Sexism in the Chinese Languages and Society

Tai Lam California State University, USA 2009

Introduction Language as a sociocultural phenomenon (Arndt et al, 1987) is closely associated with the social structure, values and norms of behavior. It arises with the formation of human society and varies with the development of social life. Such co-variation between language and society enables the linguistic phenomena to reflect the social customs and values of life. Gender differences and sexism in language reflect each specific social values, concepts and national modes of thinking. China has gone through a long history of feudal society in which women did not enjoy any prestige of social status. Sexism has pervasively existed in the Chinese languages and society and has reflected both in written and oral language. In the general linguistic literature, hundreds of popular and academic studies on language and gender have been conducted since the early 1970's in the United States, prompted by the women's movement. For the Chinese

Sexism in Chinese Languages and Society

Lam

page 1/12

language and its dialects, during that period and into the 1980's, scant attention was paid to gender-differentiated speech aside from language variation research, in which sex is an important independent variable. Owing to the scarcity of adequate empirical research and on the pavement of prior literatures and studies on gender discrimination in Chinese culture and society, the article attempts to conduct a comprehensive study on the Chinese language by analyzing the Chinese word structures, lexicon and sociocultural contexts. Background Western linguists have been studying various aspects of sexism in the English language for several decades. Following the influential works by Robin Lakoff (1975), and Miller & Swift (1977), and some others, many of the researchers began to identify and categorize types of sexism marked in linguistic features such as vocabulary, grammar, discourse, and even intonation (Baron, 1986). Recently scholars have turned their attention to sexism in Mandarin Chinese as well, finding remarkably similar sexism phenomena in linguistic aspects on Chinese words, vocabulary, idioms, and proverbs. (Shih, 1984). The most notable treatment of sexism in the Chinese language is that of Yan (2003) and Pan (2004), whose works have greatly influenced the direction of this article. Since the mid-70s, Chinese sociolinguists have presented this topic from several different perspectives. Current studies in this field have

Sexism in Chinese Languages and Society

Lam

page 2/12

shifted its focus from single linguistic variables to context-specific connected speech, drawing on approaches from discourse analysis and the ethnography of communication. Recent work also tends to be based more on empirical However, the

research rather than on casual observation or introspection.

studies of sex differences and language have been carried out in Englishspeaking societies. Relevant research on the Chinese language is still in its infancy. Moreover, very little has been done from the new perspectives on language and gender concerning the Chinese language. Sexism in Chinese character structures Chinese is one of the worlds longest-standing languages, whose characters are the important carriers of its culture that is the base on which Chinese words are shaped. Chinese is the worlds only existing language, which is characterized by ideography and which represents connotation by pictography. The Chinese pictographic words contain and convey plentiful cultural messages. One of the six categories of Chinese character formation is pictographs which display the meaning through directly depicting the appearance. Right from the early period of the word formation, the word (woman) in Chinese ancient oracle script ( jiaguwen) emerged the

low social status for women in ancient China. The hieroglyphic character shaped reflecting a kneeling woman with her hands crossed. When two points
Sexism in Chinese Languages and Society Lam page 3/12

(breasts) are added, it becomes

(mother). Oracle Bone Script is one

of the oldest known forms of Chinese written language. According to recent archaeological research, it dates back as far as 4,800 years ago. It was likely used from the Middle to the Late Shang dynasty. Oracle script was etched onto turtle shells and animals bones. The shape of these characters are often described as "pictographic", in that they resemble stylized drawings of objects they represent. Such pictographic words illustrate that the females were in dominated position. The ancient pronunciation of the word (woman) was read /n/ meaning slave, (connoting a woman with a big hand ). In Chinese slavery society, daughters were used for debt mortgage. Afterwards, a great quantity of Chinese ideographic words combined with as feminine morpheme are formed mostly of discrimination. From the onset of Chinese character formation, it is obviously seen that the women in Chinese society were in low position. According to Modern Chinese Dictionary ( Wang et al, 1995), besides the single word (woman), there are 202 words consisting of (woman) morpheme as the word root. Based on the statistics of some Chinese scholars, words with the woman morpheme are found in "Ci Hai" (literally translated Sea of Rhetoric, published in Hongkong, 1989) with a total of 257 words, in which 100 characters are of medium
Sexism in Chinese Languages and Society Lam page 4/12

