1、1 （ 20_ _届） 本科毕业 设计 英语 分析英语中的性别歧视现象 2 Contents 摘要 Abstract 1 Introduction 1 1.1Definition 1 1.2 Literature Review 3 1.3 Objective of study 4 2 Analysis of sexism in English 5 2.1Syntactic perspective 5 2.2Semantic perspective 5 2.2.1 P r o v er b 5 2.2.2 Generalization of masculine 6 2.2.3 Semantic
2、Degradation 7 2.3 Linguistic perspective 8 2.3.1 Affix ation8 2.3.2 Compounding 8 2.3.3 Addressing system 9 3 Causes of sexism in English and Solutions9 3.1Causes10 3.1.1 Cultural perspective 10 3.1.2 Social and psychological perspective 10 3.2 Solutions 11 4 Conclusion 12 Bibliography 14 Acknowledg
3、ements 15 3 1. Introduction The influence between language and social consciousness is bilateral that in some cases language can influence how people think and in other cases vice versa. Sexism in language and how it is represented has been a major issue in sociolinguistic studies. And recently, thi
4、s issue even causes political communities to try to change language uses, especially of the English vocabulary. Sexism is the result of different social attitudes towards the behavior of men and women, and of the attitudes men and women themselves consequently have to language as a social symbol(Tru
5、dgill 1983:94).People have been discussing sex differences in language in terms of the way things are, and in terms of what people have traditionally felt to be appropriate. However, while we noted the truth that society lays down different roles for men and women, it is equally true that what socie
6、ty lays down can and does changeand will change if enough members of the society feel that it is desirable that this should happen. Although more and more women achieve equality in family and social world dominated by men ever before, sexist language still exists universally in daily communication.
7、Therefore, it is necessary and important to make a research on language sexism to arouse peoples awareness of the inequality between men and women, and inspire the struggle against sex bias in the domain of language. This thesis aims to make a systematic study on English sexism from syntactic, seman
8、tic and linguistic perspectives. Meanwhile, it attempts to explore how these phenomena have occurred and how to resolve these problems. 1.1 Definition In order to accomplish a finer study, the fundamental notionsexist language and its related concepts must be made clear first. The term sexism (sex d
9、iscrimination) was created by the feminists who gained inspiration from the word racism (racial discrimination). In language habit, sexism usually refers to the discrimination against women. Sexism has manifested in different historical periods and in different cultures. According to Merriam Webster
10、s College Dictionary (1996), sexism means: prejudice or discrimination based on sex, esp. discrimination against women. While in Oxford Advanced Learners English-Chinese Dictionary (2006), Sexism means: the unfair treatment of people, especially women, because of their sex; the attitude that causes
11、this. There is another important definition we need to know, that is sexist. It means: a person who treats other people, especially women, unfairly because of their sex or who makes offensive remarks about them. 1.2 Literature Review Language became part of feminist movement when The Second Sex of S
12、imone de 4 Beauvoir and The Feminine Mystique of Betty Friedan were published in the 1970s. Research has been concentrated on the role language plays in the location and maintenance of women in a disadvantageous position in society since the mid-1970s. The study of language and gender began with the
13、 publication of Keys Male/Female Language, Lakoffs Language and Womens Place and Thorne and Henleys Language and Sex: Difference and Dominance in 1975, which led sociolinguists into great interest in language and sex relationship and have continued to influence sociolinguistic works. Sexism is a sys
14、tem of beliefs and practices that affirm the dominance of one sex over the other, pervading social relations and institutions, affecting everything from peoples domestic arrangement to their career choices. Attention on structures that support and promote sexism within the society, among which is la
15、nguage, has been given with the arrival of the feminist movement within English speaking countries. It is considered that language as the carrier of sexism enhances attitudes and behaviors, action or interaction towards either females or males, judging, making fun of or dismissing either sex as infe
16、rior. And in most cases, it is used to describe mens attitudes towards women. Early documents on sexism in language recorded the various ways in which language could be understood as being sexist. These documents laid their fingers on the English language which is regarded as sexist because it carri
17、es certain assumptions about gender roles. It was the womens liberation movement which was launched in the 1960s, as Thorne and Henley pointed out, that pushed this field of study into its development, and created an atmosphere that this study is legitimized and accepted (1975).As a result, attentio
18、n was focused on the sexist bias reflected in language, and the devastating social consequences of such a language, described as degrading and ignoring women and keeping them in their low social status at the same time. Further researches on womens ways of using language and the extent of difference
19、s between the sexes in their use of language were made since the 1980s when Coates and Camerons works Women, Men and Language: A Sociolinguistic Account of Sex Difference in Language and Women in Their Speech Communities, and Henley and Kramaraes book Gender, Power and Miscommunication: Miscommunica
20、tion and Problematic Talk and so forth uncovered the critical re-examining of previous findings and explanations of gender differences in language use. Since then, language has been regarded as a powerful instrument of patriarchy by feminists. Entering the 1990s scholars, especially feminists, proce
21、eded further in this research area. Cameron (1991) reaffirmed sexist assumptions and practices, and at the mean time questioned the whole scholarly basis of linguistics and shoed how the assumptions and practices of linguistics were implicated in patriarchal ideology and oppression. She also assumed
22、 that 5 many feminists often go to extremes, who tried not only to eliminate sexist language by creating new vocabulary, but also to imitate mans pronunciation and to demolish polite and elegant conversational style and the womens taboos such as damn and shit. Cameron saw in these actions an express
23、ion of indignant emotion, but without a way to settle the issue of sex difference in language. She gave us such enlightenment that removal of sexist words would not leave a large repertoire of words for women to draw upon, and hence the strategies as the elimination or addition of words were basical
24、ly shortsighted. Basically in the research of language and sex, those who are involved are divided into two groups on the basis of their different research emphases. One emphasis is laid on linguistic asymmetries, to be more specific lexical asymmetries, in the language which indicates that English
