ABSTRACT

Language, as the carrier of culture, has been enriched and developed by people in their continuous use of language. Language, as a conventional way of expression in a state or nation, can reflect the ideas of the social value and the ways of thinking of a nation. Different countries and different social systems have different effects on gender discrimination, female has been considered as the property of male, even in developed countries that advocate equality of human rights. Gender discrimination is a common social phenomenon, which will be naturally reflected in language. It is not hard to see that people have a biased attitude towards women from their use of English. And in Chinese, we can also find the view that  “sons are better than daughters” from the ancient times. This paper starts from the perspective of social linguistics, analyzes the reflections of sexist language in English and Chinese languages, from the aspects such as word formations, pronouns, nouns, word order, names, addresses and so on, analyzes the causes of sexism language such as social, historical  psychological factors, and offers strategies to eliminate sexism in language. The aim of the study is to make English learners have a profound comprehension of  sexist language in both languages.

 Key words: language; English; Chinese;  gender discrimination

CONTENTS

摘要

Abstract

1. Introduction-1

1.1 Significance of  the study-1

1.2 Contents of the study-1

1.3Studies at home and abroad-1

2. Definitions of sexism-2

3. Sexist language-2

3.1 Sexism in English and Chinese languages-3

3.1.1 Sexism in word formations-3

3.1.2 Sexism in pronouns-4

3.1.3 Sexism in nouns-4

3.1.4 Sexism in word order-5

3.1.5 Sexism in addressing and naming-6

3.1.6 Sexism in word meaning.-9

3.1.7 Sexism in idioms-10

3.1.8 Sexism in Curses-12

4.Causes of Sexism in language-13

4.1 Social and historical factors-13

4.2 Cultural Factors-14

4.3 Psychological factors-15

5.Women’s liberation movement and the change of sexist language-15

5.1Women’s liberation movement-15

5.2  Change of sexist language-16

6.Strategies to eliminate sexism in language-17

6.1 Strategies from social perspective-17

6.2 Strategies from language perspective-17

7. Conclusion-18

References-19

Acknowledgements-20