Tài liệu A contrastive analysis of sexist language in english and vietnamese literary works

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY M.A Thesis A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF SEXIST LANGUAGE IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE LITERARY WORKS (Đối chiếu ngôn ngữ kỳ thị giới trong một số tác phẩm văn học của Anh và Việt Nam) Phạm Nguyễn Bình Nguyên Field: English Language Code: 8.22.02.01 Hanoi - 2021 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY M.A Thesis A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF SEXIST LANGUAGE IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE LITERARY WORKS (Đối chiếu ngôn ngữ kỳ thị giới trong một số tác phẩm văn học của Anh và Việt Nam) Phạm Nguyễn Bình Nguyên Field: English Language Code: 8.22.02.01 Supervisor: Dr. Le Thi Minh Thao Hanoi - 2021 DECLARATION I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled "A contrastive analysis of sexist language in English and Vietnamese literary works" submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master in English Language. Except where the reference is indicated, no other person‘s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the text of the thesis. Hanoi, 2021 Pham Nguyen Binh Nguyen Approved by SUPERVISOR Lê Thị Minh Thảo Date:…………………… i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my appreciation to my supervisor, Dr. Le Thi Minh Thao, who has supported and helped me with her suggestions and insightful comments all these months in this difficult undertaking of writing a Master Thesis. I am indebted to teachers at the Library Department who facilitated me in browsing and borrowing documents to complete this thesis. Last but not least, I must thank my family, my seniors and lecturers in the faculty for the support they provided me during this period. ii ABSTRACT This study focuses on a cross - cultural analysis of sexist language used in English and Vietnamese literary works. This paper aims to investigate linguistic factors indicating sexism in various English and Vietnamese literary works, contribute in studying and elucidating the role of language in gender equality assist researchers in sexism specifically in terms of English and Vietnamese literary works. The study used contrastive analysis method to discover the characteristics of sexism in English and Vietnamese literary works through 12 English literary works and 09 Vietnamese works. Results of the study showed that sexism in English and Vietnamese literature are remarkably simple, although sexism against men in English literature was not apparent. On the other hand, sexism language used against women was more severe and serious, and the tropes and characteristics of sexism against women in the two countries are also visibly different. Through identifying the similarities and differences of sexism in English and Vietnamese literary works, the study suggests certain methods to avoid sexist characteristics in literature in particular and in daily life in general so that it could be avoided. Keywords: sexism, sexist language, English literature, Vietnamese literature, English literary works, Vietnamese literary works iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................................................... ii ABSTRACT........................................................................................................................... iii CHAPTER 1 ............................................................................................................................ 1 1.1 Rationale: ...................................................................................................................... 1 1.2 Aims and objectives:...................................................................................................... 1 1.3 Scope of the study:........................................................................................................ 2 1.4 Research questions: ....................................................................................................... 2 1.5 Research orientation: ................................................................................................ 3 1.6 Research methods:.................................................................................................... 3 1.7 Structure of the Thesis: ................................................................................................. 4 CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW.................................................................................. 5 2.1 Review of previous studies :............................................................................................ 5 2.1.1 Studies of sexism in the world ................................................................................... 5 2.1.2 Studies of sexism in Vietnam .................................................................................... 8 2.2 Review of theoretical background: ................................................................................ 9 2.2.1. Sexism .................................................................................................................... 9 2.2.2. Gender, gender marking and gender system in languages ...................................... 10 2.2.3. The arbitrariness of grammatical gender system, especially gender-identifying systems........................................................................................................................... 11 2.2.4. Lexical void ........................................................................................................... 12 2.2.5. Morphological imbalance in agent nouns depicting males and females ................... 14 2.3 Summary ...................................................................................................................... 15 CHAPTER 3: SEXIST LANGUAGE IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMES LITERARY WORKS ...................... 16 3.1 3.1.1 Sexist characteristics in English literary works .......................................................... 