Abstract.Proverbs, as essence and important part of language and carrier of culture, reflect people’s perspectives and systems of society. The discrimination against women in society is reflected in proverbs, which influence the social concept greatly. It aims to expose the sex discrimination in language, enhance people’s awareness of it and have a better understanding of the relationship between language and society. It also puts forward some translation methods for English proverbs with sex discrimination, such as literal translation, free translation, synonymous replacement and combination of literal and free translation.
Key words: sex discrimination；English proverbs; translation
1.Introduction
Language is like a mirror through which one can see social views and attitudes of human beings; all kinds of social phenomena (including sex discrimination) are bound to be reflected in language. Language, to a great extent, reflects such social phenomena: females are defamed, belittled, and laid in the position of being subordinate to males. A major issue in sociolinguistic studies has been the relationship between gender and language. Since 1960s, the rising of the feminist movement has further promoted the research of gender language.
As the peculiar result of the development of the human society, language reflects the society naturally. Language is like a mirror through which can see social views and attitudes of human beings. According to Alleen Pace Nilsem(2007), language and society are as interviewed as a chicken and an egg. Language use is the evidence of the values and beliefs of that society. All kinds of unequal phenomena in the society including sex discrimination are bound to be reflected in language.
Sociolinguistics is the science which studies the relationship between language and society, between the use of language and social structures in which the users of language live. It is generally recognized that sociolinguistics as an independent discipline arose in the mid-1960.The study of language in relation to gender has been highlighted as a hot issue in sociolinguistics. The linguists who show interest in this field are traditionally divided into two groups. One group lay their emphasis on the speech differences between women and men. The other group of linguists has observed that men and women are spoken about differently and it is often claimed that language is discriminatory against women. The study of the second group constitutes the focus of this thesis.
2.Literature Review
This part is a review of the studies of sex discrimination in proverbs. In this part some basic concepts are provided and studies of sex discrimination in English are also described. Proverbs are small pieces of human wisdom that have been handed down from generation to generation. Just as an English writer Robert Payne said, “The wisdom of nation lies in their proverbs” (Li Jinghua, 2006). With the development of Women’s Liberation in the western world sine 1960s, the society has undergone a revolution of reforming the English language into an equal and unbiased one. Many scholars and sociologists try to analyze women’s way of using language and make comparison between two genders. One of the most important pioneers in the United Status is Lakoff, who has made great progress in the study of language and gender.
2.1.Proverbs
Proverbs are short well-known phrases or sentences, which are usually the reflection of life. Proverbs are a part of language and a kind of idiom. They are phrases or sentences that spread among the forks with popular image and rich significance; they are also a form of folk literature; they have a long history recording experience of labors in different times; they stem from a wide origin: from literary works to folk stories, from religious beliefs to natural phenomenon, from realizations to experiences and wisdom of people in different times and different social classes; they include oral ones and written ones; they are accumulation and summary of people’s experience and are handed down from generation and generation; they bring about deep effects on social concepts.
2.2. Sex discrimination
In most cases, sex discrimination refers to the discrimination against females. The definition by Advanced Learner’s English-Chinese Dictionary (2004: 485) is as follows: “sex discrimination is prejudice or discrimination against women on the basis of sex.” And because of the interconnections of language and reality, language is definitely sexually prejudiced against women. Just as what Qin Xiubai (1996) comments: “language reflects social activities; the sex differentiation and discrimination in language are not determined by the natural properties of language symbols, instead they are reflection of social values and ways of thinking in a particular society or culture.” In its original meaning, language is a tool for people to communicate with each other; it doesn’t discriminate against either member of the group. However, with the development of the society, women and men take on different social roles and thus discrimination takes place.
2.3.Studies of sex discrimination in English
In western countries, studies on gender in language have gone through a much longer history than in China. Language and gender are a popular issue in the area of sociolinguistics, a young subject in the linguistic field, which did not come into being until the end of the 1960’s. But actually, people had shown concern for language and gender long before sociolinguistics appeared as a discipline. “In the eighteenth century, Welsh linguist Rowland Jones studied male and female language and claimed that the key to mystery of language is the Old Testament from the Bible. From his study, he came to a conclusion that women are inferior to men, and all the inequalities in languages are absolutely just” (Qin Xiubai, 1996: 18). Early works on gender bias in language involved documenting the various ways in which language could be understood as being gender biased. They have pointed out that the English language is inherently gender-biased, because it carries certain assumptions about gender roles.
Since the early twentieth century, especially since the feminist movement in the 1960s, which originated in America and then spread all over the world, the topic of linguistic gender bias has been an important point of discussion. A Feminist theory of language looks at 1) how language is used to keep women in their place; 2) how language indexes gender roles; 3) how language use establishes women’s identity as subjugated beings or second class citizens; 4) how to find ways to equip women with the tools of discourses that will serve to empower them rather than keep them down. They hold that gender distinctions inherent in language affect the way people perceive gender roles and opportunities for members of the two genders.
In the 1980s, feminism stimulated further research on gender bias in language. Compared with the previous study, the research paid more attention to social significance in semantics and emphasized the importance of linguistic theory, which has contributed to the enhancement of people’s awareness of linguistic bias against women. Dale Spender is another important character in this field. As a feminist, she asserted that English is biased in favor of the male and against the female. She spoke of language as being man-made.
From the late 1980s to now, many linguists have made a deeper research on the gender bias in language. Jenny Cheshire has a detailed description and analysis of the gender language and the social and cultural factors of it. Recent works also tend to be based more on empirical research rather than on casual observation or introspection. Current studies in this field have shifted its focus from vocabulary to discourses. Research on the topic concerns many subjects such as philosophy, psychology, cultural studies, semantics, etc. Besides, many other current works all yield the same result: language is gender biased.
