role in life73.4 Psychological factor84. Phenomenon of sexism in English vocabulary94.1 Feminine language being a subsidiary94.1.1 Unmarked or male nouns94.1.2 Word form114.1.3 Word order134.1.4Address144.1Semantic derogating of feminine words154.2.1Animal words related to female154.2.2Professional word164.2.3The degradation of female words175. How to dispel sexism in English195.1 Creating new neutral words205.2 Arousing awareness215.3 Intensifying social reform216. Conclusion22References231. IntroductionHuman being is the first valuable creatures in nature. It is human beings that make the world develop and exist, and it is man and woman that make the world interesting. Man and woman should have relied on each other, and co-operated each other. As the development and alteration of history, there happens imbalance between them. Women have been considered to be inferior to men. They have been discriminated in one way or another. This unequal sexist phenomenon is reflected in language. Until now sexism still exists in language and women have a language of their own, which is different from and inferior to the language of men in the society.It is easy to see that there are some words in English clearly resisted in reference to one sex or the other. Take a typical example, “master” and “mistress”, “master” is always used to address a powerful man, but “mistress” has another pejorative meaning that a partner for extramarital sex. So it is clear that the female words are tending to have less favorable meaning. In North America English, there are many sex-paired words, such as spinster and bachelor, madam and mister, widow and widower etc. All of them have the same meanings apparently, but there are many differences on connotations. The noticeable point is that the semantic derogation phenomenons only focus on women, and the male words keep unchanged. Otherwise, it is obvious that the following examples are typically used by those who claim that English is “sexist”. “Man” and “mankind” are used as terms to describe the human race, just as “he” is used as the unmarked third-person singular pronoun. However some words which are used to describe womens profession are often compounded with men, such as female judge, woman manager, woman engineer and so on.The following sentence can be used to illustrate this statement:a) A teacher usually calls on his students parents after school.In this sentence, “his” as a sex-neutral pronoun, refers to a male teacher or a female one. Besides, most people think that womens talk is always related to the home and domestic activities, while mens is related to the outside world, political and economic activities. No doubt that this viewpoint further moulds the social stereotypes against the female.2. What is sexism in EnglishSexism in language is a kind of social phenomenon, which reflects the certain traditional social values and the national way of thinking. Long Man Dictionary of contemporary English (English-Chinese) (1998) defines sexism as the discrimination based on gender, especially discrimination against women. Sexism is the belief that one sex is not as good, clever, etc. as the other, especially when this results in unfair treatment of woman by men. The interpretation is Oxford Advanced Learners English Chinese Dictionary (6th edition, 2000) of sexism is the unfair treatment against people (esp. women), because of their sex. Thus sexism in language is usually interpreted as prejudice against women. Besides Otto Jesperson (1923), the Danish linguist, in his Growth and Structure of the English Language, points that English is the most masculine language as far as he is concerned. This is very apparent when we look at what is sexism in English is prejudice against women in many use of language.3. Origins of sexism in English vocabularyWhat caused the sexism in the English language? Sexism in English was not formed in one day, but built in the long period of the development of language, which leads to the variety of the causes. To sum up, we may attribute sexism in English to the following four factors: religious culture, traditional prejudice, social factor and psychological factor.3.1 Religious cultureIn many myths, men are the matrix of the species, while women are the transformation from men. In the west, Bible is considered as the origin of all the cultures, so the stories in Bible have greatly influenced peoples thought and life. The Lord God took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God took from the man had been made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said in Holy Bible (The Books of the Old Testament), “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called woman.”Man was first to be created by God while woman was then made from one of his ribs. From the origin of the birth, it is obvious to see the difference between man and woman. And man and woman are not equal at all because woman is only a part of man, which itself is the discrimination against woman. It is said that in the Holy Bible the first sin was also committed by the woman who was seduced by the snake into eating and having the man eat the fruit of the tree, of the knowledge, of good and evil. Otherwise the word “woman” originally meant the wife of man. Although it is just a myth, it has been deeply rooted in peoples minds. People, especially men, would like to take it for granted and thus shape their outlook and culture.3.2 Traditional prejudiceThe prejudice that men are superior and women are inferior has been lingering in most mens minds, although the society is developing fast. It is the universally acknowledged truth that the male is dominant in the society today. The classic pair word “Mr.” and “Mrs.” is the typical example to illustrate the