The Analysis of Sexism in English LanguageVIP

1、浅析英语语言中的性别歧视the analysis of sexism in english languagecontentsabstract.1key words.1i. introduction. 2ii. causes of sexism in english language.21. religious reason.32. physiology factor.33. social factor.4iii. sexism in english language.41. from morphologic aspect.42. from semantic aspect.63. sexism

2、in proverbs.8iv. the ways to reduce sexism in english.91. the linguistic approach.102. the social efforts to achieve equality11v. conclusion.12references13the analysis of sexism in english languagethe analysis of sexism in english languageabstract: language plays an important role in our society. as

3、 a phenomenon of society, language reflects all the sides of human society naturally. language is not only a guide, it is a mirror that reflects the sexism in social reality, and at the same time, it makes people see social reality more clearly. sexism is a phenomenon that takes a male-as-norm attit

4、ude; trivializing, degrading and devaluing female can be located everywhere. to start with, the thesis traces the reasons for the occurrence of sexism in english from the religious, social and physiology perspectives. in nature, sexism in english language reflects sexism in society. the two are clos

5、ely related. then the thesis analyses sexism from the angles of morphology, semantic, proverb. finally, a large part of the thesis is contributed to how to change and avoid sexism in english. along with the womens liberation movement in 1960s, it has aroused peoples awareness of the inequality betwe

6、en women and men. it is more important to eliminate the ideology of prejudice to women in peoples mind. eliminating sexism also depends on women themselves, women should work hard to improve social status. key words: english language; sexism; society; equality摘 要: 语言是人类社会发展的产物，它源于社会又反映着社会观念。性别歧视是一种社

7、会现象，不仅反映在社会生活中，也反映在语言和语言的使用中，由此形成了语言性别歧视，主要表现在诋毁女性贬低女性、将女性置于一种男性附属地位的言语行为。本文首先从宗教，社会等角度剖析英语语言中性别歧视的根源; 然后从构词、语义、谚语等不同角度分析英语语言中性别歧视现象;最后提出了如何避免使用英语性别歧视语。随着时代的发展，语言中的性别歧视现象逐渐引起广大女性，尤其是语言学家的重视。社会变革是语言变革的基础，语言变革推动着整个社会的发展，二者相互作用。关键词: 英语语言; 性别歧视; 社会; 平等 i. introduction sexism is an unreasonable social ph

8、enomenon, which is a kind of discrimination against women because of the gender. sexism, according to the extended fourth of oxford advanced learners english-chinese dictionary means “prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of sex”. language is an important

9、window through which one can understand the culture and society of the people, because peoples social-cultural behaviors and thoughts are reflected in their use of the language. language itself is not sexist, but the society is. language is the carrier and container of culture; it is the mirror of t

10、he society, reflecting the customs and values of society. historically and sociologically, our society is man-oriented and man-centered. women are regarded as a weaker gender in society, subordinated and dominated by men for a long time. naturally, this kind of phenomenon has been reflected in langu

11、age. with the development of society, the status of women improves a lot. women play an important role in our society. along with the womens liberation movement in 1960s, more and more people began to pay attention to sexism in english language.this thesis will try to explore the phenomena of sexism

12、 in english, its causes and discuss the methods to avoid it. this thesis is divided into five parts. firstly, in the introduction part, illustrating the background of the thesis, giving the definition of sexism and explaining the relationship between language and society.secondly, trace the causes o

13、f sexism in english in terms of religious reason, physiology factor, and social factor.thirdly, analyze linguistic features of sexism in english language in terms of (1) morphologic aspect; (2) semantic; (3) sexism in proverbs.then, discuss the ways to reduce sexism in english in the following field

14、s (1) the linguistic approach; (2) the social efforts to achieve equality.finally, go to the conclusion of the thesis.ii. causes of sexism in english languagesexism in english was not formed in one day, but it built up in the long period of the development of the language. with regard to the causes

15、of sexism in english language, it is believed that there are three predominant factors attributing to that: religious reason, social factor and physiology factor. to the religious reason, i look at the influential classics that are the vehicle of gender ideology the bible in order to acquire a good

16、understanding of how sexism is constructed. however, the sexist gender orientation is after all rooted in social reality, i.e. the immediate social situation and the broader social environment (labor division and socialization, for example). meanwhile, physiology factor inevitably has an influence i

17、n the forming of sexism.1. religious reason in the holy bible, we all know the god created woman, “the god caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its pace with flesh. and the ribs that the god had taken from the man he made into a woman and

