Before class, I never realised how the English language was sexist. Personally, I don't see a Ms as more professional than a Miss. And I happen to be one of those whose impression of a Ms was someone who was divorced. Additionally, I did think about whether the Chinese language was as sexist as the English language and I read up a little. (I saw some Chinese words on the whiteboard when I came to class late but haven't found out what was said)
Mandarin Terms used in Marriage
I feel that certain situations and practices are so rooted in culture that it didn't matter anymore whether it was sexist or not. Regarding how a woman had to be 'given away' by their father to their husband during a marriage, I've asked a few friends and they don't think much about it. Although they had never thought about a marriage ceremony in this manner, they felt it didn't affect the status of the marriage or how the couple would live their life. Come to think about it, even in mandarin, a lady 嫁给(gets married to) a guy. However, a guy 娶 (gets married to) a lady. In Chinese, 给 means "give/given to". However, the impression of 娶 is such that the lady is married into the guy's family. Does that sound sexist to you?
Bachelor's Degree?
Also, most of us are studying for our Bachelor's degree. Haven't heard of a Bachelorette's degree yet. However, because it is so rooted in tradition, does anyone really bother making a fuss out of it? Or perhaps we are just too passive?
Discourse in Mandarin - Sexist or Not? Or a mixture of both?
The prescription of generic masculine terms has led to many debates about linguistic sexism in English. However, such a problem does not seem to occur in oral Chinese discourse because the third person in oral Chinese does not distinguish females from males. The Chinese words “他” (ta), meaning “he” and “她” (ta), meaning “she” are pronounced exactly the same so there is no need in oral Chinese to distinguish a male from a female when referring to a third person singular. However, this “gender neutrality” in the oral discourse does not occur in written discourse because the Chinese language distinguishes a female from a male. The generic masculine “他” (ta) in Chinese, like the word “he” in English, generally stands for all human beings in communication.
Gender-related Order in Expressions
The arrangement of male and female syntactic ordering, in many cases, appears largely fixed in Chinese. If we look at the simple examples I thought of (sorry my Chinese vocabulary is very limited), we realise that the "male" component in many cases comes before the "female" component.
男女 (nan nu) - men and women
父母 (fu mu) - father and mother
兄弟姐妹(xiong di jie mei) - brothers and sisters
儿女 (nu er) - son and daughter
夫妻 (fu qi) - husband and wife
太阳月亮 (tai yang yue liang) - sun and moon
To reverse the syntactic order by placing female ahead of male would render the phrases very odd or even wrong to native Chinese speakers.
For example, let's take the phrase 男女 nannu, (men and women). If the order was reversed, 女男 nu nan (women and men) would sound incorrect to the speakers of Chinese language. Another example would be if you change the order of the phrase 儿女 er nu (sons and daughters) into女儿 nu er (daughter), the meaning is totally changed. For the second phrase, if you change the order of the two characters 父母 fu mu (father and mother) into 母父 mu fu (mother and father), the term sounds grammatically wrong. A check of the Chinese dictionary I used for my exams in secondary school does not even have the phrase 母父 inside. Interestingly, if the above set phrases are in English and put in a reversed order, they are quite acceptable even to a native English speaker.
So, the Chinese language is sexist as well, not just the English language!
Have a good week everyone! And all the best with your research reports.
1 comments:
hey Sean! interesting sharing abt the Chinese language. However, I do see a point when your friends say it does not really matter to them (the use of Marriage terms). I do think that sometimes feminists are blowing the issue up a little to serve their cause..our language use is not necessarily ALWAYS a reflection of our values/attitudes..(cf. Linguistic determinism which states tt language constrains our thought), sometimes it really is a matter of convention or convenience?
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