16 Sexism against women..................................................................................... 16 iv 3.1.2 Sexism against men ......................................................................................... 27 3.2 Sexist characteristics in Vietnamese literary works ........................................................ 30 3.2.1 Sexism against women ........................................................................................... 30 3.2.2 Sexism against men................................................................................................ 42 3.2.3 Contrastive analysis of sexist characteristics in English and Vietnamese literature ... 44 3.2.5 Summary................................................................................................................ 48 CHAPTER 4 CONCLUSION........................................................................................................ 49 4.1 Recapitulation .............................................................................................................. 49 4.2 Concluding remarks ...................................................................................................... 49 4.3 Limitation of the research ............................................................................................. 50 4.4 Suggestion for further studies ....................................................................................... 51 REFERENCES:.......................................................................................................................... 52 LITERARY MATERIALS ............................................................................................................. 54 APPENDICES: DATA COLLECTION SHEETS ................................................................................ 55 Appendix 1. Sexism against women in English literary works ............................................... 55 Appendix 2. Sexism against men in English literary works.................................................... 61 Appendix 3. Sexism against women in Vietnamese literary works ....................................... 63 Appendix 4. Sexism against men in Vietnamese literary works ............................................ 67 Appendix 5. Proposals for avoiding sexism in English literature ...................................... 71 v CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale: Gender equality is an important goal not only to Vietnam but also other nations around the world, also being one of the criteria for assessing the development of a society. According to the United Nations, gender equality me ans that women and men enjoy the same conditions to fully realize human rights, have the opportunity to enjoy and contribute to the achievements of developing countries in terms of politics, economy, society and culture. However, in reality, gender inequality still takes place under a number of different forms, such as linguistic sexism. 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 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 effectively 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 fairness for women and men in labour; all normal people must use language but few of them are aware of fairness for men and women in language. And literary works, while being a source of education and inspiration for the people, are also not exempted from this shortcoming. In old societies, sexism was expressed not only in daily conversations but also through literary works in those periods. Thus, this study is conducted in order to investigate the use of sexist language in English and Vietnamese literature, as well as contribute to reducing sexism in language and literary works. 1.2 Aims and objectives: a. Aim of the study: This study aims to investigate linguistic factors indicating sexism in various English and Vietnamese literary works, contribute in studying and elucidating the role of language in gender equality, and based on the results, provide Vietnamese learners of English language and Vietnamese writer 1 with suggestions to reduce and optimally, minimize the existence of sexism in their language and mindset. b. Objective of the study: To achieve the aforementioned aim, the study sought to achieve the following objectives - To find out the characteristics of sexism in some English and Vietnamese literary works. - To compare and contrast sexism on certain fields in English and Vietnamese languages - To draw implications of the thesis for English learners and writers in Vietnamese of writing without showing sexism. 1.3 Scope of the study: In this study, the author would give spotlight on investigating gender-biased language on English and Vietnamese literary works ranged from medieval to contemporary. Gender-biased language in literature can be examined through specific instances chosen from the literary materials. The materials selected for the study are classicals covering all historical periods in both English and Vietnamese literature. For Medieval periods, the study chose Shakespeare Complete Works, Iliad, The Canterbury Tales, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Truyện Kiều, Văn xuôi tự sự Việt Nam trung đại, Tục ngữ ca dao dân ca Việt Nam, Cung oán ngâm khúc. For modern periods, Ernest Hemingway‘s collections, Huckleberry Finn, The winds in the willow, The giver, Nam Cao truyện ngắn tuyển chọn, Tuyển tập Vũ Trọng Phụng, Tuyển tập truyện ngắn Nguyễn Minh Châu were selected. 1.4 Research questions: In order to achieve the objectives, the following research questions are raised for exploration: 1. What are the characteristics of sexism in English and Vietnamese literary works? 2. What are the similarities and differences between cultural factors of sexism in English and Vietnamese literary works? 3. How to clarify the hidden message(s) conveyed via the sexism at word and phrase levels in these books? 