Gender Discourse Analysis in English Textbooks

1、gender discourse analysis in english textbooks課本中的性別語篇系統(tǒng)分析摘要: 男女在社會中所扮演的角色不僅是一種文化的體現(xiàn)，而且是一種語言現(xiàn)象。 本文對中國目前廣泛使用的大學(xué)英語精讀課本進行了性別語篇系統(tǒng)分析。通過調(diào)查三種英語教科書中男女角色在課本中出現(xiàn)的數(shù)量比例，賦予男女性的職業(yè)或社會角色以及男女的性格品質(zhì)，從而分析其中的性別主義傾向。作為知識載體的英語教科書中性別的缺失會對語言學(xué)習(xí)者產(chǎn)生負(fù)面的影響，作者在此呼吁教育工作者對教材中性別主義現(xiàn)象的重視，以改變不平等的社會現(xiàn)象。關(guān)鍵詞: 男性 女性 性別 英語課本abstract: what role

2、s men and women play in the society is a cultural representation as well as a linguistic phenomenon. this paper examines gender representation in three english textbooks used at the tertiary level in china. the data selected from these reading textbooks are analyzed along the gender lines for number

3、 of males and females who appear, number of occupations attributed to each group and the personalities of males and females. english textbooks are the carriers of knowledge of language for language learners and sexism in textbooks may have negative influence on language learners. the aim of quantify

4、ing such factors is to reveal how men and women are depicted in english textbooks. the author hopes that educators should pay attention to the sexism in the teaching materials and to the gender balance between males and females.key words: male female gender english textbook1 introduction gender disc

5、ourse is the representations of male and female participants in communication. our consideration of different cultural groups between male and female is regarded as the major cause of gender differences, sexism and other gender issues in the gender discourse system. as english is becoming an importa

6、nt medium of international communication, english language learning in china is booming, and consequently, english language textbooks are in great demand. every year, textbooks are published to cater to the needs of language learners. but it must be noticed that the sexist elements can find their ex

7、pressions within the textbooks. the use of sexist texts will influence learners viewpoints and even life spontaneously. thus, the sexism in the textbooks cannot be neglected. the objective of the present study is to determine how gender roles are represented in a number of english textbooks designed

8、 for use by chinese students. do the textbooks embed sexism? if they do, how is the sexism conveyed? the significance of the present study is to help chinese english textbook authors and publishers, as well as chinese teachers and students of english become more sensitive to this social problem in e

9、ducation. three types of english textbooks will be chosen as the objects including a new english course, college english, new horizon college english. then the investigation will be done by gathering statistics of the social status and jobs of the characters in the books above. the readings will be

10、shown through charts, of which on the basis statements and conclusions will be made. this will contribute to the appropriate guidance of sexual equality in language teaching, which is neglected too much in china.2 literature review2.1 linguistic sexism according to renzetti and curran 1, linguistic

11、sexism refers to ways in which a language devalues members of one sex, invariably women. sexism is based on the assumption that women are inferior to men and women are relegated to a secondary status in society. since language is the basis for thought, sexist language is not only an indicator of but

12、 also a contributor to sexist attitudes and behavior. according to this definition, textbooks are sexist if they show women in stereotyped roles with less than the full range of human interests, traits and capabilities, and if they stereotype the personalities of men and women. 2.2 gender schema gen

13、der schema is a set of implicit, nonconscious hypotheses about sex differences. “these hypotheses, which i call gender schema, affect our expectation of men and women, our evaluations of their work and their performance as professionals. both men and women hold the same gender schema and begin acqui

14、ring them in early childhood. their most important consequence for professional life is that men are constantly overrated, while women are underrated.”2 according to yang yonglin3, sexism is concerned with gender schema. the use of sex-equitable materials is conductive to the formation of learners c

15、orrect world view towards sex roles. on the contrary, the adoption of sex-bias materials may lead to the barrier of cultural text comprehension and the hindrance of learners recognitions. research shows that the sex-typed beliefs lead to the expansion of sex bias in language. but linguists cant find

16、 the roots of this expansion. also some researches prove the link between sexism and gender schema. under the influences of traditional notions, behavior modes, social cultures, social roles and even linguistic features, the biological differences between male and female become socialized and stereo

17、typed. the male and female members in the society are endowed with social sex features in specific social life. to meet the needs of the society, male and female adjust themselves to a certain model of social activities. in the process, gender schemas form in our brains and we use them to make judgm

18、ents and solve problems. the sex-equitable materials help students to change their attitudes towards socialized sex roles. otherwise, the use of sex-bias materials produces the barriers of cognition in the formation of the proper views of sex. 2.3 gender role in language communitiesthe assignment of

