( 题材:文化教育 字数: 644 建议做题时间: 8 分钟) In recent years criticisms have been voiced concerning sexist bias in the English language. It has been argued that some of the vocabulary and grammar we use reflects and reinforces a traditional view of the world as one in which men are dominant and women play a secondary role. Take the word “ chairman ” , for example. While this can in fact apply to people of both sexes, it appears to some people to be male-oriented as it ends in "man". In the past people taking the role of chairman were exclusively male, and the word was obviously originally a compound of “chair” and "man”. Many English speakers, however, have ceased to view this word as a compound and no more feel it to be composed of two units, “chair” and "man” , than they perceive “ cupboard ” as composed of "cup” and "board”. In addition the continued use of chairman might be defended on the grounds that the final syllable is pronounced /m'n/ rather than / m æ n/, just like the final syllable of woman. Despite such considerations other speakers take a contrary view and are sensitive to the components of which it is made up. They clearly perceive it as a title which perpetuates traditional ideas about the place of women in society. For this reason they seek to replace it with neutral terms such as “chairperson” or “ chair” , so that it is now possible to ask questions such as : “ Who is chair of the committee? ” Other changes advocated include the replacement of words such as “postman", “fireman" and “ policeman ” with more clearly neutral terms such as “ postal worker ” , “ fire-fighter ” and “ police officer ” . There is, however, continuing controversy about how far such language changes should go. Should changes also be considered to traditional idioms such as “ man in the stree t ” and titles such as “ Peking Man”? What about those words where the male meaning of “ man ” is no longer dominant, such as “manhandle” ? To the extent that changes have taken place, they have done so more in the written language and formal pronouncements than in everyday speech. You would be quite likely to read in the paper that “ Postal workers are to receive a pay increase ” . But “ Has the postman been? ” would be most likely to be heard in informal conversation. Here “postman” remains firmly entrenched in popular usage. The lack of a sex-neutral third-person singular in English has also attracted attention. How , for example, do we fill in the blank in the following sentence? “ A good teacher always makes sure _________is well prepared for the lesson. ” Traditionally, this would be filled in with “ he ” . The male pronoun in such cases is clearly intended to refer to both sexes. It is still widely used in this way, but some people, especially women, dislike it. They may prefer to add the female pronoun to the male, as in “ A good teacher always makes sure he or she is well prepared for the lesson ” . some people, however, feel that this looks and sounds awkward. Another solution is to use the plural “ they ” for the singular: “ a good teacher always makes sure they are well prepared for the lesson. ” This is often heard in conversation, but is less frequent in formal written English. More cautious souls can avoid the problem altogether by rephrasing in the plural: “ Good teachers always make sure they are well prepared for the lesson. ” The extent to which language reflects and shapes attitudes and behaviors is a matter of conjecture. Chinese, Japanese, Persian and Turkish do not make the kinds of sex distinctions English makes through its system of pronouns, but it would be difficult to maintain that males who speak these languages are less sexist than males who speak English!