浅析英语中的性别歧视现象

　　(3) Wizard and witchBoth of them can be used to refer to people with evil magicpowers. Wizard also has a meaning of person with extraordinaryabilities, while witch means an ugly old woman.

　　(4) Sir and madamSir and madam both can be used to refer to high status people.

　　Madam is used formerly as a courtesy title before a woman’sgiven name but now used only before a surname or titleindicating rank or office or used as a form of polite addressfor a woman. Unlike sir, madam is also used to refer to abrothel keeper. There are also many other examples such aslord and lady, governor and governess. The examples citedabove demean women rather than men.

　　3.2.2 Semantic collocation and change(1) Semantic collocationIn English, a word may have different connotations when it isused to describe different sexes. For example:

　　① imposinga. He is imposing.

　　b. She is imposing.

　　Sentence a means “He is impressive and admirable.” Whilesentence b could be interpreted to mean that “She isdisgusting and apathetic.” When the sex changes, so does themeaning.

　　② looseLoose seems a neutral word for both male and female. But “aloose woman” reminds people of “a woman considered to besexually promiscuous” whereas “a loose man” just means “acasual man”.[12]

　　③ trampIt is defined as “a person with no home or job, who wandersfrom place to place” or “a woman considered to be sexuallyimmoral (esp. in American English).” In the example, He/She isa tramp. For the male, tramp refers to a vagrant whereas forthe female it can mean that she is promiscuous.

　　From the above, we can see that the same word shifts frombeing positive to being negative once it has moved fromreferring to a male to a female.[13]

　　(2) Semantic changeBesides, words, which begin with either neutral or positiveconnotations over time, acquire negative implications andfinally end up as “sexual slurs”. For example, the term hussyderives from Old English huswif (“housewife”), which means“the female head of the house”. The term graduallydeteriorated to “a rustic rude woman” and finally comes tomean “an indecent, impudent woman or prostitute”.[14]