linguistic sexism in current upper secondary school english language textbooks tiếng anh 10, tiếng anh 11 and tiếng anh 12 = sự kì thị giới tính về ngôn ngữ trong sách giáo khoa tiếng anh trung học phổ thông

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ---- ---- NGUYỄN DOÃN CẢNH LINGUISTIC SEXISM IN CURRENT UPP

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES



NGUYỄN DOÃN CẢNH

LINGUISTIC SEXISM

IN CURRENT UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOL

ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEXTBOOKS:

TIẾNG ANH 10, TIẾNG ANH 11 AND TIẾNG ANH 12

Sự kì thị giới tính về ngôn ngữ trong sách giáo khoa tiếng Anh trung học phổ

thông hiện hành: Tiếng Anh 10, Tiếng Anh 11 và Tiếng Anh 12

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: Engl sh Linguist cs

Co e: 6 22 02 01

HANOI, 2014

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES



NGUYỄN DOÃN CẢNH

LINGUISTIC SEXISM

IN CURRENT UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOL

ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEXTBOOKS:

TIẾNG ANH 10, TIẾNG ANH 11 AND TIẾNG ANH 12

Sự kì thị giới tính về ngôn ngữ trong sách giáo khoa tiếng Anh trung học phổ

thông hiện hành: Tiếng Anh 10, Tiếng Anh 11 và Tiếng Anh 12

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: Engl sh Linguist cs

Co e: 6 22 02 01 Supervisor: Assoc Prof Dr Võ Đại Quang g

HANOI, 2014

DECLARATION

Student Number: 11045192

I declare that Linguistic Sexism in Current Upper Secondary School English

Language Textbooks: Tiếng Anh 10, Tiếng Anh 11 and Tiếng Anh 12 is my own

work and that all the sources that I have used or quoted have been indicated and

acknowledged by means of complete references

Hanoi – 6/2014

Nguyễn Doãn Cảnh

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I wish, first of all, to express my deepest gratitude to Assoc Prof Dr Vo Dai Quang, my supervisor, who has enthusiastically and generously given me invaluable assistance and guidance during the process of carrying out the thesis The success of my study would have been almost impossible without his support and encouragement

My profound thanks are also to all other lecturers for their useful lectures and materials given during my M.A course at the Postgraduate Studies Department of College of Foreign Languages, Vietnam National University, Hanoi, which have laid the foundation for this research paper

My special thanks are due to all my colleagues and students at Dong Thanh Upper Secondary School, Quang Ninh, where I am teaching English now Their ideas, opinions and questions have inspired me to undertake this study

Last but not least, my heartfelt thanks go to my loving wife and son, whose support and encouragement have seen me through the writing of this thesis

in general so linguistic sexism in particular materials such as school English textbooks has been still left blank

This study on linguistic sexism in current Vietnamese upper secondary school

English language textbooks : Tiếng Anh 10, Tiếng Anh 11 and Tiếng Anh 12 was

aimed at finding out how often linguistic sexism occurs in these textbooks and uncovering the hidden messages conveyed through this linguistic sexism The study used content analysis methods to discover the frequencies of occurrences of each category of linguistic sexism and the content of the messages transmitted via linguistic sexism in the English textbooks

The results of the study showed that linguistic sexism occurs rather often in the three English textbooks and through it the messages of women’s low status are conveyed This suggests that more attention should be paid on linguistic sexism so that it could be avoided in the textbooks because learners may suffer from negative effects if sexism or gender biases are present in their texts (Mineshima, 2008)

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

EFL: English as a foreign language

ESL: English as a second language

MOET: Ministry of Education and Training

NCTE: National Council of Teachers of English

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1 Linguistic Sexism in Morphology by Book

Table 2 Linguistic Sexism in Semantics by Book

Table 3 Linguistic Sexism in Syntax (Generic Pronoun Use) by Book Table 4 Linguistic Sexism in Syntax (Word Order Use) by Book Table 5 Linguistic Sexism by Book and Category

1.1 Review of previous studies related to the research area of the thesis 5 1.1.1 Studies of sexism in language in the world 5

