摘 要

英语作为一门国际通用的语言，已经是日常生活中必不可少的交流工具。但是由于语言与思想观念相互交融，在英语语言中不可避免的存在一定的性别歧视现象，尤其是对女性的歧视。语言作为社会生活的镜子，这反映了英语社会中存在对女性歧视的这一现实。因此，研究英语语言性别歧视的现象、产生原因及解决办法在加强男女平等意识，减少使用歧视性语言方面有深远的意义。

本研究通过文献分析法从形态、句法和语义三个方面概括了英语语言性别歧视现象。研究发现，由于长期的社会习俗、宗教观念以及人们心理认知等原因，英语语言性别歧视现象已经深深影响到了人们的思想观念。本文提出，人们应当通过减少使用歧视性语言、加强男女平权意识、了解西方文化礼仪等方法，更加关注性别歧视，尊重女性，用平等的语言对话。这将对创造一个和谐平等的文明社会具有积极意义。

关键词：性别歧视；英语语言；社会层面；宗教层面；心理认知层面

Contents

1. Introduction................................................................................................................1

2. Demonstration 2

2.1 Literature Review.................................................................................................2

2.1.1 Studies abroad 2

2.1.2 Studies at home 3

2.2 Linguistic Sexism................................................................................................3

2.2.1 At Morphological Level 3

2.2.2 At Syntactic Level 5

2.2.3 At Semantic Level 7

2.3 Factors Leading to Sexism................................................................................9

2.3.1 Social Factors 9

2.3.2 Religious Factors 9

2.3.3 Psychological Factors 10

2.4 Methods to Alleviating Gender Discrimination...............................................10

2.4.1 Using Neutral Words...................................................................................10

2.4.2 Strengthening the Awareness of Equality between Men and Women.......10

2.4.3 Understanding Western Culture and Etiquette..........................................11

3. Conclusion................................................................................................................11

Work Cited 13

Bibliography 14

Linguistic Analysis of Gender Discrimination in English

1. Introduction

Sexism refers to the prejudice on gender and the unfair treatment of one gender to another gender, especially the discrimination against women by men. As a special product of the society, language is the epitome of the whole social phenomenon and reflects the connotation of the society. Sexism as a serious social problem exists in almost all languages, especially in English. English as a world language has a profound history. With the deepening of reform and opening up and economic globalization, countries all over the world contact closely, the English language is not only the medium of communication but also represents the cultural spirit of a nation. Researching the gender discrimination in English has a profound significance, which can let people deeply recognize the seriousness of the problem of the gender discrimination, catch the wide attention of the society and ease discrimination situation. Besides, it can also avoid the using of discriminatory language in international communication which will result in communication barriers or failure.

In western countries, the gender discrimination originated from the feminist movement in the 1960s. The feminism, also known as gender equality, was proposed to pursue gender equality and oppose gender discrimination and gender oppression. In western societies, even though the law states that all men are equal, women are still inferior to men. The meaning of language is never determined by the literal meaning, but is the result of conventions in social environment and it depends on each person’s understanding of the meaning behind the language, and it is also the direct expression of contemporary social values and cultural connotations.

This thesis will focus on the gender discrimination in English from morphological level, syntactic level and semantic level, aiming at arousing people ‘s attention to this phenomenon and understanding it better by further exploring its manifestation, reasons and methods to gender discrimination in English.