【導(dǎo)讀】sociologically,oursocietyisman-orientedandman-centered.Women,regardedas. languages.culture.

　　

【正文】 and dignity. However, the meanings of men39。s names are very different from those of women39。s names, and they reflect the characteristics of firmness, bravery, desire for freedom, and full of dreams and ambitions. For example, Richard stems from the Saxon language, meaning strength。 Andrew originates from Greek with the meaning of courageous and frank。 Lewis es from French, and has the meaning of the protector of the people. 3. Sexism in English Addresses In English, Mr. and Mrs. is a pair of honorific addresses. People usually put Mr. in front of a man39。s name, and Mr. does not show the matrimony status of the man. However, Mrs. is always used before the husband39。s family name, and it refers to a married woman. An unmarried lady is called Miss plus her family name. When we address a man who has a post or professional title, we usually use his title plus his family name, for example, Dr. Davis, Professor Brown, and Dr King. However, when we address a woman, we always put her gender in front of her job, such as woman doctor In addition, when women take part in parties, they are often asked, “What does your husband do?” By contrast, if a man is asked what his wife does, he will be very surprised and may give the answer, “She is my wife, and that39。s what she does”. 4. Sexism in Synonyms for Prostitute and Pimp The synonyms for prostitute are slut, call girl, cocotte, floozy, harlot, queen, strumpet, trollop, girlie, joy girl, lady of pleasure, wanton, professional, a woman of the street, street walker, go/live on the street, fancy woman, and so on, while for pimp, only whoremonger. Astoundingly, there are far more synonyms for prostitute than for pimp. Crystal and Schulz’s sources list more than 500 English slang terms for “prostitute”, but only 65 for “whoremonger”. The above phenomenon indicates greater tolerance towards men in the matter of sexual liberties, while intolerance towards women. Ⅳ. The Strategies of Eliminating or Avoiding Sexism in English In English language, people can find universal phenomena of sexism, but with the vigorous developing of women’s liberation movement and the improving of women’s status, the sexism in English language have desalinated. Two ways are used to eliminate the sexist English, they are: language strategies and social strategies. A. Language Strategies Eliminating the sexist language is to apply standard language, and populate the neutral words and expressions, and avoid the masculine words in the munication. 1. Population of Neutral Words and Expressions The most important thing to erase the sexism in English language is to spread the neutralization of words and expressions, the neutralization of them is to stop the generation of the sexist words with “man” as their suffix and the usages of the sexist job titles, to populate the usages of affix “ person” to replace the words with “man”, such as chairperson replaces chairman, mailperson replaces mailman, salesperson replaces salesman, etc. It’s a new trend to spread neutral words and use the genderfree words. Such as the words teacher, officer, dealer, coach, child, clerk, politician, leader, tutor, writer, and expert, etc. and try to avoid the words ending with suffix “man”. For instance, use firefighter instead of fireman, supervisor instead of foreman, and seller instead of salesman, and so on. 2. Avoiding of the Generalization of Masculine Word “He” One of the most difficult problems is the lack of a singular personal pronoun with which to refer to one person whose sex is unknown or irrelevant. Traditionally “he” has been used, with “his” as the possessive, but the use of “his” is open to the same objection as the use of man. The solutions are: first, changing to a plural and use “they” and “their” for the singular, so change the sentence: “if a student can39。t be in class, he39。ll have to do the work in his own time” to: “If a student can39。t be in class, they39。ll have to do the work in their own time”. Another example: “Anyone who wants to go to the game should bring his money tomorrow”, this one is sexist, and people should revise it as “Anyone who wa nts to go to the game should bring their money tomorrow”. Second, the third person plural pronouns “they”, “them”, “their” not only refer to the plural, but the single. For instance: “Everyone should bring their books tomorrow” is equal to “Everyone should bring his or her book tomorrow”. In the intercultural munications, trying to avoid the sexist language, and people should possess prudent attitudes, using the standard words to replace the sexist ones, so as to get an equal language environment. 3. Ms. as an Alternative to Both Mrs. and Miss Women are labeled as married or unmarried women when they give their title as Mrs or Miss, but men are all Mr and don’t have to reveal their marital status in society, so feminists have proposed Ms as a equivalence of Mr, there is an increasing trend to drop the titles and a person’s first name and surname in letters, public notices, and so on. For example, when people want to write a letter to a pany, but do not know the sex or name of that person, they can start the letter “Dear Mr. and Ms.” or “Dear Agent”. The examples show that it is incorrect and not acceptable to ignore women in business and some other fields, it’s also not good to offend people with sexist words and expressions. B. Social Strategies First of all, it is significant to establish the social consciousness that women are equal to men, language is a mirror of the society, there is no sexism even gender difference in the English itself. The sexism is naturally revealing the social values and cultural consciousness. In order to eliminate the sexism in English language, the most urgent thing is to eliminate and criticize the ba