25、is sexist. Examples of this groups study are seen in the arguments such as women who hold certain positions are often described in terms of men, e.g., female doctor, female judge, etc.; man and mankind are accepted as a referring to all human in general; the masculine pronouns are used as generic re
26、ferring to a person whose sex is unknown to the speaker, and so forth. The other group emphasizes on the speech difference between women and men in six categories: lexical distinctions such as color terms, strong versus weak expletives, womens versus neutral adjectives, tag questions, question inton
27、ation with statement syntax, and strength of directive speech acts. The differences between women and men in these six categories leave the impression on the people that women are more polite, less powerful, and their identities are submerged because they denied the means of expressing themselves st
28、rongly and encouraged to use expressions that suggest triviality and to use forms that express uncertainty concerning what they are talking about. The common agreement reached out of the two groups of research is that sexism does exist in English language, in the fact that women are expressed by lan
29、guage and urged to use language in a lower status than men. With the awareness of linguistic inequality among ordinary people, they begin to adopt a critical mind to the language people use and re-examine their place in the society from the angle of language. 1.3 Objective of study Nowadays, in orde
30、r to solve this problem, the feminists create some new words to replace the old ones, such as chairperson, congressperson, spokesperson, etc. According to Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, in some sense this may be somewhat effective, but it cant solve this problem once and for all. What needs to be pointed o
31、ut is that language itself is no sexist, but the linguists embody their idea into language and prescribe it as a rule, which people must observe in order to use 6 standard language. We can say, it is society, culture and human beings that cause sexism. This phenomenon is not language-bound. Since it
32、 has deeply rooted in the society and peoples minds, we must try our best to eliminate the idea and change peoples outlooks. That demands efforts of all the people and will last a long time of generations. In spite of the difficulties and protraction, we still need to try. The thesis analyzes the em
33、bodiment of sex discrimination mainly from the syntactic, semantic and linguistic perspectives in the English language, providing a theoretical support for the issue of sexism in language and putting forward some strategies that the writer thinks might be able to eliminate the phenomenon. The author
34、 hopes that one day we see fair English in which no one is biased. 2. Analysis of Sexism in English Sexism in Language is a kind of social phenomenon, which reflects the certain traditional social values and the national way of thinking. Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary of Current English with Ch
35、inese Translation 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. Otto Jesperson, the Danish linguist, in his
36、Growth and Structure of the English Language (1923), points that English is the most masculine language as far as he is concerned.(quote Sun Jianru, 1997) So its necessary to discuss sexism in English. This section will give a detailed analysis of sexism in English from three perspectives, namely, s
37、yntactic, semantic and linguistic perspectives. 2.1 Syntactic perspective The discussion from the syntactic perspective mainly focuses on word order, an important factor in grammar. Masculinefeminine word order is globally accepted in languages, and most scholars believe that it reveals sexism in la
38、nguage. The hypothesis is that in arranging word order, people are often following a goodbad sequence, such as goodbad, richpoor, prettyugly, and lifedeath. This is obviously true in language, and has been expanded by scholars to the word order of manwoman. Such a word order in arranging the two sex
39、es is said to imply the interpretation of mans superiority to woman. Examples boom in English newspapers, magazines and peoples daily talks, such as male and female, husband and wife, son and daughter, king and queen, brother and sister, Adam and Eve, Mr. and Mrs. Particular cases in this topic exis
40、t such as we do not say gentlemen and ladies but reverse them. It is deemed that it is influenced by the notion of chivalry that men should protect women, which leads to the later tradition lady first. People neither say bridegroom and bride because marriage to a woman is of more importance common m
41、inds. And 7 ironically, such interpretation of the two particular cases again leads to the interpretation of the thought that women are weaker than men so that they should be protected, and women are born to be affiliated to men because only when it comes to marriage they become important. 2.2 Seman
42、tic perspective We can see obviously that sexism exists in semantic perspective. Semantic changes have complicated cultural and psychological contributing factors. The following parts will analyses this phenomenon from: (1) proverb; (2) generalization of masculine; (3) semantic degradation. 2.2.1 Pr
43、overb As an important component of language, proverbs mirror geography, history, social system and social ideas of a certain nation. By examining English proverbs, we can discover the deep-rooted sexism ideology in society. Take the proverb below as an example. Maids want nothing but husband, and wh
44、en they have them, they want everything. (Xu Zhisuo, 2000) In this proverb, women are described as greedy people who are never satisfied with what they own. In the past, women are thought as having no wisdom or ideas. People also thought women are stupid and ignorant. The following proverbs are typi
45、cal examples. A womans advice is never to seek. When an ass climbs a ladder, we may find wisdom in women. Women in state affairs are like monkeys in glass shops. In some other examples, women are even described evil-minded, which gives us the impression that women are not to be worth a hair. Women a
46、re the devils nets. Nothing agrees worse than a ladys heart and beggars purse. No devil is so bad as she devil. 2.2.2 Generalization of masculine The generic masculine terms refer to those words which basically refer only to male but are used for an overall referring in the situation that the sex of
47、 the referent is not known or is unnecessary to be distinguished. This applies to man, either alone or in compounds, as in the following examples: 1. All men are created equal. 2. The universitys four-man crews won in both the mens and womens divisions. 3. The R 2.-ette: usherette, kitchenette, conductorette, coquette, bachelorette; 3.-ine: heroine, concubine, margravine. The above listed suffixes are all that can be found in English vocabulary used to specifically refer to the female. The reason why female suffixes are regarded as a repres
