TheGenderDiscriminationfromLanguagesbetween.docVIP

The Gender Discrimination from Languages between Females and Males Tu Wenqian Santai No. 1 Middle School Abstract: Sexism, broadly speaking, refers to a gender bias, mainly the discrimination against women, which exists all over the world and in every aspect of life, with linguistic discrimination included. Since the feminist movement in 1960s, gender discrimination in language has been an important research subject for feminist linguists. This thesis attempts to make a study of gender discrimination in language through comparison and giving examples at the semantic, syntactic and discourse level, aiming at digging those hidden differences in the representation and treatment of women and men in language. The thesis also gives some suggestions on how to banish the sexism in language to raise people awareness to eliminate sexism. Key Words: gender discrimination; semantic; syntactic; elimination 1 Introduction As the peculiar result of the development of human society, language is a kind of social phenomenon and reflects all the sides of human society naturally. Its existence and development are closely linked with the social attitudes of human beings and to a great extent are affected by their social views and values. Historically and sociologically, our society is man-oriented and man-centered. Women, regarded as a weaker gender in the society, are discrimination for a long time and completely subordinated in political life, economic life and even family life in the society which is dominated by men. There is no doubt that, this kind of phenomenon has been embodied in languages. According to Merriam Webster’s College Dictionary, sexism means: (1) prejudice or discrimination based on sex, esp. discrimination against women; (2) behavior, conditions, or attitudes that faster stereotypes of social roles based on sex. This definition shows that the female is largely the sex that suffers discrimination in language.1 2 Frame