2 1.5 Research orientation: Research approaches: The main aim of the study is to identify sexism characteristics in English and Vietnamese literary works and provide Vietnamese writers and learners of English with suggestions to avoid the use of sexist language in their works. Therefore, to achieve the stated aims, the study utilize s quantitative and qualitative methods to analyze and compare the main features. The descriptive and comparative analysis methods are also used to compile the sexism characteristics in details and clarify the similarity and differences from a contrastive analysis perspective. Data sources from citation in literary works as digital sources which contain sexism expressions. There are 10 English works and 09 Vietnamese works analyzed in the study, all in PDF formats. These are the primary source of data, while the secondary source are other books, theses and journal collected from the internet providing information about sexism. Data analysis techniques: the study researches and selects facts and examples from books, M.A thesis before carefully analyzing and identifying the similarities and differences between sexism expression in Vietnamese and English literature. 1.6 Research methods: Describing and analyzing the characteristics of linguistic sexism in English and Vietnamese literature, exploring the similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese. In order to accomplish the aforementioned achievement, some methods are used as follow:  The main methods emplyed in this study are descriptive and comparative analysis methods with quantitative and qualitative approach. The qualitative method is used to describe and interpret the main features of sexism in English and Vietnamese from a cross - cultural perspective, while the quantitative method is used to describe characteristics of sexist language in English and Vietnamese literature. Comparative analysis and descriptive methods are used to analyze the gathered information and identify the similarities and differences of sexism in English and Vietnamese literary.  For achieving the aims and objectives of the study with optimal result, selected materials is the main technique to be used. In addition, some 3 examples from M.A thesis and journals from the Internet were selected to help the author find out the similarities and differences of sexist language in Vietnamese and English literary works. 1.7 Structure of the Thesis: The thesis will consist of 4 chapters as follow: Chapter 1: Introduction will be the first chapter of the study. In this chapter, readers will be provided an overview about what is the purpose of this study, what to expect from reading it and what value can it brings to their personal experience. Additionally, the Methodology providing strategies of collecting data, materials and examples will also be included. Chapter 2: Literature review and Theoretical background will briefly mention and review the related materials associating with the objective of the study Chapter 3: Sexist language in English and Vietnamese will further explain the materials mentioned along with some critical analysis on what are the main differences and similarity of sexism in the literature of both languages. Furthermore, the study will also offer implications for Vietnamese writers in avoiding using sexist languages. Chapter 4: Conclusion will provide a summary to the whole study and what are the limitations when conducting it. Some suggestion might appear for future references and improvement. 4 CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Review of previous studies: 2.1.1 Studies of sexism in the world Language is not merely a means of exchanging information but it is also animportant means of establishing and maintaining social relationship with othermembers of the speech community. Sex-based linguistic variation is an example of the sort of social function that is fulfilled by language. In fact, sex differences are a fundamental fact of sociolinguistic life. For example, there are certain forms of language which are thought to be appropriate only for men to use and other forms which only women can use. In some cases, these differences depend not only on the sex of the addresser, but also on the sex of the addressee. According to Fasold (1990), sex-linked linguistic variation involves ‗the differential use of certain status marking forms by sex‘ (p. 115). One of the major issues in sociolinguistic studies has been the relationship between sex and language and how it is represented. In fact, the study of language and gender began in 1975 by the publication of three books which have continued to significantly influence sociolinguistic works: Male/Female Language (M. R. Key), Language and Women‘s Place (R. Lakoff), and Difference and Dominance (Thorne & Henley). Since then, sociolinguists have fundamentally shown a great deal of interest in sex and language relationship mostly with respect to the presence or absence in a few languages of linguistic forms that are used only by speakers of one sex or the other. Sexism in textbooks has been studied in Europe and America since 1970s. The most relevant studies of sexism and its manifestations in ESL/EFL textbooks that can be tracked down are Hartman and Judd‘s (1978) Sexism and TESOL Materials, Hellinger‘s (1980) For Men Must Work, Women Must Weep: Sexism in English Language Textbooks Used in German Schools, and Porreca‘s (1984) Sexism in Current ESL Textbooks. Hartman and Judd‘s review in 1978 of several then-current TESOL textbooks examined three categories of sexism: the images of women and men, firstness (the order of female-male mention), and stereotyped roles for males and females. They demonstrated that ‗since sexist usage is built into our language 5 (English), it is little wonder that textbooks, including ESL texts, model this usage to the students‘ (p.390). For each category, they found evidence that ELT materials reflect sexist attitudes and values. And they believed this ‗reinforces the second-place status of women and could, with only a little effort, be avoided‘ (p. 390). Hellinger (1980), a native German, carried out a study of 131 passages from three ELT textbooks used in German schools. She found that men were present in more than 93% of the passages, while only about 30% of the texts included women. What is more, she proved that 80% of the speakers were male and that women were rarely participated in demanding, interesting, or