1.2.3.1 Linguistic Sexism in Morphology 12

1.2.4 Influences of Language Textbooks and Sexism in Language

3.1.2.1 Women are exclusive and men are inclusive 30 3.1.2.2 Men are superior and women are secondary 32

3.1.2.3 Women are dependent and men are independent 33

Sheet 1 Distribution of Linguistic Sexism in Tiếng Anh 10 I

Sheet 2 Distribution of Linguistic Sexism in Tiếng Anh 11 II

Sheet 3 Distribution of Linguistic Sexism in Tiếng Anh 12 IV

Part A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale to the research

Once I taught my 11th grade students about Neil Armstrong, a famous American astronaut, a student asked me: ‘Why must it be MAN, but not WOMAN’ when she

read in the textbook Tiếng Anh 11 Neil Armstrong’s quotation: ‘That’s one small

step for man, one giant leap for mankind’ (p 174) Though I tried to explain to this

girl that man here in this sentence was not a particular man and that it was used to

refer to all the human beings, she still did not accept After the lesson, I thought more about her question and began to agree with her that the sentence was

problematic because the quotation seems to reflect the invisibility of females by

containing the words man and mankind Neil Armstrong’s use of such words as man and mankind for all the human beings may make people feel that women are not

present in the achievement This is a representation of sexism or sex discrimination

in the English language

It can be easy to find other ways of language use that seem to treat men prior to

women For example, English users often think of male pronouns automatically

whenever the sex of the person is not known The pronoun his in the sentence

‘Every student must bring his own book’ is a good example This is a sexist use of

language, which often suggests an inherent male dominance in many fields of life,

and can reinforce the idea of female inferiority Although both women and men can work in various job fields, there is a tendency to associate certain jobs with men or

women For instance, it is often said ‘A director must do his best for his company’, but ‘A nurse must treat her patients with kindness.’ Of course, we know that not

every man is a director and not every woman is a nurse This language use tends to emphasize the idea that it is not normal for women to be in professional, highly-

paid jobs, and it is not natural for a man to work in such a caring role as a nurse

Sexism in life is various in forms and different at levels It is probably most readily associated with economic issues, such as equal pay for equal work The role played

by language in maintaining and strengthening sexist values, however, is less widely

understood or acknowledged This is probably because linguistic sexism is much more deeply rooted and far more subtle than other forms of sexism The fight for

equality of both women and men in such domains as politics and economy has worked strongly and successfully but in language it seems to be much weaker and receive far less attention All normal people must work and most of them know and require fair for women and men in labour; all normal people must use language but few of them are aware of fair for men and women in language

With regards to sexism in research, it has been discussed for a long time in the world but in Vietnam up to the present, to the author’s knowledge, the first and only researcher who has systematically investigated into sexism in language is Diep (2002) However, he mentioned the issue in language generally and an in-depth study in a specific kind of databases still remains uncovered That means the phenomenon of sexism in teaching and learning materials like Vietnamese English textbooks has never been studied and still a mystery

The above-mentioned reasons have urged me to carry out the present research to find out the status of linguistic sexism in the current upper secondary English language textbooks in Vietnam and hopefully, this research result can be put into consideration of forthcoming syllabus design in a short-term future when Ministry

of Education and Training (MOET) has recently set up a plan for the innovation of

a series of school textbooks including the English ones

2 Aim and objectives of the research

The main aim of the research is to investigate the issue of linguistic sexism in the

current Vietnamese upper secondary English language textbooks: Tiếng Anh

10, Tiếng Anh 11 and Tiếng Anh 12 written by Hoang Van Van et al and published

10, Tiếng Anh 11 and Tiếng Anh 12 and (2) to clarify the hidden message(s)

conveyed via the linguistic sexism at word and phrase levels in these textbooks

3 Research questions

The research questions central to my study are as follows

1) How often does linguistic sexism at word and phrase levels occur in the

current Vietnamese upper secondary school English language textbooks: Tiếng

Anh 10, Tiếng Anh 11 and Tiếng Anh 12 ?

2) What message(s) is/ are conveyed via the occurrence of linguistic sexism at word and phrase levels in these textbooks?

4 Scope of the research

Sexism can be found in various materials, especially in teaching and learning materials such as textbooks In Vietnamese English textbooks, to the author’s knowledge, there has never been any study of sexism before However, this study does not mention sexism in all the Vietnamese English textbooks Besides, the study can hardly cover a comprehensive analysis of sexism in these English textbooks because sexism in textbooks may be portrayed in other aspects such as images for illustration Neither does the research deal with sexism at all levels of

word, phrase, sentence and discourse Therefore, this thesis only focuses on linguistic sexism at word and phrase levels in texts used in three current upper