evaluation in realty, 35 of derogatory, 47 of praise and 18 of half-and-half praise or derogatory evaluation. Lets see some examples of this type component which are detrimental to women : /d/ (jealous)- woman + household /h/; /j/ (envy) - woman + disease /j/; /yao/

(demon) - woman + die young /yao/ ); /chang/ (prostitute) - woman + flourishing /zhi/ (prostitute) - woman + branch store); and /nio/ (flirt) (man + woman + man); /bio/ (act of visiting prostitutes); /jian/ (wicked or evil); / ping/ (have illicit relations or sexual intercourse with); /xin/ (suspicion); /y/ (give pleasure ) and so forth. In addition of the word structure with the left-side morpheme of woman mentioned, Chinese people, in cognition of up-down spatial system, have a tendency of superior-and inferior concepts and discrimination. The loss of female identity consciousness is superficial cause that emerges come into gender discrimination of Chinese character structures. For examples, /qi/ (concubine)- consisting of set up /l/ and woman; (absurd, arrogant); / tu/ (proper, suitable) /qi/ (wife); /jn/ (greed); /su/ (weak, play); /pi/ (show favour to); /jian/ (rape) and much more. Those are made of a (woman) morpheme and another component word. Such kind of words in the up-down structure occupy 3% of the total words with woman
Sexism in Chinese Languages and Society Lam page 5/12

("Ci Hai", 1989). Chinese people ancestors might have thought of peacefulness by positing women in a deep room under the roof ( /an/). Such structure of (peacefulness) further reflects obviously the male-dominance ideology in Chinese languages and society. If those words are dissembled they can be interpreted as women's common failinga gender-based failing to the exclusion of menThose Chinese characters seem to pass on the message that women are characteristic of those negative emotions disposition and maneuver Sexism in the Lexicon and socio-cultural contexts Another biased representation of the sexes that concerns the portrayal of man as the norm and women as the appendage can be seen in Chinese lexicon. The article tends to focus on the manifestation of sexism from the angles of generic masculine, naming and addressing terms. The Chinese lexicon has many depreciative terms of address, a lot of which are directed at women. For example, a man can call his wife /nirn/ (a person inside the home), means a woman can only stay at home without freedom of movement or engaging in political and social activities. Another term /jin ni/ illustrates the lower status of a woman as humble and lowly person inside home. /jingchai/ (thorn hairpin), meaning a woman who is very poor as
Sexism in Chinese Languages and Society Lam page 6/12

she uses a thorn as her hairpin. /zhenji/ (chastity and virginity), these are specially prepared for women. Chinese lexicon has /zhenf / (chastity woman) and /jifu/ (widow) but it has no /zhennn/ (chastity man) and /ji n n/ (widower). This illustrates that in terms of sexual relationships, the chains are only obligatory to women. A man can remarry after his wifes death, and his newly-married wife is then called /tianfng/ ( added room) or /xxin/ ( continued string, meaning a woman who marries a widower). But there are no corresponding female-centered characters in Chinese in this regard; as a result. Chinese traditional principle of no posterity as the greatest of the three unfilial acts firmly legalizes the male dominance. The male-dominant trend of modern Chinese characterized by polysyllabic words are only aimed at or centered on men. The generic words like /fguan/ (judge), /zhouzhng/ (governor), /zhngzhi jia /(politician), /xiozhng/ (principal), /bzhng/ (minister), /jiangjun/ (general), and /zngtng/ (president) are specially denoted and referred to male. When referred to female, the morpheme (female) /n/ is added to the existing as a prefix, such as / n bzhng/ (ministress) / n zngtng/(female president ) and so forth.
Sexism in Chinese Languages and Society