successful activities, while males played their roles in a wide range of jobs. Porreca (1984) investigated how sexism is manifested in 15 ESL textbooks and with what consequences by using content analysis method. The author paid attention to omission (the ratio of females to males) both in texts and illustrations, firstness, occupations, the frequency of male nouns to female nouns, female-exclusive masculine generic constructions, and adjectives for men and women. In a content analysis of the textbooks, she found that ‗there is evidence that sexism continues to flourish in ESL textbooks‘ (p. 718). She reported that although females comprise slightly over half the population of the United States, they are represented only half as often as males in both texts and illustrations. Beside the above important studies of sexism in textbooks, there are some other studies on sexism in teaching and learning materials that should be mentioned. Coles (1977) examined five sets of popular adult basic education materials and found that in the total of 150 stories, men outnumbered women by a ratio of 3:1. Britton and Lumpkin (1977) compared reading, literature, and social studies textbooks published before and after the year 1970 to determine whether guidelines to correct sexism had resulted in any positive consequences. The changes, however, were not what to expect: they found that females portrayed as major characters had increased only by 2%, up to 16% in the new textbooks. Hoomes (1978) investigated 28 high school literature anthologies for grades 9 through 12 and found evidence that the overall ratio of total female characters to total male characters in the books was 1:3.5. She also found that the mean ratio of 6 available professions for females to those for males was 1:5 in texts and 1:7 in illustrations. In the 1990s, Peterson & Kroner (1992) conducted an examination of gender biases in textbooks for psychology and human development. Their findings demonstrated that representation of work, theory, and behavior of males significantly exceeded those of females; and females were frequently portrayed in negative and gender biased ways. Poulou (1997) explored differences in the discourse roles of men and women in dialogs of textbooks for teaching Greek as a foreign language to adults. Her focus on whether sexist differences could affect negatively the pedagogical value and goals of textbook dialogs and she demonstrated that the effect was quite obvious. Most recently in the early 21 st century, Sydney (2004) investigated gender role stereotyping in 40 textbooks in primary schools in Tanzania and found that female characters depicted were fewer compared to males. Bahiyah et al. (2008) found that children understanding about the world and the relationship within the society were acquired through Malaysian textbooks, which allowed linguistic sexism and gender roles stereotyping to permeate into the mind of the students and later reproduce in their everyday life. The study by Otlowski (2003) discussed the importance of Japanese textbook selection for EFL students with regards to the portrayal of gender representation in the targeted culture. In many cases, the representation of women in EFL textbooks in Japan portrayed a stereotypical role of women as mothers and homemakers. Another Japanese linguist, Mineshima (2008), studied gender representations in an EFL textbook to investigate how it portrays the two genders. She examined sexism in three categories including number of females versus males, number of their utterances and firstness. The results of the research showed that females were under-represented and overloaded with traditional stereotype roles whereas males appeared only as cooperative and optional. From the above mentioned studies, it is easy to realize the attraction of sexism in language to the world researchers during nearly half a century from Europe through America to Asia. In many teaching and learning materials examined, it was found that females are less visible than males and that there is sex bias against women. 7 2.1.2 Studies of sexism in Vietnam In Vietnam, some researchers have been interested in the relation between language and gender since 1990s. Binh (2000) studied some gender differences in children‘s language while Dung (2002) demonstrated females‘ politeness in communication. Khang (2000) argues that sex discrimination in language may be found in such categories as words with male factor showing male dominance in society, the use of he/his instead of she/her, the use of titles like Mr, Mrs and Miss, and stereotype attitudes in phrases like unwed mother and unwed father. The first Vietnamese linguist who has systematically studied sexism in language is Diep (2002). In his works entitled Sự kỳ thị giới tính trong ngôn ngữ qua cứ liệu tiếng Anh và tiếng Việt (Sexism in language through English and Vietnamese database), he argues that sexism in language can be found not only against females but also against males (2002, p. 9). However, sex bias against women is paid more attention to in his study and it is seen in the following categories. i) Gender in grammar and its relation with sex in biology : there are certaindifferent points of view on the relation between gender in grammar and sex in terms of biology. Some agrees that there must be some relation between them but some others do not. But the thing should be concerned about is the display of sexism in the use of gender in language. The male pronouns like he, his and him are used to include both the two sexes in some cases. ii) Markedness of sex in language: Many words showing the jobs of femalesare derived from the words showing the jobs of males. For instance, actress and waitress are formed by adding the suffix ess to actor and waiter. iii) Unbalance of words related to females and males in terms of meanings : Words can have different meanings when they are used to describe men or women. For example, the word professional has different meaning depending on sex: he is a professional means he is excellent in a particular aspect while she is a professional means she is a prostitute. iv) Sexism in naming/ titles: names and titles