18、 brought her to the man. then the man said: “this at last is bone of my bones and my fresh, this one shall be called woman. the god created man first and made woman from one of his ribs. from the order of the birth, it is obvious show that woman is only part of man, which itself is the discriminatio

19、n against woman. it is said that in the holy bible the woman also commits that sin. she was seduced by into the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of the good and evil and having the man eat too, which was forbidden by the god. thus, it is said that the woman committed the first sin. whats worse, wo

20、man is often related to evil, trouble, sin and weakness and so on. at last, the woman was punished to bring forth children in pain and was ruled by the man.according to holy bible, woman is one of the ribs of the man. therefore, woman submits to man, serve man, please man and is abused by man. so wo

21、man has been regarded as without independence and dignity. as a result, woman was treated as second-class sex. people, especially men would like to shape this culture. from above, the superiority of men and inferiority of woman is clearly seen. as christianity is a powerful religion in the western c

22、ountries, the bible is a great book to western countries. in a word, sexism exists under this religion.2. physiology factor there are physiological differences between the sexes. for extended work and life together, people thought that men are tall, strong. contrarily, women are small, weak. in a wo

23、rd, women are weaker than men. most of people think that men play a more important role in society. people thought that female is more patient than male because of physiological characteristic. therefore, women are regarded as suitable to care children, do the elementary teaching works, and do house

24、work and so on. mens job is to work outside but womens work is to stay at home. women are treated as weaker ones. since childhood, social conceptions started to control girls dos and donts, for instance, if boys cry, parents will stop them and say, “you are a boy, a man you cant cry, and man cant dr

25、op tears.” however, if girls cry, parents will sympathize them. in a word, men are stronger than women.3. social factor in society, there exists a different kind of discriminations against women. as“language is the mirror of the society” and a language reflects all the aspects of a society, we can s

26、urely find discriminations against women in english. feminists all claim that we live in a patriarchal society: a society of men, ruled by men and for men. patriarchy depicts men as the perfect norm against which women are measured and found lacking. womens place is at home, and their responsibility

27、 is to do the housework and to bring up the children. however, men enjoy a much vaster world. they have more and broader connection with people of different associations and statuses in society. this traditional conception is still wide spread in europe and america even though more and more women ha

28、ve left home, received high education and achieved great achievements in different fields. women are treated as the weaker society and they realize their own values through their marriage to men. even today, with feminist movement like a spreading fire, compared with career men, much fewer women tak

29、e their jobs, among them, most do not go to work until their children have grown up and have left their home. up to now, nonetheless, men dominate the higher positions with better salaries and women remain in the subordinate jobs. thus the sexism in the society has been in existence and it is far fr

30、om vanishing, the embodiment of which is necessarily the sexism in english.iii. sexism in english language1. from morphologic aspect sexism in general comes in three main forms: language ignores women; it defines women as less significant than men; and it insults women. in this part i will discuss i

31、t from derivated words, compound words, and word orders.1) derivated words the famous linguist j.grenberg advanced the theory of marked and unmarked. this theory is a useful concept when analyzing sexism in english vocabulary. generally speaking, the female term is regarded as the marked term, while

32、 the male term is seen as unmarked term. in other words, masculine words are generic and common. however, feminine words are usually derivational and compounds words of masculine centered words. in english, derivational morphemes are mainly prefixes and suffixes. the use of feminine affixes often in

33、dicates females identity, position, etc. these words indicate subordinate position of female. there are following examples:unmarked (masculine words) marked (feminine words)actoractresspoetpoetessprinceprincesseditoreditorettestatuestatuetteheroheroinecomediancomediennetragediantragedienneaviatoravi

34、atrixexecutiveexecutrixfrom the above table we know that feminine words are marked. the feminine words add suffixes, -ess, -ette, -ine, -enne, -ix, etc. from these suffixes indicate women subordinate to men.(1) compound wordscompounding means two or more words combined together to form a new word. s

35、exism in english is reflected not only in derivated words, but also in compound words. some compound words are ended in the word man, however, this set of words are presumably sex-neutral. it is obvious that many “man” compound words refer to both gender, all human beings, for example, mankind, huma

36、n. from the words “congressman, chairman, statesman”, we can guess it seems that only men are in politics. it is commonly found in words designating professions, we often relate them only one gendermale, for example: lawyer, engineer, professor, doctor, while if those words are refereed to female, w

37、e often add “ lady, female or woman” before the masculine words. the following table will illustrate in point: common gender masculine genderfeminine genderlawyerlawyerlady lawyerengineerengineerwoman engineerdoctordoctorwoman doctorfrom this table we can see that woman subordinate to man. women are