19、 gender roles is based on the assumption that females and males are fundamentally different from each other and that the content of these roles reflects the biological differences between the sexes. traditional gender role holds that women are expected to be nurturing and emotional while men are sup

20、posed to be providers and achievement-oriented. 42.4 gender stereotypes gender stereotypes are the over-generalized beliefs about the characteristics associated with being female or male and are widely shared within a society. 5 traditional gender stereotype excludes female characetrs. research has

21、shown 6 7 that the exclusion of women and girls in foreign language teaching material seriously impairs the learners abilities to learn and understand the target language and its culture. many researchers have found that teaching material can foster sexist attitudes and discrimination against women

22、by various means. if language textbooks do not reflect the life and work of the culture, they will fail to present a true picture, a valid account of womens contributions to everyday life, politics, culture and the arts.3 research methodology3.1 research questionsin undertaking this research, the au

23、thor wants to discover the trend of sexism in the college english textbooks by investigating the number of males and females who appear, number of occupations attributed to each group and the personalities of males and females. 3.2 the textbooks for the studythe data for study are selections from th

24、ree textbooks, from which are parts of the new horizon college english (nhce) by zheng shutang8, the college english (ce) by li yinhua9 and the a new english course (nec) by li guanyi10. they have been chosen, first because of their popularity and influence in china; secondly, the three series are u

25、sed as intensive reading textbooks. the intensive reading course is a traditional language training course, regarded by the learners as the most important subject. the present study selects texts from one book in each series as representative for detailed study. in order to make the analysis of the

26、textbooks more comparable, the author has selected all the main texts of all three textbooks. so the total number is 30 texts: the 10 texts from section a in book 1of nhce, the 8 texts from book 1 of ce and 12 texts from book3 of nec.the methodology is quantitative; the author counted number of male

27、s and females who appear, number of occupations attributed to each group and the personalities of males and females and some examples of sexism in the texts.4 data presentation4.1 number of male and female charactersas table 1 shows, in the 3 types of textbooks, most of the characters especially the

28、 main characters are males. the number, percentage and ratio of males appearing in these texts are significantly larger than those of the females. the percentages of male characters in these texts range from 64.7% to 80%, while the percentages of female characters range from 20% to 35.3%, with the a

29、verages being 70.8% for males and 29.2% for females. the ratios of males to females appearing in these texts go from 1.83:1 to 4:1, with the average ratio being 2.4:1.table 1:textbooksmale characters%female characters%ratiomale : female nhce1164.7%635.3%1.8 : 1ce1168.8%531.2%2.2 : 1nec1280%320%4 : 1

30、total3470.8%1429.2%2.4 : 14.2 number of occupations attributed to each groupin many cases, occupations of characters are not mentioned. however, when they are, the gender differences are sharp. as table 2 shows, the occupations of male and female characters appearing in the texts are in different ra

31、nges. the percentages of occupations attributed to the males in these texts range from 72.7% to 90.9%, while the percentages of those attributed to females range from 9.1% to 30%, with the averages being 78.1% for males and 21.9% for females. the ratios of occupations attributed to each group in the

32、se texts go from 2.3: 1 to 10: 1, with the average ratio being 3.6: 1.table 2:textbooksmales%females%ratiomale : female nhce872.7%327.3%2.7 : 1ce770%330%2.3 : 1nec1090.9%19.1%10 : 1total2578.1%721.9%3.6 : 14.3 the personalities of males and females as table 3 shows, males and females have quite cont

33、rastive and fixed personalities so that they have different patterns of doing things, which reflects the ideas that women and men belong to different subcultures.table 3:male personalitiescommon personalitiesfemale characterspositivenegativepositivenegativepositivenegativeseverestrong-mindedbravesel

34、f-possessedrationalsincereself-contemptuousrudediligentdevotednaivekindlyeasy-goingscrupulousignoranttimidcompliable 5 discussionsthe study finds that the treatment of gender issues in the textbooks shows a severe gender inequality. none of the three textbooks can claim to be fair and equitable in t

35、heir gender representation. the following points are revealed through the study.5.1 exclusion and subordinationmales appear far more often than females in the three english textbooks. depiction of men not only outdoes that of women in terms of quantity, but equally as telling, also when it comes to

36、the type of roles portrayed. over- viewing the history, we can note that women still have made remarkable contributions to the society. they positively participate in social activities of economy, politics and culture, and are engaged in a wide range of occupations. however, the textbooks seldom or

37、never deal with the contributions of females. even if they are mentioned in the texts, their roles cling to male characters to a great extent. female main characters are portrayed in the roles of wife, mother, sister, babysitter, governess, their highest social positions being that of teacher and me

38、dical students. in contrast, males are more often described in terms of their occupational roles, shown in every conceivable profession, and as capable of great achievements in the world at large. for example, in the text learning a foreign language, the major character is a schoolboy who has diffic

