从英语词汇的变化看美国妇女地位的提升文档格式.docx

1、社会每一阶层在社会中所处的位置，都可以通过语言这个层面得到准确的反映。仅就语言本身而言，它又是不断变化的。通过语言，我们可以看到一个时代，因为语言有很强的时代特征，它总是和我们身边的很多事物有着千丝万缕的关系。本文将从英语词汇的变化看美国妇女地位的提升。本文将分点从英语词汇的变化以及女性地位的提升等方面来进行论述。英语词汇的变化和社会的发展有着紧密的联系。在过去，英语词汇大多偏向于男性词汇，并且许多女性词汇都是由男性词汇派生而来。随着社会的发展，女性在经济地位、社会地位、政治地位等方面的意识的不断增强，许多英语词汇慢慢偏向于中性词汇。本文将为人们提供一个更全面、更清晰的视角来了解美国妇女地位的

2、衍变。关键词：英语词汇；妇女地位；提升Promotion of American Womens Social Status Reflected in the Changes of English VocabularyAbstractLanguage is an important part of social life, and it is also the tool of communication. It is like a mirror which reflects varieties of aspects in society. Language is the carrier of c

3、ulture, is a reflection of society. Each class in social position can be accurately reflected by the language. As for the language itself, it is constantly changing. Through language, we can see the ages. The reason is that the language has strong characteristics of the ages. It is always related va

4、rious things around us.This paper will in the view of promotion of womens status reflected in the changes of English vocabulary. This paper will divide into two parts to discuss: one is change of English words and promotion of womens status. There is a close relationship between the development of t

5、he English vocabulary and society change. In ancient times, mostly English vocabulary tends to vocabulary of men. And there are many vocabulary of women derived from men vocabulary. With the development of society, the female consciousness reinforce in the aspect of economic status, social status as

6、 well as political status gradually, many English vocabulary tend to neutral words.Key words: English vocabulary; womens status; promotion1.Introduction With the development of the society, the human history has entered into the information age. We should learn vocabulary from the aspect of daily li

7、fe. The three elements of voice, vocabulary and grammar make up language. Language is a special social phenomenon, is the most important tool for communication as well as a tool for thinking（Wu Zhankun，2009:1）. In information age, it can use to transfer information. The ability of language is innate

8、. Stalin ever said, “If there is no vocabulary, people could not imagine anything.Language, as part of culture, influenced culture a lot. Some sociologists hold the view that language plays a role as footstone if there is no language, then there is no culture （刘润清，2005:2）. On the other hand, culture

9、 has an influence of language. People can say that language reflects the prosperous of a nation. It not only contains the history of the national and cultural background but also contains the outlook of life, mode of life as well as a way of thinking. Language interacts with culture. People have an

10、obligation to know culture if they want to understand language, and vice verse. 2.The Changes of English Vocabulary2.1The Changes of Appellation for WomenNowadays in the influence of the feminist movement, people begin to adopt the parallel structure to name the member of man and women. The uses of

11、parallel names and titles can show equal and fair. For example, people change President Regan（里根总统） and Mrs. Thatcher（撒切尔夫人） into President Regan and Prime Minister Thatcher; use husband and wife or a lady and a gentleman instead of man and wife.Besides, the changes of appellation for women also ref

12、lected in the next examples. In the past, women should use the name of their husband instead of their own surnames after marriage. When they mentioned a couple, people always say Mr. and Mrs. Smith or Mr. and Mrs. Jones. In those two cases, women not only are deprived of their own surnames, but also

13、 are covered with their names. Luckily, many women realize this unequal treatment and begin to launch a movement to retain their fathers surname. After marriage, women have two choices: if they do not want to follow their husband surname, they could continue to retain or they could put their surname

14、 and their husbands surname together and form a compound surname. Lets take another example. It is a question about Mr. or Miss. When people mention a woman, they use Miss. or Mrs. to call her or him. It is obvious to show marital status. For marital status is a private thing, people use Mrs. to nam

15、e married women, while use Miss to call unmarried women. In many occasions, it would make women embarrassed, or even violate the rights of women. However, there is not any limitation for men. People use Mr. to call them. It not only can refer to married men but also unmarried men. According to this