secondary school English language textbooks: Tiếng Anh 10, Tiếng Anh

11 and Tiếng Anh 12 by Hoang Van Van et al

5 Significance of the research

trong ngôn ngữ qua cứ liệu tiếng Anh và tiếng Việt (Sexism in language through

English and Vietnamese databases) carried out by Diep (2002), no other

Vietnamese researchers have investigated into the issue in specific types of language materials The study would be an illustration of sexism in language used

in a particular context: Vietnamese English textbooks

6 Structural organization of the thesis

My thesis is organized as follows After providing an overview of the research and its purpose in Introduction Part, Development Part will be presented in three chapters Chapter 1 provides the review of literature related to the study Chapter 2 deals with the methodological choices for the study: sample collection, methods of data collection, data collection procedures, and analysis procedures Chapter 3 gives the findings, discussion with reference to the literature reviewed in Chapter 1 and pedagogical implications of the study The conclusion is presented in Conclusion Part, which summarises the study, gives some conclusion points to the study, discusses the limitations of the study and supplies suggestions for further research The next part will first review the literature on sexism in language, then present methodology of the research, and finally deal with the findings and discussion of

the study

Part B: DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1: Literature Review

This chapter will take an in-depth look at the previous studies on sexism in the world as well as in Vietnam It will also provide the theoretical background of the

research issue

1.1 Review of previous studies related to the research area of the thesis

The issue of sexism in language has been of a great deal of interest to researchers in the world for several decades but not many researchers in Vietnam have investigated the phenomenon In this section, a review of previous studies related to sexism in language both in the world and in Vietnam will be discussed

1.1.1 Studies of sexism in language in the world

Language is not merely a means of exchanging information but it is also an

important means of establishing and maintaining social relationship with other members of the speech community Sex-based linguistic variation is an example of

the sort of social function that is fulfilled by language In fact, sex differences are a

fundamental fact of sociolinguistic life For example, there are certain forms of

language which are thought to be appropriate only for men to use and other forms

which only women can use In some cases, these differences depend not only on the

sex of the addresser, but also on the sex of the addressee According to Fasold

(1990), sex-linked linguistic variation involves ‘the differential use of certain

status-marking forms by sex’ (p 115)

One of the major issues in sociolinguistic studies has been the relationship between

sex and language and how it is represented In fact, the study of language and gender began in 1975 by the publication of three books which have continued to

significantly influence sociolinguistic works: Male/Female Language (M R Key),

Language and Women’s Place (R Lakoff), and Difference and Dominance (Thorne

& Henley) Since then, sociolinguists have fundamentally shown a great deal of

interest in sex and language relationship mostly with respect to the presence or

absence in a few languages of linguistic forms that are used only by speakers of one

sex or the other

Sexism in textbooks has been studied in Europe and America since 1970s To my knowledge, the most relevant studies of sexism and its manifestations in ESL/EFL

textbooks that can be tracked down are Hartman and Judd’s (1978) Sexism and

TESOL Materials, Hellinger’s (1980) For Men Must Work, Women Must Weep: Sexism in English Language Textbooks Used in German Schools, and Porreca’s

(1984) Sexism in Current ESL Textbooks

Hartman and Judd’s review in 1978 of several then-current TESOL textbooks examined three categories of sexism: the images of women and men, firstness (the order of female-male mention), and stereotyped roles for males and females They demonstrated that ‘since sexist usage is built into our language (English), it is little wonder that textbooks, including ESL texts, model this usage to the students’ (p.390) For each category, they found evidence that ELT materials reflect sexist attitudes and values And they believed this ‘reinforces the second-place status of women and could, with only a little effort, be avoided’ (p 390)

Hellinger (1980), a native German, carried out a study of 131 passages from three

ELT textbooks used in German schools She found that men were present in more than 93% of the passages, while only about 30% of the texts included women What

is more, she proved that 80% of the speakers were male and that women were rarely participated in demanding, interesting, or successful activities, while males played their roles in a wide range of jobs

Porreca (1984) investigated how sexism is manifested in 15 ESL textbooks and with

what consequences by using content analysis method The author paid attention to omission (the ratio of females to males) both in texts and illustrations, firstness, occupations, the frequency of male nouns to female nouns, female-exclusive masculine generic constructions, and adjectives for men and women In a content analysis of the textbooks, she found that ‘there is evidence that sexism continues to

flourish in ESL textbooks’ (p 718) She reported that although females comprise slightly over half the population of the United States, they are represented only half

as often as males in both texts and illustrations

Beside the above important studies of sexism in textbooks, there are some other studies on sexism in teaching and learning materials that should be mentioned

