英语人际称谓中的别歧视.doc

On Gender Discrimination in English Interpersonal AppellationByYang DaiyuA thesissubmitted to the Foreign Language and Literature Department ofBaoji University of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment ofthe requirement for the degree ofBACHELOR OF ARTSinENGLISH LANGUAGEBaoji, ShaanxiMay, 2014 On Gender Discrimination in English Interpersonal AppellationYang Daiyu Abstract: Appellation, as an important part of language system, has a close relation with gender. And the relationship between English interpersonal appellation and gender discrimination has become an increasingly important area of sociolinguistics in recent years. Hence, this paper intends to emphatically research the phenomena and the causes of gender discrimination in English interpersonal appellation and comes to a conclusion that gender discrimination in English interpersonal appellation can not disappear. This paper first explains the definition of the appellation and gender discrimination, and then goes on to discuss how discrimination against females is revealed in names, social identity and the reference. It then analyzes the causes of gender discrimination from the historical, social and religious perspective. To eradicate the sexual discrimination in appellation, people need to eradicate the concept of gender discrimination in the society, change the status of a male-dominated society, and make people be aware of true sense of equality between males and female to give female equal respect and attention. Hence, the detailed ways of eliminating gender discrimination will be discussed in this paper. Key words: English interpersonal appellation; gender discrimination; equality英语人际称谓中的性别歧视杨岱玉 【内容摘要】: 人际称谓，作为语言系统的一个重要组成部分，与性别有着密切的关系。近年来，英语人际称谓和性别歧视之间的关系在社会语言学中已经成为一个越来越重要的领域。因此，本文试图着重分析英语人际称谓中的性别歧视的现象和原因，并得出结论，其中的性别歧视就不会消失。本文首先从定义上阐述了人际称谓和性别歧视这两个术语，并进一步地讨论对女性的歧视是如何体现在姓名，交际，指代称谓这三个方面的，继而从历史的，社会的，宗教的观点分析了性别歧视的原因。本文也探讨了消除性别歧视的具体方法。想要消除英语人际称谓中的性别歧视，人们需要根除性别歧视在社会的概念，改变这个男性主导社会的地位，使人们意识到真正意义上的男性和女性之间的平等，给女性平等的尊重和关注。【关键词】: 英语人际称谓；性别歧视；平等15CONTENTS.Introduction.1.Gender Discrimination in English Interpersonal Appellation.22.1 Interpersonal appellation.22.2 Gender discrimination.32.3 Manifestation of gender discrimination phenomena in English interpersonal appellation.42.3.1 Names.42.3.2 Social identity .52.3.3 Reference.6.The Causes of Gender Discrimination Phenomenon in English Interpersonal Appellation.7 3.1 The historical condition.7 3.2 The social background.8 3.3 The religious causes.9.Eliminating Gender Discrimination in English Interpersonal Appellation.104.1 Temporary solution.104.2 Permanent solution.11 . Conclusion.12References.14Acknowledgements.15 On Gender Discrimination in English Interpersonal Appellation. IntroductionFor a long time, gender discrimination has existed in the society of every culture, has influenced peoples perspectives and values and has leaved a deep imprint era. Historically and sociologically, peoples society is man-oriented and man-centered. “English is andocentric because centuries has been evolving in a society where men have been dominant.” (MillerSwift, 2007:83)Women, regarded been a weaker gender in society, are discriminated for a long period and completely subordinated in political life, economic life and even family life in the society dominated by men. With the development of society, sexual discrimination began to fade slowly, but it still exists and embodies in various fields of society. Unavoidably, this kind of phenomenon has also been embodied in English language.Language and gender discrimination is a popular research topic in linguistics and social linguistics. Linguists who are both at home and abroad have done a lot of meaningful exploration, and prove that there is gender discrimination in language, and then expound the causes of gender discrimination. For example, Lakoff put forward the term “Womens Language” and published Language and Womans Place in 1973. In his book, he pointed that male is at the center position, and females image is incomplete in the world picture reflected by language. Gender difference in their language use is the embodiment of the unequal social status between male and female. It established the later fundamental key studies that explored and confirmed men and womens differences in language. As an important component of the vocabulary system of language, interpersonal appellation has the same gender difference. In fact, Chinese scholars tried to research the English interpersonal appellation. Some scholars make a comparison between English interpersonal appellation and Chinese interpersonal appellation, and Chinese scholars research and analyze some related phenomena and origins of gender discrimination in Chinese interpersonal appellation. These scholars researches make people realize the gender discrimination in interpersonal appellation and understand some related causes of the gender discrimination. The research about gender discrimination in interpersonal appellation are not enough comprehensive and need to make the further analysis and research, especially the influences for society.However, many scholars research the gender discrimination in Chinese interpersonal appellation. Hence, this paper focuses on gender discrimination in English interpersonal appellation, analyzes gender discrimination phenomena in English interpersonal appellation and the relevant causes, and puts forward the measures of eliminating gender discrimination. Of course, this paper stresses especially the analysis of the phenomena of the discrimination against female in English interpersonal appellation, which reforms to promote the evolution of the language towards the realization of equality between men and women. Gender Discrimination in English Interpersonal AppellationAs a social problem with a long history, gender discrimination exists in any language, reflecting the dependence and discrimination from which women suffer in a society dominated by men. In the following, interpersonal appellation, gender discrimination and discrimination phenomenon in English interpersonal appellation will be illustrated.2.1 Interpersonal appellationInterpersonal appellation is a word or words by which someone is called and classified or distinguished from others. Interpersonal appellation is the call of identity or the name of one party to another in certain language environment, which used to be called the name of family relationship or not. “Interpersonal appellation is an indispensable part of the complete semantic system, which has widely applied in social life.”