16、circumstance, people propose a new word Ms. to name the woman of married and unmarried. It predicts a significant progress on women.2.2 The Changes of Some English Words That Degrade WomenIn English, male words mostly act as the backbone in compound words. Lets take some examples. Britain is dominat

17、ed by the man. It can be called a kingdom. There also exists the circumstance, that is, the country was once dominated by women. But people could not call it “queendom”. Additionally, people always use fruits to describe women. For instance, people use “tomato” to describe beauty; use “peach” to imp

18、ly a beautiful girl or women; and use “tart” to infer prostitute. When people use fruits to describe women, it shows that the status of women is low. Depending on this phenomenon, women showed deeply discontent. In recent years, it is illegal to use these words implying scorn or bias upon women. Jus

19、t like describe adult female as colleen or name unmarried women as the old maid. Instead of that, we adopted more objective words. 2.3The Changes of Word Order Womens status also reflects in word order. In the traditional expression of English, the words “male” and “female” are mainly depended on th

20、e principle: man first. Lets look at the following expressions: male and female; host and hostess; landlord and landlady; nephew and niece; uncle and aunt. There is only one example is except, that is, ladies and gentlemen.In ancient times, male is a role of backbone. Everything served for men, and

21、men are first. But nowadays, people advocate the principle: the equality of women and men. So we can also put women first.2.4 The Changes from the Male words to Their Neutral CounterpartsThe changes from the male words to their neutral counterparts also show that womens status gets promoted. For exa

22、mple, “all men are created equal” is a motto comes from the Declaration of Human Rights. In the sentence, people use men” to imply both female and male. Taking this practice totally ignores the existence of women. Lets look at some expressions. There existed everywhere, such as walkman, superman, po

23、liceman, postman, human, fireman, running man and so on. And then lets get another example. We use “freshman” to name new students, including girl students. Besides, the word “man” not only can refer to man but also all human beings. In addition, society is created by both men and women, but people

24、only use manpower” to stand for the rights. When everyone refers to “chairman”, both men and women would think “chairman” is a man in their subconscious. In the 1960s later, the emancipation movement of women carried out widely, they did their utmost to reform the sex discrimination among the langua

25、ge to enhance the womens status （葛本仪，2001:5）.Afterwards, they have some progresses. Some objects only can use male words to describe at first appear neutral counterparts, such as use human beings instead of man; used post deliver instead of postman; used policeperson instead of police etc. 2.5 The C

26、hanges of Personal Pronouns In English, there exists a very funny phenomenon of the third person pronoun: “he” refers to male, while “she” indicates female. Besides that, “he” can also refer to uncertain sex. In formal occasion, people always use “he” or some other words to replace indefinite pronou

27、n, like somebody, everybody, somebody, someone, anything, nothing, and so on. Now lets take one sentence as an example. “Everyone should do his utmost to finish the task.” In this example, we can use “he” instead of everyone. It is not only indicates male but also indicates the female. If we adopt “

28、she” instead of the personal pronouns he, then it only means female. Aimed at the problem of masculine pronouns, the feminists create new neutral counterparts to replace them. Lets see it from the following example. In the sentence of “Everyone should do his utmost to finish the task”, someone point

29、s out that we should adopt “their” instead of “his”. The sentence should be changed into “Everyone should do their utmost to finish the task”. The word “their” solves the contradiction of sex, but it also appears another problem, that is person and number could not keep accordance.Nowadays, under th

30、e pressure of feminist movement, official documents, business, newspapers and educational materials all accept the expressive way of his/her: Every one should do his/her utmost to finish the task.2.6 The Changes of Derivative AffixAccording to the Bible, woman was a rib of the man. Obviously, women

31、as an accessory of men existed in this world. So in English, there are many words were composed of adding feminine stem at the end of masculine stem to describe women （host-hostess; emperor-empress; prince-princess; waiter-waitress and so on）. These kinds of words are particularly occurred in the wa

32、y of describing womens occupation. These above words are produced by masculine affixes; depend on the language of male. Just as Eve must depend on Adam to live, female language also depends on male language to exist, and become accessory of male language （毕秀英，2008:16-17）. There is only one word is except, that is the word of bride. The word of bridegroom derived from bride. In addition, some words add feminine affix would change its original meaning and lower status. For example, the words of mi