The sexism in Chinese

Lam page 7/12

can be reflected on the order of word combination involving sex. In collocation, many polysyllabic words denoting male are placed before those denoting female. For example, /nnn/ (man and woman or boy and girl), fuqi/ (husband and wife), /rn/(sons and daughters). This mentality of regarding men as taking precedence over women exists not only in Chinese culture but also in Western culture. In Chinese lexicon, there is an imputation of sexual immorality to referents of the womans term, but with the mans term carrying very general usually favorable implicationAnother astounding fact is that there are far and away more words for prostitutes than for their customersIn Chinese, many terms refer to a prostitutesuch as examples abovebut theres the only most frequently used for a man as /bio/ still with Chinese compound character (woman) Like English, in Chinese, masculine pronouns are mostly used as a general reference. For example, /ta/ (he) referred to both generic gender. Similar cases include /tarn/ (others), /q ta rn/ (the rest). In speech, women like to express themselves as /rn jia/ (another person) instead of using I due to social expectation that women are said to be indirect and invisible. Sexism in Chinese sociocultural contexts can be observed in
Sexism in Chinese Languages and Society Lam page 8/12

Chinese slang and idioms which also reflect the social ideology of lessdominance upon women. For example, Chinese has expressions / nn b gen n du/ ( man will not argue with a woman) or / ji b gen gu du/ (chicken will not fight with a dog), /n z w ci bin sh d/ ( a woman of ignorance is a virtue, or an unaccomplished woman is a virtuous woman), /n rn sh ho shi/ A woman is a disastermaker), and /san g n rn yi ti x/ (Three women can stage a performance, equally English, many women, many word ). A common theme here is that women are liable to gossipthey are talkativeand noisy. They are stereotyped as gossip- laden, tentative, discursive and fussy which again echoes how important language is to the social construction of gendered identity Conclusion Since human being existed on the earth, there have been presented 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. From these linguistic evidences of sex discrimination existing in

Sexism in Chinese Languages and Society

Lam

page 9/12

the Chinese language and male-governed society, a woman was always in the less-dominant position. Sexism phenomena present in the formation of the language, but it originates from its sociolinguistics and socio-culture. The differences refracted from the linguistic aspects and sexism are not determined by natural property of the language itself, but are naturally refracted in the language by specific concepts of social values and national modes of thinking. Many attempts nowadays are made to eliminate as much as possible the gender discrimination both in the cultural-linguistics and social identity.

Sexism in Chinese Languages and Society

Lam

page 10/12

References 1. Carfleron Deborah. 1990. The feminist critique of Language. (2001) 2. Ci Hai (,), 1989. Rhetoric Dictionary, Hongkong. 3. Defeng, Yang. Chinese and Cultural Communication. Beijing: 2001. 4. FreemanR. and McElhinnyB.Language and Gender. InMckay, L.S. & Hornberger, H. N. (2001). Sociolinguistics and Language Teaching. Shanghai. 5. Modern Chinese Dictionary, 2001. Xiandai Hanyu Cidian, , ,Xinhua Book Store, Beijing, 2001. 4. Sunderland, Jane. 2006. Language and Gender. Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group. 5. Zhang, Aiping (). 1995. Another look at the sajiao phenomenon. Manuscript, Ohio State University.

Sexism in Chinese Languages and Society

Lam

page 11/12

Appendix 1 Some Oracle Bone Scripts found related to woman. ( pictographic words were found at http://www.shufa.org - (translated and arranged by Lam)

Appendix 2 Pictures from : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_Bone_Script

: Tiger

: eye

dog

()

bed

horse tiger swine do illness.

Sexism in Chinese Languages and Society

rat elephant beast turtle

Lam

page 12/12