2013年12月大学英语六级阅读训练讲解5
2013年12月大学英语六级阅读训练讲解5
Feminist sociolinguists(社会语言学家),over the course of the last few decades,have conducted studies that they believe support the conclusion that women are routinely discriminated against in Endlish-speaking society.They point to the words used to describe women,as well as the words used to describe society as a whole,as indications that the English language ,and therefore the English-speaking culture,is slanted towards the advantage of males.
The words used to describe women are used as instrument by feminist sociolinguists to denote an inherent sexism in the English language.Word pairs such as master and mistress and sir and madam,they claim ,epitomize such sexism.All of the words in question once held positive connotations but,while the masculine (男性的)forms have retained their respectable associations,the feminine forms have undergone pejoration and now imply sexual promiscuity(混杂) and other negative characteristics.Feminist researchers assume that such pejoration indicate that the status of women in English-speaking society is relatively low.