(Su, 2010:29) Interpersonal appellation that is the salutation to others is not only a language phenomenon, but also social and cultural phenomenon. In any language, interpersonal appellation plays an essential role in social etiquette. In reality, interpersonal appellation is the persons deixis that speaker used to call others in language communication. Interpersonal appellation not only expresses respect, intimacy, contempt and other feelings of the speaker to the listener, but also plays a role that establish a kind of specific social relations between them. At the same time, it would reflect particular cultural level and the traditional consumer habits, historical background and various cultural factors. In all ethnic groups in daily communication, appellation plays an important role, which not only has the function of personal deixis, but also has the function of politeness. For the different values and cultural background between the various nationalities, the number of words and referential scope is different in different nationalities2.2 Gender discriminationLike racial discrimination and age discrimination, gender discrimination is also regarded as a kind of ideology, which is a kind of ideology of maintaining the inequality between male and female. “Gender discrimination is mainly to advocate the rationality of the men superior to women through the stress and exaggeration of the natural and physiological differences.” (Wang, 2007:53) Gender discrimination is a common phenomenon of human society, and it usually refers to discrimination of men against women, which is the prejudice against female and the reflection of unequal social status between male and female. “Women have long been regarded as the weaker/second sex and the mens foil and accessories.” (Chen, 2012:45) So to speak, gender discrimination is the unequal treatment of members of one gender to the members of another gender, especially the unequal treatment of men to women.Gender discrimination against female mainly manifests in the employment, familial life, work, social status and the language. However, in the language, gender discrimination embodies in English word formation, word order, semantic changes, interpersonal appellation and so on. In English word formation, there are many professional words made up of a suffix “- man”, such as, spokesman，congressman，freshman，sportsman，chairman etc., which obviously ignored the existence of the female. In word order, English words often abide by the principles: Masculinity in former, femininity in latter. However, Ladies and Gentlemen is an exception. Mr. Mrs. Smith; husband and wife; King and Queen; father and mother; brother and sisters are the best examples. In semantic changes, some female words meanings are commendatory, but later slowly turn into derogatory term. For example, In Britain, the salesgirl is called the sales lady, but salesman is a salesman, not the sales gentleman. It follows that there is a non reciprocal relationship in pragmatics between lady and gentleman. The gentleman still maintained a semantic nobility and dignity, lady has become ordinary women. Of course, gender discrimination also exists in the interpersonal appellation. Gender discrimination in interpersonal appellation mainly refers to debase or discriminate member of a gender in the usage of interpersonal appellation, and the degeneration or discrimination on the appellation grows the unequal gender thoughts. However, the presenting of gender discrimination in interpersonal appellation and attention by people is due to the change of the social status and views of women. (hudson, 2000:12)2.3 Manifestation of gender discrimination phenomena of English interpersonal appellationAfter understanding the definition of interpersonal appellation and gender discrimination, there are some phenomena about gender discrimination in English interpersonal appellation. “The usage of English interpersonal appellation largely reflects the English national social and domestic unequal status between men and women.”(Liang, 2009:61) In fact, gender discrimination phenomena in the interpersonal appellation usually put women in an ordinary even negligible position, and highlight and continue the patriarchal ideology at the same time. In English interpersonal appellation, there are various phenomena against female; however, we can easily find the phenomenon of gender discrimination from three aspects.2.3.1 NamesName is an important symbol of a natural persons own personality characteristics, which is the sign that distinguish the individual natural persons and other natural persons. Although the name is a symbol that distinguish individual, right of name is a sign that the two sides have independent personality or not in a conjugal relationship. In the west, the unmarried female generally use her fathers surname, but she usually switches to her husbands surname followed by her own name after she married. “Even if she divorced or her husband is dead, she can not restore her fathers surname without the laws permission because she was his wife or widow.”