Coles (1977) examined five sets of popular adult basic education materials and

found that in the total of 150 stories, men outnumbered women by a ratio of 3:1

Britton and Lumpkin (1977) compared reading, literature, and social studies textbooks published before and after the year 1970 to determine whether guidelines

to correct sexism had resulted in any positive consequences The changes, however, were not what to expect: they found that females portrayed as major characters had

increased only by 2%, up to 16% in the new textbooks Hoomes (1978) investigated

28 high school literature anthologies for grades 9 through 12 and found evidence that the overall ratio of total female characters to total male characters in the books was 1:3.5 She also found that the mean ratio of available professions for females to those for males was 1:5 in texts and 1:7 in illustrations

In the 1990s, Peterson & Kroner (1992) conducted an examination of gender biases

in textbooks for psychology and human development Their findings demonstrated that representation of work, theory, and behavior of males significantly exceeded those of females; and females were frequently portrayed in negative and gender-biased ways Poulou (1997) explored differences in the discourse roles of men and women in dialogs of textbooks for teaching Greek as a foreign language to adults Her focus on whether sexist differences could affect negatively the pedagogical value and goals of textbook dialogs and she demonstrated that the effect was quite obvious

Most recently in the early 21st century, Sydney (2004) investigated gender role stereotyping in 40 textbooks in primary schools in Tanzania and found that female

characters depicted were fewer compared to males Bahiyah et al (2008) found that

children understanding about the world and the relationship within the society were acquired through Malaysian textbooks, which allowed linguistic sexism and gender

roles stereotyping to permeate into the mind of the students and later reproduce in their everyday life The study by Otlowski (2003) discussed the importance of Japanese textbook selection for EFL students with regards to the portrayal of gender representation in the targeted culture In many cases, the representation of women in EFL textbooks in Japan portrayed a stereotypical role of women as mothers and homemakers Another Japanese linguist, Mineshima (2008), studied gender representations in an EFL textbook to investigate how it portrays the two genders She examined sexism in three categories including number of females versus males, number of their utterances and firstness The results of the research showed that females were under-represented and overloaded with traditional stereotype roles whereas males appeared only as cooperative and optional

From the above mentioned studies, it is easy to realize the attraction of sexism in

language to the world researchers during nearly half a century from Europe through America to Asia In many teaching and learning materials examined, it was found that females are less visible than males and that there is sex bias against women

The question I have raised for myself is whether or not the issue of sexism exists in Vietnamese English textbooks If so, is it the same or different in comparison with the problem in the textbooks studied before?

1.1.2 Studies of sexism in language in Vietnam

In Vietnam, some researchers have been interested in the relation between language and gender since 1990s Binh (2000) studied some gender differences in children’s language while Dung (2002) demonstrated females’ politeness in communication Khang (2000) agues that sex discrimination in language may be found in such categories as words with male factor showing male dominance in society, the use of

he/his instead of she/her, the use of titles like Mr, Mrs and Miss, and stereotype

attitudes in phrases like unwed mother and unwed father

The first Vietnamese linguist who has systematically studied sexism in language is

Diep (2002) In his works entitled Sự kỳ thị giới tính trong ngôn ngữ qua cứ liệu

tiếng Anh và tiếng Việt (Sexism in language through English and Vietnamese

database), he argues that sexism in language can be found not only against females

but also against males (2002, p 9) However, sex bias against women is paid more attention to in his study and it is seen in the following categories

i) Gender in grammar and its relation with sex in biology: there are some

different points of view on the relation between gender in grammar and sex in terms of biology Some agrees that there must be some relation between them but some others do not But the thing should be concerned about is the display

of sexism in the use of gender in language The male pronouns like he, his and

him are used to include both the two sexes in some cases

ii) Markedness of sex in language: Many words showing the jobs of females

are derived from the words showing the jobs of males For instance, actress and waitress are formed by adding the suffix ess to actor and waiter

iii) Unbalance of words related to females and males in terms of meanings:

Words can have different meanings when they are used to describe men or women For example, the word professional has different meaning depending

on sex: he is a professional means he is excellent in a particular aspect while

she is a professional means she is a prostitute

iv) Sexism in naming/ titles: names and titles are used to show sex and marital

status In the past, a married woman is entitled Mrs while Miss is used for an unmarried one However, thanks to the fight for equality in using titles, Mrs and Miss are now replaced by Ms

v) Stereotypes of sex in language: Stereotypes in describing females in English

can be found in such words/ phrases as a gorgeous blonde, wives of, devoted to

a husband, looking after husband and children

The review of the previous studies related to the issue shows that there are not many researchers in Vietnam concerning sexism in language although it has been a heat topic in the world sociolinguistic research for some decades now The first study of the topic carried out by Diep (2002) provides a general view on sexism in language

but there is a shortage of deep investigation into the phenomenon in a specific type

of materials This has partly urged me to perform the present research

1.2 Review of theoretical background

1.2.1 Sexism

There are a variety of ways in which sexism can be defined The definition of sexism in the Collins Cobuild English Dictionary (1995) is the belief that the members of one sex, usually women are less intelligent or less capable than those,

of the other sex and need not be treated equally This definition means that women suffer from sexism more often than men Wardhaugh (1986) explains that sexism is any discrimination against women or men because of their sex, and made on irrelevant grounds So according to this distinction, not only women but men can also be the victims of sexism The Oxford English Dictionary (1989) defines sexism

as the assumption that one sex is superior to the other and the resultant discrimination practiced against members of the supposed inferior sex, esp by men against women; also conformity with the traditional stereotyping of social roles on the bases of sex From these definitions, it can be inferred that sexism is simply the overestimation of one sex and/ or the underestimation of the other sex In other words, it is generally considered as anything that conveys that one sex is superior to

the other

1.2.2 Linguistic Sexism

Sexism may be found in many fields of life such as sexism in business (business sexism), sexism in politics (politic sexism) and sexism in language (linguistic

sexism) Linguistic sexism is also called with other terms like sexist language,

gender-bias language or sexism in language

Many linguists have investigated and given their viewpoints of sexism in language Cameron (2005) concluded that ‘our languages are sexist: that is they represent or name the world from a masculine viewpoint and in accordance with stereotyped beliefs about the sexes’ (p 12) This means that language encodes a culture’s

values, and in this way reflects sexist culture According to Umera-Okeke (2012),

sexist language is considered to be any language that is supposed to include all people, but, unintentionally (or not) excludes a gender - this can be either males or females Sexist language is especially common in situations that describe jobs – common assumptions include that all doctors are men, all nurses are women, all coaches are men, or all teachers are women This definition seems to be too specific

because it just gives one case of linguistics sexism – sex exclusiveness in language

Atkinson (1993) defines linguistic sexism as ‘a wide range of verbal practices, including not only how women are labeled and referred to, but also how language strategies in mixed sex interaction may serve to silence or depreciate women as interactants’ (p 403) This definition appears to be too broad for the purpose of the present study because only the language in the upper secondary school English

textbooks used in Vietnam now is investigated in this research

If sexism refers to attitudes and/or behaviours that denigrate one sex to the exaltation of the other as being mentioned in the previous part, then it follows Miller and Swift’s (1976) statement that ‘sexist language is any language … that assumes the inherent superiority of one sex over the other’ (p 291)

However, for the purposes of the study, it is interesting to note that these definitions have one thing in common: linguistic sexism is the portrayal of women and/or men that intentionally or unintentionally overvalues one sex and/or devalues the other Any use of words, phrases, and expressions that unnecessarily differentiate between females and males or exclude, trivialize, or diminish one particular sex is clearly sexist in language The unequal portrayal can be seen through linguistic features in

terms of morphology, semantics, syntax and pragmatics

1.2.3 Linguistic Sexism in English

Does linguistic sexism exist in English? The answer is it does definitely According

to Umera-Okeke (2012), many sociolinguistic studies over the years have shown that the English language favors the masculine gender rather than the feminine The problem with sexism in English goes beyond questions of vocabulary: it is built into

the way the language is structured, and the very concepts each of us uses to describe ideas about language Goddard and Patterson (2001) (cited in Umera-Okeke, 2012) argues that the English language is a sexist language based on three facts:

i) It is a language that is made up of sex-exclusive vocabulary For example,

we use hunk to refer to a man and chick to a woman

ii) It contains linguistic items that remain the same but change in meaning

when referring to a man or a woman For instance, he is a professional means

he is a specialist but she is a professional means she is a prostitute

iii) It is a language that carries within it a shared understanding about how men and women are meant to behave and the characteristics they are meant to

possess For example, the sayings men make house and women make it home

implies that the role of men is earning money for the family while women are responsible for doing the housework and looking after children and husbands The classification of linguistic sexism in the English language appears to be a complicated job It is difficult to make clear-cut categories and sometimes some elements of linguistic sexism in English may overlap