39、ulties in learning english, but he endeavors to practise all the time online and made progress at length. in the process, a woman teacher, the minor characters, cant guide and help him properly. another example, the text writing for myself tells us about how a boy grows up to be a writer. mr. fleagl

40、e is his teacher who has given him great help and led him to success. but the female character, aunt pat emerges in only a sentence “aunt pat served spaghetti for supper”. in the text three sundays in a week, the major character, robert tries to get kates fathers consent on his marriage to kate. it

41、means kate marriage depends on her fathers decision. in addition, kate only has one or two words to say, compared with the conversations and discussions between other men. in tony trivisonnos american dream, tony trivisonno, a poor farmer in italy, immigrated to america and realized his american dre

42、am with great efforts of his own. the main character is a man. but can women realize their american dream? american dream belongs to everybody, not only to male. such presentations do not reflect the reality of the part played by females in social, political and economic activities. certainly it is

43、true that the number of men in high status positions is greater than that of women. however, the extent of the textbooks exclusion of women from such fields and the portrayal of women as primarily in subordinate positions in society distorts reality and reinforce existing inequalities.5.2 stereotype

44、 textbooks usually describe a stereotyped world where “men are working outsides and women are working insides.” the discrepancies between males and females lie in the occupations, personalities, fates, rights, compulsories, etc. men invariably take the posts such as leader, scientist, philosopher, b

45、usinessman, sportsman and solider. however, women do the jobs of teacher, nurse, housewife, salesgirl and conservationist. generally speaking, men are engaging in the jobs concerning with scientific research, leadership, management, invention, sports, ect. women are only entitled to do the jobs of t

46、eaching, nursing, persecution, ect. for example, in the text birth of bright ideas, it is concerned with many examples of imaginative thinking which show that famous people do not succeed without this essential quality, based on which great inventions could be made. these examples include famous sci

47、entists wagner, poincare and descartes. it is a pity that there is no woman in this text though there are some famous women scientists such as madam curie. another example, in the text the light at the end of the chunnel, it mentioned about a male character who is a civil servant, neglecting the job

48、 of the female character. in the text what animals really think, the male character is an anthropologist whose duty is to do research, while the female character is a zoo keeper whose job is to take care of the animals.in this way, the society is divided into two domains: public domain and private d

49、omain. the former is defined as the political world and the latter the family world. housework, the vocations done by females, is excluded from the work or at least volunteer work. the division is often attributed to the different physiological features of males and females so that the stereotypes o

50、f labor divisions and gender identities become rationalized and acceptable. the argument defends for the dominant roles of paternity and the dependent positions of women. 5.3 distortionthe distortion of male and female personalities reflects in the shape of the characters. the female characters in t

51、he textbooks are mostly compliable and dependent by the light of nature. they lack of wisdom and courage and they have the dark sides of human nature. on the contrary, the male characters are full of human merits and ambitions. male characters tend to be severe, strong-minded, brave, self-possessed,

52、 rational and sincere and female characters tend to be nave, kindly, easy-going and scrupulous. in the text a busy weekday morning, the father seems very severe with his daughter sandy. whenever sandy turns the music on, her father will stop her with a commanding tone. by contrast, the mother, mild

53、and kindly, can understand sandys mind very well. in kids on the track, two boys are trapped in the track carelessly. the male character anthony and the female character kate show different responses to the emergent situation. anthony is self-possessed and brave. but kate appears panic and timid alt

54、hough she overcomes her fear in mind at last. 5.4 other considerationsthere are some deficiencies of sex and tendencies of sexism in current college english textbooks. firstly, the problems are associated with social background. to compile a set of language teaching materials, the compilers have to

55、make selections from the essays written by native speakers. in fact, the opinions of the native speakers in their essays somehow reveal the social reality.secondly, english has been hand in hand with sexism since it came into beings. in william shakespeares time, language appeared to be only created

56、 and used by male. in the language at that time, women were despised and ignored completely. people frequently used one word that was male-based to refer to both male and female. in the course of its development, language actually changed a lot. however, the sexism still ingrains in the heart of lan

57、guage. nowadays, sexism can still find its expression in english and people tend to use the male english. thirdly, the compilers might neglect the potential influence of the stereotyped gender schemas. though college students have some proper sense of sex, they still need to go beyond the traditions

58、 and stereotypes. large quantities of materials that are full of sexism may have some negative influence upon their thinking, making them unconsciously follow the old patterns of gender. young people are the future masters of the new society, thus they are supposed to have right attitude towards their opposite sex and erase sexism.6 conclusionsthis research has taken three steps: (1) data collection (book1 of new horizon college english, book1 of college english and book3 of a new english course) (2) data analysis (comparisons are made betwe