An Linguistics Analysis of Sexism in English

Name: 夏微Student No.:10010051Class:2E-mail address:xiawei88911@163.comMobile phone No.:15201271474Course: Introduction to LinguisticsTutor: Lan Chun Date:June 20, 2013 An Linguistics Analysis of Sexism in English |

Abstract

Language plays an essential role in society, Serving as a phenomenon of society, it can more or less reflects all the sides of human society, as well as the implicit values, attitudes and behaviors of people. Meanwhile, of course language provides a glimpse of sexism in language. Sexism is a kind of discrimination by one sex against the other, especially by males against females. In ancient time, thoughts that males host females and the treatment of women as inferiors to men is in vogue. Men is always at superior positions to women in the social economy, in the politics, as well as in the people’s traditional ideas, so the idea of sex discrimination has reflected in the language. Thus the equality of sexes triggered a great impact on the study of language in the discipline of linguistics. Based on the relevant theories of linguistics, this paper tries to make an analysis of sexism in language from following two aspects: morphology and syntax. The purpose of this paper is to make people take serious concern of sexism in language, helping people get a better understanding of relationship between language and society, thus to make it act as a catalyst for change and allow people to have the insights and awareness of lessening and eliminating sexism in language even daily life. This paper is divided into three sections. Section One starts with the basic information on the relevant term, sexism. Section Two examines the expressions of sexism in English, which is the central part of the whole essay. On the basis of the examples, the features of linguistic sexism in English are analyzed from the angle of morphology and syntax. Section Three draws the conclusion.

Keywords: sexism, morphology, syntax

An Linguistics Analysis of...