Acceptability of Sexist Language among Young People in Hong Kong

Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to provide information on the acceptability of some selected genderexclusive and inclusive usages and lexis in Hong Kong English. They include the selection of generic he or genderneutral pronouns anaphoric to indefinite pronouns (e.g., everybody, someone) and occupational terms (e.g., doctor, lawyer, cleaner). A number of generic nouns and sexunspecified nouns with or without morphologically marked gender were also examined (e.g., chairman vs chairperson, fireman vs fire fighter). The findings reveal that linguistic sexism is still prevalent in Hong Kong. However, the strong feminist movement in Western countries and in the education field has had an impact among young people, some of whom have shown concern to avoid gender-biased language. Although consistent gender differences were not found in the present study, some significant differences between men and women were revealed; a relatively higher proportion of women opted for the coordinate pronoun he/she and gender-neutral occupational terms, whereas more men opted for generic they.

Chairpersonorchairman? – A study of Chinese EFL teachers’ gender inclusivity

“…Many high-status professions, such as those of judge, astronaut or surgeon, are traditionally pronominalised by generic he. In contrast, some occupational terms, such as nurse, clerk and secretary, are usually regarded as female jobs, with generic she being used for anaphoric reference (Gibbon, 1999;Lee, 2007). Hellinger (2001, p. 109) has labelled this occupational segregation as 'social gender', which is connected with stereotypical assumptions with regard to the appropriate social roles for men and women.…”

“…everyone, someone), and it was found that generic he was widely used, although the paired pronoun was not uncommon. My more recent study (Lee, 2007) provided information on Hong Kong students' acceptability of some selected gender-exclusive and -inclusive usages and vocabulary. The findings revealed that linguistic sexism remained prevalent among young people in Hong Kong, although some individuals had taken care to avoid genderbiased language by replacing the generic he with non-sexist singular they when the antecedent had a strong plural meaning, or with the paired pronoun he or she when the gender indeterminate antecedents were preceded by definite determiners.…”

“…Four types of elicitation tests were employed: an ethical dilemma test, a translation test, a tag test, and a slot-filling test. The ethical dilemma test followed the approach adopted by Swim, Mallett, and Stangor (2004), whereas the other three tests were a replication of my Hong Kong study of young people's attitudes towards sexist language (Lee, 2007). An advantage of administering elicitation tests is that they are capable of generating a large amount of comparable data and can be controlled to ensure uniformity (Lee, 1999(Lee, , 2007.…”

“…Among the -man compounds, some were deeply entrenched. Compared to just over half of the Hong Kong students who opted for chairman and businessman (Lee, 2007), approximately 90% of the Chinese EFL teachers used these male terms in the translation test. This may be due to the preponderance of men in the worlds of politics and business in mainland China (Yu, 2010).…”

“…The investigation will give us insights about how different speech communities respond to the widespread concerns about linguistic sexism, and will allow us to explore the relationship between inner-circle Englishes and outer-circle Englishes. My earlier study on young people's language choice (Lee, 2007) revealed that linguistic sexism was still prevalent among Hong Kong students. According to McCormick (1994), sexist language is learned and is not given in a child's language development.…”