本科留學生thesis范例：：A Study on Gender Discrimination in English Language
 

Abstract: 摘要

性別歧視，一般來說，是指一個性別偏見。性別歧視主要是指婦女。對婦女的歧視存在于我們社會生活的各個方面的歧視。在社會的發(fā)展過程中，所有年齡，男性主宰的世界。語言作為溝通的一種手段，真正體現了人類的概念。雖然語言不能決定人們的思想，它確實可以影響他們的看法。性別歧視也反映出婦女從男性在社會中的統(tǒng)治下的男人的依賴。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 http://www.400190.com/yylw/ r 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
 

CONTENT1.

1.Introduction 1

  1.1  A Definition to Gender Discrimination in English Language 1  

  1.2  The Objectives of the Study 1

2. Literature Review 2

3. Phenomena of Gender Discrimination in English Language 3

  3.1 Gender Discrimination in English Vocabuary  3

   3.1.1 Word Formation 3

   3.1.2 The Meaninf of a Word 4

   3.1.3 Addressing 5

  3.2 Gender Discrimination in English syntax 6

   3.2.1 The Generalization of "He"and "His" 6

   3.2.2 The Use of he Indefinite Pronoun 6

   3.2.3 Word Order 7

  3.3 Gender Discrimination in English Proverb  7

  3.4 Gender Discrimination in the tone of voice 9

4. The Cause of Gender Discrimination in English Language 10

  4.1 Historical background 10

  4.2 Social factor 10

  4.3 Culture Factor 11

  4.4 Physiological and Psychological Factor 12

5. The Strategies of Eliminating or Avoiding Sexism in English 12  

  5.1 Language Strategies 13 

  5.2 Social Strategy 13

6.Conclusion 14

 References 15

 Acknowledgements 16

1. Introduction 簡介

   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.#p#分頁標題#e#

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 結論

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. 

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      Dictionary:

 Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary of Current English with Chinese Translation.

 Oxford University press, 1989.