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Phenomena of Sexism in the English lanusge
（作者未知） 2011/12/3
（接上頁） But often it has a totally different meaning.
(1) food metaphor
Some food words can also be used to refer to females, such as cheese cake (奶酪蛋糕——裸體女畫)，cherry (櫻桃——處女)，cookie (點(diǎn)心——可愛的女人)，crumpet (松脆餅——性感女人)，tart (果餡餅——妓女)，tomato (西紅柿——漂亮女人), honey (蜜糖——寶貝、親愛的), piece (點(diǎn)心——女人)，peach (桃子——漂亮女人) and so on. Men often use these words to express their appreciation to women. It even includes the meaning that men treat women as dolls.
(2) animal metaphor
There are also many words showing contempt for women. They embody sexual discrimination but still enjoy great popularity. For example: chick (小雞——少女)，kitten (小貓——活潑年輕的姑娘)，bitch（母狗——潑婦），cat (貓——丑婦、賤婦、討厭的女人)，dragon (龍——倔強(qiáng)的女人)，hen (母雞——愛管閑事的女人), cow (奶�！优嗟呐�、妓女)，crone (老母羊——干癟的丑老太婆) and mare-horse (母馬——粗聲大氣、肥胖固執(zhí)的女人) and so on. [16] These are all pejorative terms for women, because animals are considered to be inferior to human beings on the earth. So using animals to refer to females indicates that females are inferior.
The semantic derogation of women helps to construct female inferiority and because women are confined to negative terms, women continue to be devalued.
Conclusion
Since human being appeared on the earth, there have been existing two different genders-----male and female. On account of the differences between their physiological features and the superiority and inferiority in social activities, men and women are differentiated from each other in individuality, value, image and status, which give rise to variations in their language styles and language uses.
References
[1]單文波. 英語中的性別歧視現(xiàn)象及其文化因素探析[J]. 江漢大學(xué)學(xué)報(bào)(人文科學(xué)版), 2005年8月(第24卷第4期).
[2]葉梅. 管窺英語中的性別歧視現(xiàn)象[J]. 安徽農(nóng)業(yè)大學(xué)學(xué)報(bào)(社會科學(xué)版), 2004年1月(第13卷第1期).
[3]田宇. 英漢語言中的性別歧視現(xiàn)象研究 [J]. 黑龍江大學(xué), 2005年4月.
[4]靳梅琳. 社會語言學(xué)與英語學(xué)習(xí)[M]. 南開大學(xué)出版社, 2005年2月.
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