浅议英语中的性别歧视及其社会根源 [2]
论文作者:陈端燕论文属性:短文 essay登出时间:2009-04-03编辑:黄丽樱点击率:19653
论文字数:6958论文编号:org200904031730061001语种:中文 Chinese地区:中国价格:免费论文
关键词:sexismEnglish languagesocial roots性别歧视英语语言社会根源
n her youth she is a chick. Then she marries and begins feathering her nest. Soon she begins feeling cooed up, so she goes to hen parties where she cackles with her friends. Then she has her brood, begins to henpeck her husband, and finally turns into an old biddy. (妙龄少女,宛如雏鸡。论及婚嫁,始觉成熟。雌鸡群集,叽喳不绝。孵雏育子,惟我独尊。牝鸡司晨,丈夫雌伏。终至老迈蹒跚,风姿荡然矣。)
Obviously, basing on the above we can conclude that language is sexist. Rather, sexism exists on people’s minds. Language itself has no sexism, but it can imply sexism and reflect social or individual values. Sexism is imposed by society, exhibiting the power relationship that exists in society, with men dominant and women subservient.[2] It is a kind of social phenomenon, which reflects certain traditional social values and the national way of thinking. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English with Chinese Translation defines sexism as “the discrimination based on gender, especially discrimination against women”. It is the belief that one sex is not as good, clever, etc. as the other, especially when this results in unfair treatment of women by men.
A major issue in the area of sociolinguistics is the relationship between language and gender and how it is represented. Since the early twentieth century, especially since the feminist movement in the 1960s which originated in America and then spread all over the world, there have been changes of attitudes towards the language and sex issue. However, the only work that has had direct linguistic impact on the systematic study of sex and language is Robin Lakoff’s Language and Women’s Place (1975). It gives linguistically specific accounts which turn the study in this area notable to a reexamination of both the differences between men’s and women’s language and to the continued assumption that men’s language constitutes the norm while women are prejudiced against in English. His work has aroused the interest of many other linguists in the study of sex issue. D. Bolinger’s two books—Aspects of Langue (1968) and The Loaded Weapon (1980), and M. Schulz’s The Semantic Derogation (1975) yield the same result: language is sexist. Otto Jespersen, the Danish linguist, in his Growth and Structure of the English Language (1923), points that English is the most masculine language as far as he is concerned. And as far as the author has pointed out it exists on people’s minds. Language is like an X ray in providing visible evidence of invisible thoughts. [3] So it is necessary to discuss sexism in English: its origins and desexism.
Therefore in this paper the author will have a brief discussion about sexism in English language in the following four parts: Part one is a short review of sexism study in English. Part two states sexist practices in English from five aspects. Part three discusses the historical-cultural as well as social origins for sexism in English. Part four is devoted to the discussion of the strategies and methods of discrimination of sexism in English. The final part is a summary of the whole
thesis.
2. Sexism in English language
We have observed that in human community, although about half of its members are female, our language is centered on the male portion of the population. The bias in language leads to a linguistic sexism. According to The New Webster’s Encyclopedic Dictionary of the English Language (1997), sexism means: (1) attitudes or behavior based on traditional stereotypes of social roles; (2) discrimination or prejudice bas
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