38、 secondary class. some words mainly refer to woman, for example, secretary, nurse, when they are used to refer to men, we often add man/male to form a new word, for example, man nurse, male secretary. from those professional nouns, we can see women are regarded that they should do service work or lo

39、w social status work. however, men monopolize the prestigious jobs.in a word, in english, when referring to people taking certain jobs, with certain careers or of certain status man and man-linked words are adopted to cover both sexes. however, women were often tending to be invisible, and people re

40、legates women a secondary position dependent on the man. these aspects obviously show sexism in english language is common in this man-centered society.(2) word ordersexism in english language is also reflected in word order. if male and female are presented at the same time, the asymmetry in the re

41、presentation of women and men is reflected in word order, usually masculine terms are put in front of feminine terms, making female comes second reflects the sexist attitude than male is superior to female. there are many such examples, as following:king and queen, man and woman; mr. and mrs., boys

42、and girls;husband and wife, brother and sister;some linguists made a hypothesis that in arranging words, we often take such role “good to bad” sequence. for example, good-bad, day-night, life-death, rich-poor. people went further to claim that man-woman word order follow the same rule, which obvious

43、ly show that men are superior to women, women are subordinate to men.2. from semantic aspect 1) the generic masculine (1) generic pronounsit is common today in public discussion, whether the context is legal, political or even academic, to take it for granted that using the pronoun “he, him, his, hi

44、mself” refer to the whole human beings. the sexism in english is to neglect women by allowing masculine terms to be referred to males and generically to refer to the whole human beings. therefore on the formal occasions, male pronouns “he, him, his” can be used to refer to indefinite pronouns, just

45、like “somebody, someone, anyone, everyone, nobody, each”, etc. for examples:(a) he who laughs last laughs best.(b) everyone must show filial obedience to his parents.(c) if a person works hard, he can achieve anything.(d) when man assumes a public trust, he should consider himself a public property.

46、from the above examples, “he, his, himself” can be used to refer to indefinite pronouns. while “she, her, herself”, dont have such usage. from this phenomenon we can see that english discriminates against female.(2) generic nounsthe definitions of man of “man” according to the extended fourth editio

47、n of oxford advanced learners english-chinese dictionary are as following:(a) adult male human beings;(b) human beings of either sex; person(c) the human race; mankind. there some examples taken from the dictionary:all men must die. growing old is something a man has to accept. man is mortal. from t

48、he above definitions and examples, its not difficult for us to see that “man and men”can be referred to the whole human beings. however, we have never seen that woman and women be used to refer to man.2) semantic derogation of women in the history of language, derogatory terms used for female outnum

49、ber for male. with female words tend to have less favorable meaning. language has a tendency to neglect women, treat women as submission and also demean women.(1) semantic change of sex-paired words there are plenty of sex-paired words, but they are different from each other according to semantic me

50、aning. many linguists have thought that words become negative when referring to female. however, words for male are often regarded to be positive and neutral. in the history of the language, we find that a totally innocent term referring to a girl or a woman may begin with neutral or positive connot

51、ations, however gradually it becomes negative and abusive there are following examples:a) master and mistressmaster means a man who control something or someone a man who is very skilled in a particular job or activity. for example, “he is my master.” usually means, “he is my boss.” however, mistres

52、s originally means a woman in a position of control and own ship, as the head of a household like a housekeeper, but it gradually means a women who has asexual relationship with a man who is not her husband, esp. a married man, from whom she generally receives material support.b) governor and govern

53、essaccording to oxford english dictionary, governor is explained as a man who is the official head of a country or region that is politically controlled by another country. while for the feminine word governess the first explanation is chief nursemaid. in old english, these two words both refer to t

54、he chief member who has got great power as the executive of a political administrative unit. however, nowadays governess means a woman employed to teach the children of rich family in their home and to live with them.from the above examples all the male terms have remained their original positive me

55、aning, while female terms have ended more often than not with sexually debase meaning.(2) semantic collocationin english, a word may have different connotations when it is used to describe different sexes. there are some words in english, when they are applied to man, they embody positive meaning, w

56、hile when they are referred to woman, and they embody negative meanings. for example:a) he is professional: he is a member of a respected profession.b) she is professional: she is a member of the oldest profession. (prostitute)c) he is a secretary: he works for an organization.d) she is a secretary:

57、 she does typing and general office work for a person.from the above, we can see that the same word shift from being positive male to being negative female. this phenomenon implied that discriminating against female.3. sexism in proverbs proverbs reflect the values of different cultures; proverbs are masterpiece of cultures, regarded as the cream of the language. proverbs came from real life an