Abstract：As a social and cultural carrier and the main communication tool, language comes from the social community and is above it. It directly reflects people's ideology, moral values, and relationships and so on. Language is a mirror which not only plays the role of contacting the relationship among people and reflecting daily life, but also showing people's social status and level of education. Gender discrimination, as a widespread social phenomenon, is bound to be reflected in the language of social communication. Linguists widely believed that language, constrained by religious law, hierarchy, cultural differences and other forms of the cultural environment often reflects the phenomena that men are in central status while women always have more humble images. As one of the elements of language, vocabulary is an important aspect to show language discrimination.

In this paper, I take English language as a research subject and analyze concrete instances of gender discrimination that are embodied in English language, and I enrich my paper based on New Concept English for further explorations of the causes of the phenomenon, then, try to research on the basis of the previous efforts, including the cultural aspect, linguistic view, etc., collect and classify materials, in the way of induction and deduction, to explore cultural factors, historical roots, social factors in English gender discrimination. By the way, the paper also gives some alternative proposal for the reformation of English gender discrimination and tries to reach a deep understanding that social reform is the foundation in the process of eliminating gender discrimination. Finally it points out that we can never seperate language planning from social reform, we must realize that the eventual elimination of gender discrimination of language lies in achieving gender equality in social change.

Key words: Gender Dicrimination;English Words;Sexist Language;Causes; Proposal

CONTENTS

摘要

Abstract

1. Introduction-1

1.1. Definitions of sexist language-1

1.2. Prototype features of gender differences-1 

1.3. Common judgment about language usage-2

2. Sexism in English language-3

2.1. Sexism reflected in vocabulary-3

2.1.1. Sexist language caused by “he”-3

2.1.2. Sexist language caused by “man”-4

2.1.3. Sexism reflected in appellation-5

2.1.4. Sexism reflected in occupations-6

2.1.5. Sexism reflected in other things’ naming process-6

2.1.6. Sexism reflected in word order-7

2.2. Sexism reflected in word-formation-8

2.3. Sexism reflected in semantic level-9

2.4. Sexism reflected in English proverbs-10

3. Explorations of the origins of sexism-14

3.1. Historical roots-14

3.2. Cultural roots-15

3.3. Social roots-15

4. Approaches to reducing sexism in language-17

Conclusion-19

References:-20

Acknowledgements-21