A Comparative Study of Sexism in English and Persian Language

Language is a kind of social phenomenon and reflects all the sides of human society naturally. Its existence and development are closely linked with the social attitudes of human beings and largely are affected by their social views and values. Sexist language is language that excludes either men or women when discussing a topic that is applicable to both sexes. This study aims at dealing with the various forms of sexism that exist within English and Persian languages. The major objective of this study is to compare sexism at all three levels (words, phrases, proverbs) so that this might help people to become aware of the extent of sexism prevalent in languages and provide scope for further research. This study has also attempted to draw various examples from Persian language instead of limiting itself to English. Despite the sexism present in different linguistic levels people have been making efforts to use inclusive language, to say he or she or they when speaking about individuals whose names they do not know. Sexism in language includes using the word man to refer to humanity, and using titles like Congressman and fireman. Another common error that shows gender bias is assuming that the subject of all sentences is male. What a language with its gender system means is what people use it to mean. It is an evil principle to think that we can tell other people what they mean by what they say, because of some theory we have that makes it mean something in particular to us, even when they obviously mean something else. Nevertheless, there is now a common principle, in feminism and elsewhere (especially flourishing in literary criticism), that meaning is only in the response of the interpreter, not in the mind of the speaker, even if the speaker is to be charged with a crime for the interpreter having the response that they do. Sexist language encourages discrimination and can discourage people from pursuing their dreams. If engineers are always spoken of as male, a girl who aspires to be an engineer may feel that she has no hope, since all engineers are men. Underlying sexist language is gender bias, which can occur consciously or unconsciously. When unconscious, the gender bias in language can be considered the product of society: other people use sexist language, and repetition normalizes it until the speaker unconsciously produces his or her own sexist language where men are the norm and women the other. In order to change sexist language it is not enough to reform the language use of individuals whom you meet; the change has to be at an institutional level, at the level what linguists call the 'gatekeepers of language'.

کلیدواژه ها:

Sexist language ، gender ، discrimination