Sexism in the English Language: a Problem of Knowledge and Choice

Sexism is a kind of discrimination by one sex against the other, especially by males against females. Applied to language, this biased representation of the sexes concerns the portrayal of men as the norm and women as the appendage or as the exception in language. This book analyzed sexism in the English language from three angles: morphology, syntax, semantics, aiming at foregrounding those hidden differences in the representation and treatment of women and men in language, because the differences are so prevalent within the society that they appear to be normal and commonsense to people. The book also traced the reasons for the occurrence of sexism in English from the historical, social and cultural perspectives because language is a form of social practice and oppression and sexism are phenomena of society. The aim of this book is to help people become aware that English is changing as society changes; that we have choices to make, and that these choices have important consequences.