(Bai, 2006:9) For example, the American first lady Jacqueline in the history, her premarital name was Lee Bouvier, but she called Jacqueline Kennedy after she was married to John Kennedy. After the president Kennedy was assassinated, she remarried with Greek Aristotle Omassis, and she called Jacqueline Kennedy Omassis. Obviously, she still kept her former husbands surname-Kennedy. No matter how change her name, it only has two choices; either with her fathers surname, or with her husbands surname. This kind of appellation that female crowns his husbands surname before her own name shows that married female becomes her husbands private property, and she completely belongs to her husband. Thus, the traditional appellation that is wifes name using her husbands surname is most prominent example of gender discrimination in English world.2.3.2 Social identitySocial appellation refers to people of different social groups use the appellation in mutual communication according to the other persons social status. The three kinds of common English interpersonal appellation are intimate appellation, social appellation and vocational appellation. Intimate appellation refers that in western movies or TV plays, the actions and languages all comers all come from the real original life. From some Hollywood films, we often see that the male bosses use some nicknames with the intimate relationship when they call their female subordinates, such as sugar, darling, sweetie, girlie, etc. In turn, female understrappers do not use these nicknames to call their bosses, and female bosses also never use these so honeyed nicknames. Hence, from the intimate appellation of view, the female is lower than male on the social status, and gets respect less than males.Social appellation is a kind of special language symbol, which not only has the referential function of the general symbols, but also embodies the social relationships and social ideology of the cultural communication on both sides. In the social appellation, the most representative performance of gender discrimination is the usage of Mr. and Mrs. .Mr. is the respectful appellation of man. Before marriage, males are called as “Mr.” and after marriage is the same, which does not expose their marital status or age information. “Miss” is suitable for unmarried females, but after marriage females will lose their original name and be change to “Mrs. XX”, which completely exposes females marital status and personal privacy. For example, Mary Brown before marriage called Miss Brown. If Mary gets married with John Smith, her name will change into Mrs. Smith. So Mary not only loses her surname, but also her giving name. Even if John dies, she is still his widow and called “Johns widow”. Therefore, this group of words has not reached one-to-one equality on semantic and function. “With the development of society, western feminist movement began to rise. More and more western women like use neutral appellation word “Ms.” Because it does not reflect peoples marital status, which not only effectively protect personal privacy, but also embodies the equality of social status between male and female.”（WangGu, 2000:33）Although there still is gender discrimination in social appellation, people begin and like to use the neutral female appellation word “Ms.” to make equal between male and female.Vocational appellation refers to a kind of appellation that calls others vocation or title, reflects the social division of labor and embodies a persons social value and his contribution to the society. In English, the vocations of some low social status have both male nouns and female nouns, such as, actor and actress, waiter and waitress, etc. But words without a male symbol in some forms, people usually used to see them as male words. British and other English-speaking countries people used to think “professor”, “doctor” as male. When we heard someone says “my cousin is a professor”, most people will judge “professor” for the male. If people want to regard these words as female, they generally put “woman”, “lady” and other modifiers on the front of these words, such as, woman professor, etc. This usage of so-called neuter gender phrases reflects that the vocations of higher social status are monopolized by males in real life from a side. On the contrary, people usually think “teacher”, “nurse” and other vocation as female. If males are engaged in these jobs, people generally put some male modifiers on the front of these words, such as, male nurse. These habits not only is related to current historical situation, but also is regarded as a kind of social bias.2.3.3 ReferenceReference appellation refers to pronoun used by people to themselves, others, and other things in communication. When people mention male and female, both parties are not in equal status, but male in before female, such as, king and queen, husband and wife, male and female, son and daughter, brother and sister, boy and girl, etc. For example, in a cocktail party, when the host invited a couple of speaking, he usually says that now please welcome Mr. Lucas and his wife Louise. With regarding males before females phenomenon of English interpersonal appellation, people are nit usually surprised at it. However, this phenomenon that people have already got used to be worth pondering and make people get inspired.And there is another phenomenon that is some male words with the presence of the female, fireman, businessman, chairman, forefather, etc. In other words, there exists a kind of phenomenon that is the male words referring to the whole human in English interpersonal appellation. Consequently, the male wor