status of the male and the female in the society. “Mr.” is a respectful form of address for a gentleman and “Mrs.” is a respectful one for a lady. According to the etymology, however, the word “Mrs.” hints that a woman has to depend on a man for a living. Owing to the different status in the society, there are some unequal social norms of wording and performance for the male and the female. It is common for the male to say indecent words but it is strange for the female to do so. Many taboo terms contain the words insulting the female. It is apparent that quite a few words and sayings imply the masculine power and some social norms have been shaped by the male desires. Traditional prejudice was gradually formed by mutual influence between individual and social groups, parents, relatives, partners, and mass media (radio, film, TV programs, newspaper etc.). The sexism and prejudice toward women were also formed by personal attitude. In English, especially in vocabulary, the sexism phenomenon has caused a vicious circle, which is mainly influenced by traditional notion.3.3 Social factorLanguage is the mirror of the society. A language reflects all the aspects of a society. In the society, women suffer from unfair treatment for their inferior social status and subsidiary role to the men. So to some extent, the sexism will be reflected in language.3.3.1 Social status Sexism should be originated in the different roles people played in the ancient society. At that time, the living conditions were very hard, and people were constantly fighting with nature. Therefore, men and women were assigned different tasks according to their physiological characteristics. Thus men seemed to play a more important role in the families, but womens status was considered to be dependent on mens. Men noticed their superiority and began to discriminate women gradually. In the European upper class, people embrace that women shouldnt and mustnt work outside, and the only thing they can do is to stay at home, do the housework and raise the children. The traditional conception is still wipe spread in the Europe and America even after the industrialization. Women are treated as the weaker sex and they realize their own values only through their marriage to man. Nowadays, compared with career men, few women take their jobs. Up to now, nonetheless, sexism in the society has been in existence, the embodiment of which is the sexism of language. Nowadays, the degradation of women status also can be reflected on this pair words “governor” and “governess”. The word “governor” in Oxford Advanced Learners English-Chinese Dictionary (6th edition,2000) means “man who exercises a sovereign authority in a colony, territory or state”, whereas “governess” is first explained as “chiefly nursemaid” and then added “In old English Queen Elizabeth I who was acknowledged to be the Supreme Majesty and governess of all persons.” In old English, these two words respectively refer to a man or a woman who exercises a sovereign authority in a colony, territory or state. As time goes by, the meaning of the word “governess” is woman who is employed to teach young children or woman having regular sexual intercourse with one man to whom she is not married. But the word “governor” basically keeps its original meaning. 3.3.2 The womens role in lifeIn the ancient times, China has the saying “男耕女织” ( nan geng nv zhi. man ploughs and woman weaves), and the West also has such saying as “man for the field and woman for the hearth”. Womans traditional roles are family role (virtuous wife and eminent mother) and social role (nurse, secretary, baby sitter etc.). No matter in family or in the society, the role of woman is inferior to men. The womens special role in life also incurs the language discrimination to some degree. The different roles of men and women in daily life have a great influence on the male and female speech. In the biological and social perspectives, a woman tends to marry a man and have a baby. She has the duty to educate the child how to speak through the politeness principles of speech at least. If she wants to achieve this well, she has to master the politeness principles and be governed by it. Furthermore, most women work in the service industry such as baby-sitting, nursing, education, selling, etc. All these jobs demand them to observe the forms of social communication. They have no rights to choose some senior position. For them, it is difficult to access to political and economic arena which seems more dominant position. The biggest obstacle is that in the ancient society women are not allowed to receive education for people think that absence of talent in a woman is synonymous with virtue. All these contribute them to the weak sex in the society. In this case, some words and expressions related to sex discrimination against women have been coined, such as businessman, congressman, salesman, sportsman, man-hours, man-made, manpower, etc.3.4 Psychological factorIn the modern society, with the development of science and technology, mens importance is not so prominent, and women can do as well as men. But once a view is shared by the majority of a group, it is hard to remove it from peoples minds. So in reality, discrimination against women still exists, not only exists in human society but also in human psychology. Sexism in real life and peoples minds is destined to be reflected in language. In English, under the influence of traditional notion, the sexism against women is not easy to avoid. For example, when people look at or hear the words “virgin” and “prostitute”, the first response occur to their mind is the meaning of “处女” (chu nv, a woman who has never had sex.) and “妓女” (ji nv, a woman who has sex for money.). Because in their