A Contrastive Study Of Gender-differentiated Paired Words Between English And Chinese

In both the English language and the Chinese language, many male words and female words are symmetrical in form. However, whether these seemingly parallel words are symmetrical from the perspective of pragmatics has always been a hot topic for many linguists. Among them, linguist Linda Bebout made some investigations on certain gender-paired words. Specifically, Bebout compared the usages and perceived meanings of the word pairs lady/ gentleman, woman/man, and girl/boy in 1994 with those of a decade ago. In China, there are some articles on gender-related words. But articles on the comparison and contrast of the Chinese and English gender-differentiated paired words in their denotation and connotation are only a few. Based on Bebout's studies, this thesis is a tentative endeavor to make a contrastive study on English and Chinese gender-differentiated paired words in their denotation and connotation in an effort to see in what aspects they are similar or different.What has been obtained from the author's investigation can be summarized as follows: The word lady and its Chinese equivalent 女士 are similar in terms of generalization. On one hand, lady/女士 is used as a euphemism for woman/女人; on the other hand, lady/女士 is still distinguished from woman/女人 by the traditional attributes of so-called gentility for some speakers. Gentleman is still considered to be a particular type of male by many English speakers, whereas its Chinese equivalent 男士 shows a tendency towards generalization. Both gentleman and its Chinese equivalent 男士 are seldom used as a label for lower-status occupations. Woman /女 人 contains more sexual connotations than man/男人. In China, people seldom call females under 20 years old 女人, whereas the term woman has come into fashion as the general label for a female of university age in English speaking countries. The maximum ages for Chinese 女孩 and Chinese 男孩 are wider than the maximumages for their English counterparts. Lady/^Czt and gentleman/j% dr appear more often for the socially distant peer than for the close peer in both English and Chinese. In terms of self-preference, woman and lady are the most favored terms for females between 17 years old and 30 years old in English speaking countries. Chinese females in this age group prefer to be calledThe thesis has been divided into five chapters. Chapter one serves as a general review of the theory of contrastive study and the studies on gender-differentiated language uses made by the scholars both at home and abroad. It is hoped that this review provides the background for the contrastive analysis of gender-differentiated paired words. Chapter two focuses on the relevant semantic asymmetry in English gender-related words. Chapter three is about the aims of the study and methodological problems focusing on research methods and procedures of the investigation. In chapter four, detailed data analysis is presented. Chapter five summarizes the key points of the whole thesis.