对性别歧视的分析研究

对性别歧视的分析研究

英国启航论文

一般来说，性别歧视就是对一个性别有偏见，其主要其实对象就是妇女。语言这一种沟通的手段，完美的诠释了人类的概念。虽然语言不能决定人们的思想，却可以影响人们对事物的看法。在社会发展的过程中，不管是什么年龄阶段，都是男性主宰着世界。可见，对妇女的歧视存在于社会生活的各方各面。同时，性别歧视也反映出在男性统治下的女性对男人的依赖。

本文在性别歧视一词的基础上，在语法、词汇、谚语等几方面对性别产生的歧视和偏见来研究英语中所表述的性别歧视一词。自1960年起，性别歧视一词就在英语语言中广受语言学家和研究者的追捧，一度成为语言学的热门话题，并且大家对语言学的兴趣直线上升。除了这一点，本文还将分析性别歧视出现的历史原因、社会原因以及文化原因，以及怎样用最简单的方式消除这种性别歧视。

Gender discrimination, generally speaking, refers to a gender bias. The gender discrimination mainly refers to the discrimination against women.The discrimination against women exists in all aspects of our social life. During the development of the society, men dominated the world in all ages. Language as a means of communication truly reflects the concept of human beings. Although language can not decide people’s thought, it can really influence their views. Gender discrimination also reflects the dependence of women from men in the society under the rule of men.

Since 1960s, gender discrimination in English language had remained a heated topic for linguists and researchers who were interested in linguistics, and till now it still attracts a lot of Linguistic learners to make progress in its late study. This paper is based on the gender discrimination phenomenon, such as syntax, vocabulary, proverb illustrating possible discrimination and bias to study the gender discrimination in English language.In addition, this paper analyses the cause of the gender discrimination from the aspect of the history, society and culture. It also discusses the basic way to eliminate this kind of gender discrimination.

The paper aims to remind us to avoid using language with gender discrimination as much as possible, in order to achieve the best effect of communication and to promote the development of English. Only in this way can we really realize the equality between men and women in language.

Key words: gender discrimination; English language

1. Introduction 简介

Language is the most important tool for human communication and thinking, and it reflects the thoughts, attitudes, and cultures of human beings. To a great extent, language is affected by people’s social views, values, behavior norms, political concepts and cultural traditions. Gender discrimination is influenced by the development of society and culture.

With social development, more and more women achieve equality in family and social world that is dominated by men ever before, but those phenomenons are existed in many aspects. Although the use of gender discrimination in English language is often unconscious and unintentional, it is undoubtedly harmful.

1.1 A Definition to Sexism in English Language

Gender discrimination, in the Oxford Advanced Learner’s English-Chinese dictionary, it means that disapproving action based on the ideas or belief that the members of one sex are less intelligent, able, and skillful, etc, than the members of the other sex, especially that women are less able than men and those particular jobs and actions are suitable for women and others are suitable for men. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language defines gender discrimination as discrimination based on gender, especially discrimination against women; attitudes, conditions, or behaviors that promote stereotyping of social roles based on gender. From these definitions, we can find that gender discrimination is the practice of discriminating against people because of their gender.

4. The Cause of Gender Discrimination in English Language

4.1 Historical background

Gender discrimination as a social phenomenon has its historical roots. In general, early human society has experienced two stages of development, that is

the matriarchal society and patriarchal clan society. In matriarchal society, women played an important part in the society at that time, so women is dominated in social and economic life and their social status is higher than men.

However, with the development of the productive forces, patriarchal society takes the place of the matriarchal society. The labor of the men turns to agriculture and animal husbandry and from fishing and hunting, and women need to spend more time and energy to raising children, so the state of men is important in the society and economy. Therefore, the status of women is getting lower. Under the circumstance, this historical evolution must be reflected in the language. In English language, man refers to men, but is also used to refer to human beings. He is used to refer to both sexes, which clearly reflected the discrimination against women. The man is the master of the society, the women is the accessories of men and women’s value is limited to reproductive. Men considerer that women are inferior to men because of women’s mental retardation, smaller brain, lack of talent, simple and naive. Women also do not enjoy any political right and participate in any political affairs.

5. The Strategies to Avoid Gender Discrimination in English

In English language, people can easily find common phenomena of gender discrimination, but with the development of women’s liberation movement and the improvement of women’s status, the gender discrimination in English language have been declined. Following are some ways used to avoid the gender discrimination in English language.

6. Conclusion 结论

Gender language is a language, whether written or oral, which by its use, form or structure, demeans people on account of their gender. It is a problem that begins in people's assumptions and expectations and has attracted attention all over the world. In addition, it is a problem that will be solved only when a great many people have given it a great deal of thought. As for the gender discrimination words, people should be careful to use them, lest they will make some mistakes unconsciously during their communication or cause some unnecessary misunderstandings. The gender discrimination in English cannot disappear if sex discrimination exists, if people only abolish the words accompanied with sex discrimination instead of changing people’s traditional minds, and then there will be new gender discrimination words to come one day. Therefore, this is a lengthy process. It requires the joint efforts of both man and woman.With the thriving women’s liberation movement, woman’s gaining higher status, sexism in language will be less and less. It reflects that woman has gradually gained the respect and recognition in the world.

英国启航论文