A Comparative Study of Sexism in English and Chinese

By Liu Xinyi

In partial fulfillment of the requirement

For the B. A. degree

Department of English

School of Languages and Cultures

Nanjing University of Information Science amp; Technology

May, 2016

Contents

Abstract IV

1. Introduction 1

2. Review of the Definition of Sex and Sexism. 1

2.1 Gender and Sex 1

2.2 Sexism 2

2.3 Feminism 2

3. Different Aspects of Sexism in English and Chinese 3

3.1 Sexism in English and Chinese from the Perspective of Morphology 3

3.1.1 Sexism in additional bound morpheme——affix 3

3.1.2 Sexism in compounding 4

3.1.3 Sexism in word order 5

3.2 Sexism in English and Chinese from the Perspective of semanteme 5

3. 3 Sexism in English and Chinese from the Perspective of syntax 6

4. Sum up: Sex differences in language 7

5. Social roots of sexism in English and Chinese language 8

5.1 History and culture 8

5.2 Economy 9

5.3 Physiology 9

5.4 Social reality pressure 10

6. Conclusion 10

References 13

Acknowledgments

First of all, my heartfelt goes to my supervisor Professor Xiong Mingli, for her consistent patience, guidance and encouragement. She helped me a lot in the whole stages of my paper. I am very grateful that she has spent so much precious time to offer me valuable advice. Without her efforts, I could not have finished this paper.

Second, I am also deeply indebted to all teachers who directly or indirectly do a favor in the preparation and writing of this paper.

Last but not least, thanks for my beloved friends and lovely roommates, for their support, understanding and encouragement through all the stages of the thesis.

A Comparative Study of Sexism in English and Chinese

Liu Xinyi

Department of English

School of Language and Culture

Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology

Abstract: Sexism exists in different degree in different social systems and countries and female has been regarded as male’s foil and possession, even in the western countries where people persist that everyone has equal rights，female is just like a rib of male. Form the habit of using language, we can see that the attitude towards male and female is not fair. In order to protect female’s right which should be equal to male’s, it is imperative to eliminate sexism in language. Reducing this phenomenon can not only reduce discrimination against women in a certain extent, but also can make people use English and Chinese more accurately. Thereby we can eliminate sexism in language and eradicate the existing sexism concept and the problem in English and Chinese and then we can change people’s thoughts that male are superior to female and improve female’s social status and achieve the equality between male and female truly and completely. This paper will discuss and analyze the problem of sexism in English and Chinese language in order to arouse people’s attention to the language of gender equality and the correction of the language that discriminate against women.

Key words: sociolinguistics, sexism in language, social root

摘要：在不同的社会制度和国家中，性别歧视都不同程度地存在着。即便是在讲究人人平等的西方文化中，女性也只是作为男性的肋骨而已，这在很大程度上就影响了人们的意识形态。单单从使用语言的习惯就可以发现人们对待男性和女性的态度特别不公平，为了保护女性的权利，我们必须要努力去消除性别歧视。分析语言中显示的性别歧视现象不但可以减轻性别歧视的程度，而且可以使得语言的表达更加准确，然后进一步就可以消除语言中的性别歧视，从而彻底消除根深蒂固的性别歧视观念以及语言中的性别歧视问题，转变人们内心新出内心深处男尊女卑的落后思想，真正地做到平权和人权。本文将针对此话题进行深刻的剖析和探讨，来引起人们对性别歧视问题的关注和性别平等语言的关注。

关键词：社会语言学，性别歧视，社会根源

1. Introduction

Human language is produced in the society and the practice of production. Moreover, it is the main media of people’s communication, so absolutely it will impact politics, economy, science and technology even culture. The gender differences and sexism in language has always been a hot topic for linguists especially for social linguists. Since the 1990s, the rise of social linguistics has aroused wide concern of the linguists and feminism.

On the basis of the theories of some famous linguists, this paper discusses the sexism in English and Chinese from the perspective of social linguistics and meantime it analyzes the social roots of the formation of sexism. This thesis is divided into six parts: the first part describes the relevant research at home and abroad. The second part illustrates the sexism in English and Chinese, which including three aspects such as affix, compounding word and word order. The third part analyzes the sexism from the semantic in English and Chinese and then we find that there is inequality in semantic which means a word or phrase that associated with male usually implies positive or neutral meaning while with female implies derogatory. The fourth part comments on sex differences in language. The fifth part analyzes social roots of sexism in English and Chinese and introduces the efforts to eliminate this phenomenon and offers suggestions for future. The last part is the conclusion of this whole paper.

