语言及性别歧视.docVIP

Sexism And LanguageBy Allen Pace Nilsen??from The Macmillan Reader Besides being tools of communication, the vocabulary and structure of a language tell much about the values held by its speakers.Any one living in the United States who listens with a keen ear or reads with a perceptive eye can come up with startling new insights about the way American English reflects our values.Animal Terms for People – Mirrors of the Double StandardIf we look at just one semantic area of English, that of animal terms in relation to people, we can uncover some interesting insights into how our culture views males and females. References to identical animals can have negative connotations when related to a female, but positive or neutral connotations when related to a male. For example, a shrew has come to mean “a scolding, nagging, evil-tempered woman,” while shrewd means “keen-witted, clever, or sharp in practical affairs; astute… businessman, etc.”A lucky dog or a gay dog may be a very interesting fellow, but when a woman is a dog, she is unattractive, and when she’s a bitch she’s the personification of whatever is undesirable in the mind of the speaker. When a man is self-confident, he may be described as cocksure or even cocky, but in a woman this same self-confidence is likely to result in her being called a cocky bitch, which is not only a mixed metaphor, but also probably the most insulting animal metaphor we have. Bitch has taken on such negative connotations – children are taught it is a swear word – that in everyday American English, speakers are hesitant to call a female dog a bitch. Most of us feel that we would be insulting the dog. When we want to insult a man by comparing him to a dog, we call him a son of a bitch, which quite literally is an insult to his mother rather than to him.If the female is called a vixen (a female fox), the dictionary says this means she is “an ill-tempered shrewish, or malicious woman.” The female seems both to attract and to hold