3.Sex Discrimination in English Proverbs
Language is taken as the product of human life in a certain area and has always been considered as one of important elements for diving nations. Proverbs, as essence of language and carrier of culture, can reflect people’s perspectives and systems of society and influence social concepts deeply. Thus proverbs are more representative and persuasive to be used to make a research on sex discrimination. By studying proverbs, we can see the deep-rooted gender-biased ideology in society.
Both Chinese and English proverbs reflect such phenomenon: men are superior to women; women are subordinate to men; men work outside while women are in charge of housework; men are stronger than women; talent men match good-looking women. They both include obvious discrimination and derogation to females, that is, subordinate and negative. This part illustrates sex discrimination in English proverbs in five aspects and points out their influences in society.
Language and reality are closely related and they interact with each other: reality influences and shapes language while language reflects and affects reality. Language itself has the sociality and function of social intercourse; language use can influence social events and has counteraction on society. On the one hand, proverbs, as the essence of language and a mirror of reality, they can more or less reflect people’s views, values, attitudes, behavior or system of the society. So the sex-discrimination proverbs provide a glimpse of the sex discrimination in reality. On the other hand, “language is a social tool of human beings. As a part of language, the primary duty of proverbs is still social tool”(Wu Zhankun, 1998:303). Furthermore, proverbs are rich in pithiness, frankness, appeal and handed down by mouth and ear; they can be remembered easily and spread universally both in folk and society generation by generation. Thus proverbs exert a deep and pervasive influence on both individuals and the whole society.
It is important to note that, people find it difficult to dispute or challenge a person who makes use of proverbs when speaking, because it is presented in a form which is not personal: the person using the phrase does not claim responsibility for inventing it, but is simply calling upon pre-existing knowledge, which is assumed to be self-evidently true. They are known as difficult to counter.
To a great extent, people have been absorbing the stereotyped and old thought from sex-discrimination proverbs, which widens the gap between the two genders. Such proverbs reinforce the stereotyped images of women revealing a high degree of misogyny. In a word, the sex-discrimination proverbs influence the social concept and social role deeply and reinforce the gender bias in reality.
4.Translation of Sex-discrimination Proverbs in English
Proverbs, being pregnant with cultural symbols, therefore, deserve special study; likewise, proverb translation as an effective cross-cultural communication enjoys its own specialty. Proverbs are heavily culturally loaded sentences or short sayings and considered as the special cultural images.
4.1.Literal translation
Literal translation is an approach adopted to keep the original meaning, image and structures to the full. The translated version must conform to the standard of the target language and it is not supposed to bring about wrong association in the reader’s mind. The aim of literal translation is to preserve the national flavor of the source language proverbs, while not transgressing the linguistic principles of the target language. Translators should make every effort to retain the figurative image, rhetorical devices and national characteristics of the original proverbs.
4.2.Free translation
Sometimes literal translation has its own limitation. Thanks to different cultural background, some proverbs cannot be translated literally and maintain their distinctive national features. In addition, it is hard for translators to find the counterpart in target language. In this case, free translation will be a good choice. “Liberal translation may be defined as a supplementary means to mainly convey the meaning and spirit of the original without trying to replace its sentence pattern or figure of speech.”
In Addition, free translation is adopted especially when literal meaning and figurative meaning in the source language text are hard to be kept in the translated text. If the image of the source language text cannot be remained in proverb translation, a translator should change the image into the one that is more familiar to the reader of the target language. Only by doing so can the implicated meaning in the source language text can be fully understood by the target readers.
4.3.Synonymous replacement
One proverb may have its synonymous proverb in the counterpart language. If the two synonymous proverbs are not only identical in their meanings, but also have the same or quite similar images or metaphors, the translator may borrow the synonymous proverb from the target language to translate the one in question.
4.4.Combination of literal and free translation
The literal translation is an effective method in maintaining the national colorings of the source proverbs but sometimes it fails to keep the vivid artistry of proverbs. Fortunately, free translation can make up the loss. So many translators combine these two methods together in proverbs translation to get a better result. Specifically speaking, the translators render the proverbs literally in the former part and then paraphrase them in the latter part.
5.Conclusion
Proverbs, language fossils, an important component of language, are extracted from social practice over the years and can reflect people’s views, behaviors or system of society, more representative and persuasive to be used to make a research on sex discrimination in language. The sex-discrimination proverbs in the English language portrays women as “idle chatterboxes” ,“capricious”, “stupid” ,“evil” and “the root of disasters”. With regard to the causes of sex discrimination in language, the author believes there are three predominant factors attributing to that: historical influences, social influences and cultural influences. The sex discrimination is rooted in these three aspects.
Proverbs, short sayings of folk wisdom of well-known facts or truths expressed succinctly, exert a deep and persuasive influence on both individuals and the whole society. The sex-discrimination concepts that consider males are superior to females in intelligence, strength, and leadership abilities are reinforced by the sex-discrimination proverbs. This paper had discussed the sex-discrimination phenomena in English proverbs from status, marriages, words, wisdom and disposition and troublemakers five aspects, illustrated the influences of sex-discrimination proverbs on reality, explained the causes of this phenomena in the view of sociolinguistics It also have put forward some translation methods for English proverbs with sex discrimination, such as literal translation, free translation, synonymous replacement and combination of literal and free translation.
6. References
[1] Advanced Learner’s English-Chinese Dictionary [Z]. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.
[2] Cheshire, Jenny. Still a Gender-biased Language? [J]. English Today, 2008(1): 93-94. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.
[3]Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language [Z]. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.