Review of the definition of sex and sexism

2.1 Gender and Sex

The words sex and gender are commonly used interchangeably, but many linguists would argue that their usage is quite distinct(Li, 2005:26). Sex is that the property or quality by which organisms are classified as female or male on the basis of their reproductive organs and functions. Its characteristic is the condition or character of being female or male. While gender refers to individuals or personality of masculinity or femininity. For the sex in biological field, gender is closer to identity and temperament and it is also known as social gender or gender temperament. And it is from the physiological, functional and psychological differences that distinguish the female and the male. The meaning of gender culture is the social attitude and perspective to male, female and the relationship between them, which in accordance with the gender norms and structure organization. At the risk of oversimplification, “sex” in both contexts is a biological given, “gender” is a social acquisition ( Miller,C. and Swift,K. 1991: 45).

2.2 Sexism

Sexism, also can be called gender discrimination, which refers to the unequal treatment of members of one sex to another sex. Especially the unequal treatment of men to women. The inequality between sexes results in sexism in society. And sexism can also be used to refer to any differential treatment caused by gender. The basic reason for the existence of sexism is gender stereotype, which is the belief in the imaginary characteristics of men and women.

According to Merriam Webster’s College Dictionary (1996), sexism means: (1) prejudice or discrimination based on sex, esp. discrimination against women; (2) behavior, conditions, or attitudes that foster stereotypes of social roles based on sex. Sexism mainly refers to the discrimination against women. Language is a tool of conveying thoughts while the text is a kind of objective existence. Language connotation is not the essential attribute of language so it is changeable. Language is a tool for exchanging ideas and sharing emotion, therefore language in the emergence of sexism really exists in people’s mind. Ultimately, sexism in language is the scapegoat of the thought of sexism.

2.3 Feminism

Feminism, a social theory and political movement, which can also be called liberation of women or equality of the sexes, refers to eliminating sexism, sexual exploitation and sexual oppression and promoting the equality of sex class. Moreover, it also focuses on the analysis of sex inequality and promoting the rights, interests and issues of the bottom of sex. The theory of feminism proposes that achieving sex equality in all mankind. Feminist theory has a basic premise which is female is an oppressed and discriminated class all over the world.

The secondary status of female is so common and persistent. In such a ubiquitous social structure which crossing the history and culture, the status of female in the fields of politics, economy, culture, ideology, knowledge, attitudes and cognition is inequality with male’s. The patriarchal thought possess that the patriarchal sex order is not only widespread and will never change because it is formed naturally. While feminist hold the opposite. Many say that feminist who speak English support use English language with no sex difference. Such as “Ms” refers to all married and unmarried female or when the sex is not clear we can use “he or she” instead of “he”. Feminist also supports using the language which include sex element , for example, using “humanity” to replace “mankind”. Feminists want to change the use of language which not to require female to have equal rights or influence in the political discussion but to be considered as an attempt of changing the language which includes sexism. Feminist believes that language has directly affected the concept in the reality world.

3. Different aspects of sexism in English and Chinese

3.1 Sexism in English and Chinese from the Perspective of Morphology

3.1.1 Sexism in additional bound morpheme——affix

In English, when the word that was expressed in male and female appears in pairs, male words are unmarked in most cases while feminine words ought to add the bound morpheme “affix” such as -ess, -ine, -ette on the basis of male words and then become the marked words. For example, hero——heroine, actor——actress, usher——usherette. As Graddol and Swann (1989) mention, the masculine terms dog and lion in pairs are considered the “neutral” terms whereas the feminine counterparts, bitch and lioness are semantically marked. Although these affixes make it easy to differentiate between male and female, however, they have lost their original function. And only does make people think is that these affixes reflects that female is a subordinate, humble and passive meaning. Since that generic is already coded as male, it seems as if women’s presence in the language is being removed（Li, 2004:43).

剩余内容已隐藏，请支付后下载全文，论文总字数：27589字