mind, women are inferior animal and root of the evil, such as beautiful and guilty Pandora, and fascinating and dangerous siren in Greek Mythology, although women sometimes are regarded as mother of the land.4. Phenomenon of sexism in English vocabularyIt is not unreasonable to say that English is a “man made language”, because male superiority is shown obviously in the meaning of words. The fact that the words “man”, “mankind” and “he” are employed as terms for the whole human race reflects male dominance in the society. There are much evidence concerning unmarked or male nouns, word forming, word order, address, animal words related to female and some professional words to show that women are inferior to men in the society.4.1 Feminine language being a subsidiary4.1.1 Unmarked or male nouns An unmarked or male noun serves as general term, as does a male pronoun. Stanley (1978) used “generic masculine” or “pseudo-generic” to represent all indefinite people that others dont know they are male or female. The male pronoun “he” and its varieties “his” and “himself” can be used to reflect sexism clearly. For example: a) Every person has his self-esteem. b) Everyone must do his best.Here “his” means both “his” and “her”. In another word females are subordinate to males. Another noticeable point in English is the use of the pronoun “he”, which is called generic “he” by grammarian, and “he” was once classified as a neutral term that not only refer to male “he”, but also refer to female “she”. For example:a) He who laughs last laughs best.b) Everyone can be successful if he tries.The generic “he” is an objectionable practice imposed on people by grammar books, and the practical usage of this so-called “generic he” may mislead listeners. Obviously, the semantic and grammatical derogation of women appears to be part of the historical process and often used to refer to members of either sex.Furthermore, “he/his” refers to the strong things, while “she/her” refers to the weak or less important things. The examples are as follows:a) The elephant lifted his mighty trunk.b) The sun was shinning in all his splendid beauty.c) Look at my cat. Isnt she lovely?d) The moon throws her silver light upon the lake.Generally speaking, the elephant and the sun are more powerful than the cat and the moon. The elephant and the sun can show a mans energy and importance, but the cat and the moon are soft and powerless. So the given examples show that women are occupying a less powerful role in our society. There is a long history for “he” embracing “she”. In many cases, “she” represents a woman but “he” is a mankind. 4.1.2 Word formThe sexism in English is reflected mainly by means of word-forming and the words connotation. Firstly, take the spelling of “he” and “she” for instance, it is obvious that the spelling of “she” is formed by adding the letter “s” before “he”. The words “female and “woman” also have the same spelling like “she”. These words deriving from masculine words are called feminine words. Their meanings are subsidiary and humble. Such words also expose the dependency and adherence of women. Language also reflects deep-rooted sexist social attitudes toward females by using male terms to refer to both sexes. And when we speak of sexism, perhaps the first word that flashes across our mind is “man”. There are plenty of words with “man” form, such as, mankind, human, chairman, spokesman All these words are a symbol of sexism. The asymmetry between male and female terms in many languages is that when there are male/female pairs it is the male form which for the most part is unmarked and the female term which is created by adding a bound morpheme or by compounding. It seems that men are ruling the whole world. In order to have a better understanding, it is necessary to discuss the meaning of “man”. Originally, “man” means both males and females. But now it sometimes means male and female, sometimes means only male. The meaning of “man” has become gradually ambiguous. Generally speaking, masculine words are usually unmarked while feminine words are marked. The words indicating females position, profession，etc are usually compound words or derivative words. The following table will be a case. Table 1: Words different in genderCommon genderMasculine genderFeminine genderwaiterwaiterwaitressHeroheroheroineusherusherusherettedoctordoctorwoman doctorsurgeonsurgeonfemale surgeonlawyerlawyerlady lawyerFrom this table, it is obvious that the female term is created by adding a bound morpheme or by compounding to the male term. This shows that women play a dependent role in language even in the society. The suffixes ess, -ine, -ette , -e, etc., mean smallness. Eg, usherette looks smaller than usher. Those suffixes derogate the original words. However, some subordinate jobs are more often than not concerned with women. When women take these jobs, male or man should be placed in front of them. To compare with the posts that men and women undertake respectively, it goes without saying that sexism in the society deeply influences the language. Now many linguists contribute this situation to the sexist phenomenon. 4.1.3 Word orderIt is not difficult to find male-female word order pairs in English literature, newspapers or magazines as well as in speech. No matter in books or on radio, even in daily conversation, we can often read and hear such words:a) Good morning, boys and girls!b) They would have allowed males and females to go to school togetherc) Everyone must take up his or her mind to retail himself or herself.It is obvious that when males and females are coming together, males always go before females in an English sentence. It seems that women are less important than men. “Manglish” in language is also reflected in