Linguistics调整后Lecture12Sociolinguistics幻灯片.pptVIP

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Language reflects sexism in society. Language itself is not sexist, but it can encode sexist attitudes. Dictionaries often give cues to social attitudes. In the 1969 edition of the American Heritage Dictionary, examples used to illustrate the meaning of words include “manly courage” and “masculine charm”. Women do not fare as well, as exemplified by “womanish tears” and “feminine wiles”. Until 1972, at Columbia University, the women’s faculty toilet doors were labeled “Women”, while the men’s doors were labeled “Officers of Instruction”. Linguistically, the words officer is not marked semantically for gender. There were obviously few women professors at Columbia at that time. This example shows that nonlinguistic aspects of society may influence our interpretation of the meaning of words. Thus, at least until recently, most English people hearing My cousin is a professor/a doctor/the Chancellor of the University/a steel worker, would assume that the cousin is a man. This assumption has nothing to do with the English language but a great deal to do with the fact that, historically, women have not been prominent in these positions. This is beginning to change, as more women become professors, doctors, chancellors, and political leaders. On the other hand, if someone says My cousin is a nurse/an elementary school teacher/a clerk-typist/a house worker, most English people would probably conclude that the speaker’s cousin is a woman. One striking fact about the asymmetry between male and female terms in many languages is that when there are male/female pairs, the male form for the most part is unmarked and the female term is created by adding a bound morpheme or by compounding. We have many such examples in English: prince/princess, author/authoress, count/countess, actor/actress, host/hostess, poet/poetess, hero/heroine, heir/heiress. Since the beginning of the fem