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. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 60 22 02 01 HANOI, 2014 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 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. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 60 22 02 01 Supervisor: Assoc. Võ Đại Quang HANOI, 2014 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 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 i LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish, first of all, to express my deepest gratitude to Assoc. 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.
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.
ii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ABSTRACT It has been proved that sexism exists in language as well as in language textbooks. Many studies on linguistic sexism in English as a foreign language (EFL)/ English as a second language (ESL) textbooks have been internationally published. However, very few in-depth studies on this topic have been carried out in Vietnam. Diep (2002) has been an exception but he has just investigated sexism in language 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).
iii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 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 iv LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii TABLE OF CONTENTS iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vii LIST OF TABLES vii Part A: INTRODUCTION 1 1. Rationale to the research 1 2. Aim and objectives of the research 2 3.
Scope of the research 3 5. Significance of the research 3 5. Structural organization of the thesis 4 Part B: DEVELOPMENT 5 Chapter 1: Literature Review 5 1. Review of previous studies related to the research area of the thesis 5 1.
Studies of sexism in language in the world 5 1. Studies of sexism in language in Vietnam 8 1. Review of theoretical background 10 1. Linguistic Sexism in English 11 v LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.
Linguistic Sexism in Morphology 12 1. Linguistic Sexism in Semantics 13 1. Linguistic Sexism in Syntax 16 1. Linguistic Sexism in Pragmatics 17 1.
Influences of Language Textbooks and Sexism in Language 18 Textbooks 1. Summary 19 Chapter 2: Research Methodology 20 2. Methods of the research 21 2. Analytical framework of the study 23 2.
Data collection procedure 23 2. Data analysis procedure 24 2. Summary 24 Chapter 3: Findings and Discussion 25 3. Findings related to research question 1 25 3.
Linguistic Sexism in Morphology 25 3. Linguistic Sexism in Semantics 26 3. Linguistic Sexism in Syntax 27 3. Findings related to research question 2 30 3.
Women are exclusive and men are inclusive 30 3. Men are superior and women are secondary 32 vi LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Women are dependent and men are independent 33 3. Discussion of the findings 34 3.
Summary 38 Part C: CONCLUSION 39 1. Limitations of the research 41 4. Suggestions for future research 41 REFERENCES 42 APPENDICES I 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 vii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 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. 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 1 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 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.
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 by MOET. The main aim above is specified into specific objectives of the research as follows: (1) to find out the frequencies of linguistic sexism at word and phrase levels exist in the current Vietnamese upper secondary English language textbooks: Tiếng Anh 2 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 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. 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.