Markedness Of Personal Gender Nounsin English And Chinese: A Contrastive Study

Markedness is the binary and asymmetrical distributions of two opposing linguistic items. The oppositional relation of markedness was first proposed by Jakobson in 1921. However, his conception of markedness was applied strictly to phonology. As time goes by, markedness theory is now applicable to any linguistic level, including phonological, morphological, grammatical, syntactical and even pragmatic levels. The present study focuses on the application of markedness theory to the use of gender nouns in English and Chinese.As far as the author knows, the markedness phenomena of personal gender nouns in either English or Chinese has not been much discussed, and still less study has been made on the differences and similarities between English and Chinese in this aspect. Considering the scarcity and inadequacy of the research done in this field, the present thesis aims to make a detailed and systematic contrastive study of the markedness phenomenon, seen both semantically and morphologically, in the use of personal gender nouns in English and Chinese, and to apply the findings of the study to the E-C/C-E translation of personal gender nouns.It is discovered that in English, personal masculine nouns tend to be unmarked while personal feminine nouns are always marked. Quite differently, there is no such contrast between markedness and unmarkedness in the use of personal gender nouns in Chinese, for sex markers have to be used as a rule to indicate the sex of the personal noun concerned. However, in both English and Chinese, it is not unusual that asymmetry as well as markedness reversals occur in the use of personal gender nouns.The following is a brief summary of the main points of the present thesis: 1. English and Chinese show a distinct contrast in the markedness of personal masculineand feminine nouns. English personal masculine nouns can be unmarked and semantically inclusive of the feminine, but the feminine can never be unmarked. In contrast, the vast majority of Chinese personal nouns are of dual gender and special sex-markers have to be used to indicate different sexes, and few remain free words after the adding of the sex-markers. Of course, we cannot deny the fact that some of the nouns with sex-markers have progressed from noun phrases into free words, or have been lexicalized, but none of them can be unmarked, either semantically or morphologically.2. Markedness reversals and neutralization occur to personal gender nouns in both languages. The distribution of markedness for gender nouns is asymmetrical, and in certain contexts the opposition of the unmarked to the marked term disappears or neutralizes. Social and psychological and cultural factors are the main causes for the markedness reversals of personal gender nouns.3. To have a thorough study of the markedness of personal gender nouns entails a close study of personal pronouns, especially those gender-sensitive personal pronouns. English manifests gender distinctions in both written and spoken forms of 3rd person pronouns, but in spoken Chinese no gender distinctions are made in the use of 3rd person pronouns, with , and all being pronounced as to, and their plural forms as tamen. Both two languages make gender distinctions for 3rd person pronouns in writing. But while both 3rd person singular pronouns and their plural forms make gender distinctions in written Chinese, distinguishing not only between male and female but also between personal and non-personal, that is, for males, for females and for non-personal objects, no such distinctions are made in the plural form of the 3rd person pronouns in either written or spoken English.4. The findings of the study can be applied to E-C/C-E translation. It should be noted, however, that what have been put forward as techniques or solutions to E-C/C-E translation are only tentative, and naturally, there remains much room for improvement.