Abstract: Sexism in English language has improved along with the vigorous development of women’s liberation movement since the end of 1960s. But we can also find some phenomena of sexism in English. As a mirror reflecting the society, language images the social views and values. Sexism in society is thus inevitably reflected in the use of language. The paper analyzes sexism from the viewpoint of implicature. Implicature means what a speaker can imply, suggest, or mean, as distinct from what the speaker literally says. And it has four maxims: Quality, Quantity, Relation and Manner. That is to say, if phenomena listed in the paper violate maxims of implicature, they may contain the meaning of sexism. This paper consists of three main parts. Firstly, the paper lists three aspects to analyze the phenomenon of sexism. They are appellation, proverb and advertisement. In every aspect, the paper lists a dialogue and then analyzes what maxim a dialogue violates and what meaning it contains. Secondly, the paper explains the reasons why sexism generates. And it lists three factors: cultural, social and physiological. At last, the paper puts forward some strategies to erase the phenomenon. |
