scholars
摘要
语言与性别研究一直是语言学家关注的重要课题，国内外诸多的语言学家都对语言中性别歧视这一现象进行了深入研究。语言是现实社会的一面镜子，能够真实地反映这种社会习俗及价值观念，而作为语言中的精华——谚语更是浓缩了文化的内涵。本文以女权主义为视角，侧重于对性别歧视在英语谚语中的现象进行研究。
本文首先结合国内外学者对语言中性别歧视这一现象的研究，并结合这些研究探讨英语谚语中性别歧视现象，指出谚语与性别歧视的含义与特点；再从性格、言行、才智、婚嫁、地位等五个方面指出性别歧视在英语谚语中的具体表现；然后从历史、社会、文化三个不同的角度分析了性别歧视在英语谚语中形成的根源，通过对谚语的分析揭示语言中对女性的歧视，从而提高人们关于性别歧视的意识，帮助人们减少，继而消除在日常生活以及语言中的性别歧视现象；最后指出性别歧视在英语谚语中的发展趋势。
关键词：英语谚语；性别歧视；表现；根源；发展趋势
ABSTRACT
The language research in relation to gender has remained on the important topic in linguistics. Lots of linguists who show interest in this field have done many deep and profound researches. Language, a mirror of the real world, could give us a reflection of social customs and values. And the proverbs, the essence of language, are actually a concentration of culture. The thesis aims at specializing in sex discrimination reflected in the English proverbs from the feminist perspective.
Combined with some researches on sexism in English proverbs by scholars home and abroad, the thesis firstly points out the meanings and features of proverbs and sexism. And then the thesis explains the manifestations of sexism through a study of the proverbs applied in English from five aspects: character, words and deeds, ability and wisdom, marriage and social status. Then the thesis has also investigated into the causes of sexism from three aspects: history, culture, society. Through the research on English proverbs, the thesis tries to reveal the sex bias against women in language, and find out solutions to help people reduce and eliminate the sexism in the daily expressions. Finally, the thesis points out the development trend of sexism in English proverbs. Keywords：English proverbs; sexism; manifestation; causes; development trend
Contents
1. Introduction (1)
2. Definitions of proverb and sexism (4)
2.1 Definition of proverb (4)
2.1.1 Meaning of proverb (4)
2.1.2 Features of proverb (4)
2.2 Definition of sexism (6)
2.2.1 Meaning of sexism (6)
2.2.2 Features of sexism (6)
3. Manifestations of sexism in English proverbs (7)
3.1 Manifestations of sexism in the proverbs about character (7)
3.2 Manifestations of sexism in the proverbs about words and deeds (8)
3.3 Manifestations of sexism in the proverbs about ability and wisdom (8)
3.4 Manifestations of sexism in the proverbs about marriage (9)
3.5 Manifestations of sexism in the proverbs about social status (10)
4. Causes of sexism in the English proverbs (11)
4.1 Historical reasons (11)
4.2 Cultural origin (11)
4.3 Social factors (12)
5. Development trend of sexism in the English proverbs (14)
6. Conclusion (15)
Acknowledgements (16)
References (17)
1. Introduction
American linguist Edward Spair once said: “Language is a guide to social reality.”
[1]. Language, a mirror of the society, loyally reflects not only a nation’s history and culture, but also beliefs and biases. Language and gender is a popular issue in the area of sociolinguistics. Sex discrimination exists in English speaking communities. Therefore, we can find sexism here and there in English.
Denmark linguist O.JesPersen is the first one to study sexism from the angle of linguistics. In 1923, his book named Development and Structure of English had ever pointed out that English was the most masculine language all over the world. In 1960, as an interdisciplinary subject of linguistics and sociology, sociolinguistics formed and developed fast in USA. The d evelopment of West Women’s Liberation and Feminism studies as well as development of sociolinguistics promoted sexist language studies to a certain extent. Some scholars thought that a kind of new linguistics about equality between men and women appeared. The linguists, Lakoff, Trudgi, KZimmerman, West, Thonle, Henle and Bolinger taken as representatives in the period between 70s and 80s, did further studies on sexism and discussed the causes of sexism in language. In his article Language and Women’s Place,
Lakoff pointed out that in the world expressed by the language, the male was in the center and the female’s image was incomplete [2]. Bolinger, in his book, said that this was a phenomenon of sexism in language. Some other scholars such as Lakoff, tried to use all scientific knowledge to describe linguistics.
D.Bolinger, published his books Aspects of Language in 1965 and Language: the Loaded Weapon in 1980, which provided some points for the study of sexism [3]. In 1973, R.Lakoff, published his book Language and Women’s Place, which elaborated on women’ social place and sexism in language. From the end of 80s to 90s, linguists such as J.Holmes, J.Coates, D.Cameron, M.R.Key, did further studies on differences of sexist language. Their studies emphasized the forms of men and women’s terms.
In our country, the study on sexist language is very late, which began from the end of 70s or the beginning of 80s. With the development of Feminist movement, Chinese scholars gradually switch their study to that of sexism. A lot of articles are published on various periodicals, such as Wang Wenchang’s Chairman or Chairperson―American Women's Movement and Reform of Language. These scholars are the first ones to discuss the influences of sexism on language, especially on English from the
perspective of Western Feminist movement. In other words, they begin the study on differences of sexist language. Up to the end of 80s, compared with those studies of sexism in language in the western countries, Chinese scholars pay their attention to differences of sex. They observe and study differences of men and women’s term from the angle of intonation, tone and lexicon. Sun Rujian published his book Sex and Language[4] and Bai Jiehong published Sexist Language and Linguistics, which elaborated on the study on sexist language from the angle of social psychology and pragmatics [5]. Qin Xiubai discussed sexist language from the angle of history, society and culture, and provided a new angle of studying sexist language for us in her article published on Modern Foreign Languages [6]. Kong Qingcheng objectively analyzed a phenomenon of sexism existing both in English and Chinese in his article [7]. Zhuang Hecheng, a very famous linguist who published Sexism in English Lexicon, discussed sexism in English from the aspect of lexicon [8]. Chen Lin published her article Sexism in English Advertisement to put sexism into a different aspect to study its character. The field of these researches is broader than before, which makes other linguists grasp the relationship between language and sexism more accurately [9].
The proverb, a special form of language, is a kind of idiom. It is very popular among the people, and contains very deep implication in sentences. It is also a kind of folk literature. The proverb is human bei
ng’s crystal of wisdom, and embodiment of concise language. The proverb is always iconically co mpared to “clea r mirror of a nation”and “living fossil of language” by linguists. Among the researches of sexism in English proverbs, linguists mostly study the definition of sexism and proverb, sexism reflected in proverbs, its origin and tendency. In 2000, Xu Zhixng, Li Lifang and Li Liming wrote an essay Sexism in English Proverbs. They said that people put women at a very low position, and linked them with some bad habits [10]. For instance, they thought women were very stupid and loved to gossip. In their essay, they also talked about tendency of sexism in English language. Then A Probe into the Causes of Sexism in English Proverbs was written by Yang Qing, Yu Xiangyue in 2003. They put a lot of emphasis on the causes of sexism. Their paper probed into the causes of sexism from the three aspects: historical reasons, cultural origin and social factors. It was thought that the phenomenon indirectly reflected women’s social status in different periods of social development and had close relations with women’s status and its changes [11]. In 2005, Zhang Lin, Liu Wanqiu published an article Sex Discrimination in English Proverbs, which analyzed the phenomenon of sex discrimination in English proverbs in the five aspects of character, words and deeds, ability and wisdom, marriage