1.2.3.1 Linguistic Sexism in Morphology

Derived words with sex-marked morphemes are the manifestation of sexism in morphology According to Umera-Okeke (2012), markedness in linguistics refers to the way words are changed or added to give a special meaning The unmarked choice is just the normal meaning It is quite easy to realize that in English the male term is for the most part unmarked while the female term is marked because it is created by adding a bound morpheme to the male term or by combining the male term with the word referring to females This is an obvious evidence of linguistic sexism in English morphology Some examples are the followings

manager -> manageress prince -> princess god -> goddess

author -> authoress mayor -> mayoress count -> countess shepherd -> shepherdess steward -> stewardess host -> hostess

According to Diep (2004), there are around 200 pairs of words like these, of which the male words are considered original words and the female ones are derivationals

However, there exists sexism against men when the word bridegroom is formed by adding the suffix groom to the root bride

Another evidence of sexism in English morphology is that there are many words

which are clearly male-oriented in that they contain the element man while they can

in fact apply to both sexes Some examples are bushman, milkman, sportsmanship,

draftsman, freshman, cameraman, salesmanship, etc

On the other hand, when a word has a negative meaning, a female word is a major component and a masculine suffix is attached to the feminine word For example, if

the marriage ends in death, the woman is a widow and the suffix er is added to it to

make the word widower If marriage ends in divorce, the woman gets the title of

divorcee while the man is described with a statement such as He is divorced (Nilsen

et al., 1979, p 104)

In compound words or expressions, an unnecessary element or gender marker like

woman/ women/ lady/ female/ women’s is often added to a word to mark that

something is for women Trask (2004) argues that men play golf and cricket, while women play women’s golf and women’s cricket A man can be a doctor, but a woman must often be a woman doctor/ lady doctor This is a way of highlighting or

spotlighting a person's gender in a demeaning way which may imply that it is

unusual for women to have the position Some other examples are women’s

football, women’s volleyball, women’s basketball, female president, female prime minister, woman mayor

1.2.3.2 Linguistic Sexism in Semantics

In English, there are the same words that possess different meanings when they are used for women and men and there are sex-pairs of words that contain different colours of meanings for women and men Linguistic sexism in semantics is against both of the two sexes but the terms used for females outnumber those for males

In English, a word may have different connotations when it is collocated with a male term or a female term When used for women, the same words are likely to

narrow and assume sexual connotations The following examples of the typical words will help to illustrate the point

Example 1: Professional When this word is put in the sentences like (i) ‘He’s a

professional’ and (ii) ‘She’s a professional’, it has different meanings In (i), the

normal conclusion is that he is a doctor or a lawyer or a football player or a member

of one of the respected professions Sentence (ii) could be interpreted in this way, or

it could also be interpreted to mean that she is either a prostitute or promiscuous

Example 2: Tramp ‘He is a tramp’ says he is as a person with no home or job, who

wanders from place to place, or a drifter but ‘She is a tramp’ suggests another

thought: this woman can be considered to be sexually immoral, a prostitute for example

From the examples above, we can see that the same word shifts from being positive male to being negative female The way meaning is created in the society depends

upon dividing the world into positive-masculine and negative-feminine according to the semantic sex prototypes

Besides, there are pairs of words with semantic changes for females and males

Diep (2004) remarks that there are a lot of sex-pair words like man – woman, male

– female, boy – girl, masculine - feminine, which are quite different from each other

according to their semantic meaning Many words tend to be negative when they

shift into female sphere In English, the terms for man and woman who remain

single at the age of marriage are bachelor and spinster Both represent unmarried

denotatively, but bachelor is simply an unmarried man while spinster is an unmarried woman who is no longer young Bachelor is a neutral term while spinster

is always used pejoratively, with connotations of prissiness and fussiness A master

is a powerful or skilful man; a mistress is a woman kept for sexual purposes A

courtier is a polished man of high social status; a courtesan is just an up-market

whore The word governor is explained as a man who exercises a sovereign

authority in a colony, territory or state whereas for the feminine word governess, the explanation is a chief nursemaid The word Mr is used for all men while Miss is for women who are unmarried and Mrs is for married women In English compound

words like call boy and call girl, the former indicates a male waiter hotel or man

who greeting cinema actor to go onto stage to act while the latter means a phone

call prostitute

Another signal of sexism in semantics is that English excludes females by the use of generic nouns It is completely accepted that man and woman are two equal components of human race but actually not equal in the way they refer to people

Generic noun man, besides its reference to male human being, can also refer to the

whole race It is not surprised that man, and men can generically refer to both male

and female but woman and women cannot For example, the word man in the sentences like ‘Man needs food to survive’ and ‘Man is the highest form of life on

earth’ refers to the whole human race

Furthermore, words implying sexism with metaphorical meanings are also worth

mentioning Metaphorical items are often derogatory to both men and women but it

must be admitted that most of the cases are to trivialize and/or sexualize women

First, many items naming various kinds of food with the taste of sweet and with

color are used to refer to women: cupcake, peaches, honey, cookie, melons, candy,

tomato, cherry, tart, pudding, pumpkin, buns, etc while the ones with the taste of

spicy and of rich nutrition are related to men: beefcake, wiener, hot dog, hunk, big

cheese, shrimp, etc Second, soft and colorful plants like rosebud, sweet pea, wallflower, clinging vine, shrinking violet, late bloomer, buttercup, etc are

metaphors for women while strong plants such as pansy, lily-livered, bean-pole,

mighty oak, etc are for men Third, animal-related words are frequently employed

to describe people’s appearance as well as characters Most of them show

stereotyped notions of both women and men Words like chicks, kitten, pussy,

bunny, old bat, bird, spider, filly, sow, cow, lamb, queen bee, whale, hippo are for

women and the ones like dog, fox, snake, rat, ape, pig, cock, bull, tomcat, shark,

tiger, worm, wolf, ox, gorilla, monkey are for men Finally, objects which are strong

or powerful are generally personified as males, while those which are weak, passive

or receptive are personified as females Thus the sun is seen to be male while the

moon (which receives light from the sun) is seen to be females

1.2.3.3 Linguistic Sexism in Syntax

In English syntax, ignoring women by allowing masculine pronouns to be used specifically refer to males and generically to refer to human beings in general is an

example of sexism English users often choose he, him, his and himself both in the

literal masculine sense and in the generic sense to mean a person of either sex When such terms are used generically, misinterpretation can result and females are

unintentionally excluded On formal occasions, he, his or him must be used to refer

to such indefinite pronouns as each, everyone, no one, nobody, anyone, anybody

and somebody Herbert and Nykiel-Herbert (1986) give the following examples

i) Each student intending to graduate in 1983 must submit an official Declaration of Candidacy form signed by his advisor

ii) I asked for volunteers, but nobody raised his hand

iii) In such a circumstance, that layer will be registered as an Officer of the

Course As such, he will be responsible for … (p 50)

Looking at the sentences above, people may sometimes question why it is always

his/ he that are used in such cases and why they should not be replaced by her/ she

This use of pronounces makes women invisible in language and relegates women to

a secondary position dependent on men

Besides, word orders also help to describe sexism in syntax It is happy and proud

for women to hear the phrase lady and gentleman in conferences, meetings and

forums However, it is very easy to find many cases in which masculine terms are

given first and then feminine terms follow There are many such examples as man

and woman, husband and wife, father and mother, son and daughter, Mr and Mrs., prince and princess, his and her, boys and girls, King and Queen, brothers and sisters and so on

It is not difficult to see that words denoting male sex are usually put in front of female sex The firstness is very important in nearly all cultures When meeting an

old person and a young person at the same time, we should greet the old first; in a conference or a meeting, the most important person must be introduced first Therefore, it is necessary to think about the precedence of males in such structures

1.2.3.4 Linguistic Sexism in Pragmatics

Mills (2008) suggests that there are two forms of sexism: overt and indirect Overt sexism is clear and unambiguous, while indirect sexism is based on pragmatics and the meaning and interpretation of utterances This means language must be seen in a

particular context so that sexism can be inferred For example, in the phrase ‘so

have you women finished gossiping?’ there are a number of presuppositions about

women and talk which would need to be unpacked before the phrase could be responded to The presuppositions are probably that women's talk is trivial, that women engage in gossiping more than men, that two women talking together can be assumed to be gossiping, and so on

In the reading text of unit 1 in Tiếng Anh 12 (Van et al., 2007), the sentence ‘It is

generally believed that ‘men build the house and women make it home’, but in my family, both parents join hands to give us a nice house and a happy home’ (p.13)

can be regarded as a manifestation of linguistic sexism because it narrows the role

of women in society The sayings men make house and women make it home

implies that the role of men is earning money for the family while women are responsible for doing the housework and looking after their children and husbands

It carries a shared understanding about how men and women are meant to behave and the characteristics they are meant to possess Talking about the mother’s work

at home, the authors of the book write ‘She takes the responsibility for running the

household’ (p.13) while about the father’s, they write ‘Dad is always willing to give

a hand with cleaning the house’ (p.13) Although the context of the passage says

that both of the parents works hard at their offices but the given sentences tell us

that housework is the responsibility of the mother but the optional task that the man gives to his family

To sum up, beside overt linguistic sexism with sexist words, there is another form

of the issue: the indirect one Overt sexism can be identified through general sets of words in terms of morphology, semantics and syntax while indirect sexism must be considered within particular contexts in pragmatics

1.2.4 Influences of Language Textbooks and Sexism in Language Textbooks

Language textbooks especially school ones, play a major part in the process of language teaching and learning, no matter how the methodologies of language teaching and learning change Textbooks in general and EFL ones in particular have both positive and negative effects in education Hutchinson and Torres (1994) report that no teaching-learning situation appears to be complete until it has its relevant textbook

In Vietnam, Canh (2012) claims that the school textbooks becomes the curriculum, largely drives instruction, and ‘prescribes what is taught, what is to be learned, what

is assessed, and how much time teachers should spend on the delivery of instruction’ (p 19) Richards (2001) argues that the most important advantages language textbooks can bring about are providing structure and a syllabus for a program, helping standardize instruction, providing a variety of learning resources such as CDs and cassettes, videos, CD ROMS, and comprehensive teaching guides, providing effective language models and input, and training teachers

It is also necessary to notice that textbooks have important influences on students’ thoughts (Stanley, 2001) They directly affect students’ perceptions of gender by the way they portray the various people in society and the way those people are shown

to communicate (Otlowski, 2003) Thus, textbooks that do not portray gender equality can lead to cultural prejudices and personal biases The notion of textbooks

as a source of influence on values and attitudes can be traced back from research carried out three decades ago Cincotta (1978) believes that children’s attitudes, behaviours and values are greatly impacted as children spend most of the time reading at schools Mineshima (2008) added that if sexism or gender biases are present in the learners’ text, the ‘harmful’ information could also be transmitted to

learners subconsciously Michel (1986) confirms that stereotyping has effects on the career choices of girls because they are being discouraged in subjects such as technology and science and that sexism and stereotypical roles may lower the girls’ self-esteem and feeling of independence, and restrict and direct the career choices and forms of self expression for both boys and girls

1.3 Summary

This part has shown that much research in sexism in language has been carried out

in American, European and some Asian countries up to the present Nevertheless, very few studies on the issue have been undertaken in Vietnam Sexism can be found in many different forms and linguistic sexism found in different categories or fields Sexism in language has been explored in various materials such as stories, films but the most common materials are language textbooks Methodologically, linguistic sexism has been studied with different methods like content analysis, critical discourse analysis and corpus-based approach, of which content analysis has been the most preferably employed The next chapter will take an in-depth look at

the methodology of the present research

Chapter 2: Research Methodology

This chapter will describe how the present study was conducted This discussion covers research type, research setting, material selection, and data collection and

Vietnamese general education system comprises three levels with 12 forms from 1

to 12: primary level (Form 1-5 for children aged 6-11), lover secondary level (Form 6-9 for children aged 11-15), and upper secondary level (Form 10-12 for children

aged 15-17) English is now a compulsory subject for lower and upper secondary

students and a selective subject for primary ones As a compulsory course at upper secondary level, English is taught with three to four periods (45 minutes long) of

practice per week

The textbooks that have been being used at Vietnamese schools now were officially introduced by Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) in 2006 For upper secondary level, there are two sets of English textbooks being used across

the country: the standard set, which was written by Hoang Van Van et al and

published by Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) in 2006 -

2007 and the advanced set, which was written by Tu Anh et al and also published

by MOET Of the two sets, the standard one is much more widespread used than the other This set of textbooks consists of 16 units and 6 ‘test yourself’ lessons each,

and each unit comprises 5 parts: reading, speaking, listening, writing and language focus In each part, there are 3 phases: pre-task, while-task and post-task with smaller tasks, activities and exercises These textbooks was designed by a group of ELT specialists headed by Prof Dr Hoang Van Van, and ‘this was a big effort to

change the teachers’ attitude, teachers’ awareness of English teaching in Vietnam