are used to show sex and marital status. In the past, a married woman is entitled Mrs. while Miss is used for an unmarried one. However, thanks to the fight for equality in using titles, Mrs. and Miss are now replaced by Ms. 8 v) Stereotypes of sex in language: Stereotypes in describing females in English can be found in such words/ phrases as a gorgeous blonde, wives of, devoted to a husband, looking after husband and children. The review of the previous studies related to the issue shows that there are not many researchers in Vietnam concerning sexism in language although it has been a heated topic in the world sociolinguistic research for some decades now. The first study of the topic carried out by Diep (2002) provides a general view on sexism in language but there is a shortage of deep investigation into the phenomenon in a specific type of materials. This has partly urged me to perform the present research. Based on the findings of forerunner studies, it can be seen that scholars over the world paid exceptional attention on the issue of sexism in language. Nonetheless, these studies only cover sexism in the most extensive extent. Thus, the study will contribute in the work by addressing sexist language in literary works. 2.2 Review of theoretical background: 2.2.1. Sexism: There are multiple definitions of sexism. Collins Cobuild English Dictionary (1995) defined sexism as the belief that the members of one sex, usually women are less intelligent or less capable than those, of the other sex and need not be treated equally. Sex discrimination or sexism, a term that appears during the mid-twentieth century, is a belief or attitude that one gender is inferior, less powerful and less valuable than the other. This term is used to refer to male dominance over female. The fight against sexism, whose center is the feminist movement taking place in various forms and not just for women. In English, the concept of sexism in language has another name: ―Sexist language‖, ―Sex – exclusive‖ language, ―Gender - biased language‖. Example: Every cook praises his own broth (Each the chef all praises his own dish), "his" is used to include "her". The use of the word "his" in such an inclusive fashion shows that male bias, considering men as a representative of women as well. Miller & Swift (1972) give the definition: sexism in language or sexist language is any expression that expresses attitudes and gender expectations or any expression that expresses the inherent dominance of this world versus the other. 9 The above definitions all show one thing in common. Key points of sexism in language is in the depiction of images of men and women in language. These expressions depict higher appreciation for one sex and lower appreciation for the other. Wardhaugh (1986) explains that sexism is any discrimination against women or men because of their sex, and made on irrelevant grounds. The Oxford English Dictionary (1989) defines sexism as the assumption that one sex is superior to the other and the resultant discrimination practiced against members of the supposed inferior sex, esp. by men against women; also conformity with the traditional stereotyping of social roles on the bases of sex. From these definitions, it can be inferred that sexism is simply the overestimation of one sex and/ or the underestimation of the other sex. In other words, it is generally considered as anything that conveys that one sex is superior to the other. Understanding the essence of sexism will help the author as well as readers grasp the characteristics of sexist language in general as well as in the field of literature. 2.2.2. Gender, gender marking and gender system in languages : Gender is a grammatical category that affects nouns, it is considered a kind of system used for classifying nouns into different groups. Those groups or classes of nouns will behave differently in response to other parts of speech or language. Although gender is not completely universal in languages, there are still a significant number of languages displaying the existence of this category. Corbett (1991: 1) mentioned different sides of gender attribution and gender marking in more than 200 different languages. However, he also remarked that languages of almost every language family possess gender systems with a few major exceptions being certain major Asian language families. The term "gender" is widely used to refer to this grammatical category, but there are other terms such as "class" or "class of nouns". The term "gender" is inherently a word translated from many foreign languages that within those foreign languages, this term is also translated or borrowed from the Latin word "genus". Therefore, this is not a word used in everyday language or in specialized texts. There are many languages possessing a system of 2 or 3 genders, and there are 10 languages with a system of up to 20 genders and subgenders. At the same time, the labels used for these genders are also very different. Besides the popular labels used in many languages such as: masculine, feminine, and neutrals, there are other labels such as: Animal, nonanimal, strong, weak, human, nonhuman, etc. In some cases, genders are numbered rather than labeled (as in Dyirbal, an Aboriginal language of Australia). Corbett (1991: 1) distinguishes two types of gender systems which are grammatical gender system and notional gender system. The grammatical system can be subdivided into the morphological system and phonological system. The notional system is based on in the semantic-based gender attribution system of nouns system. Such systems are also called natural systems. 2.2.3. The arbitrariness of grammatical gender system, especially g enderidentifying systems: Many researchers believe that masculine is used as the "dominant" gender or the more "valuable" gender than feminine. Based on semantics and morphology, languages distinguish genders into masculine, feminine, and neuter. In the such languages, in most cases masculine is the gender determining the response model in the case of inclusive nouns, depicting both genders with agent nouns for male and female. In this aspect, English and Vietnamese are similar in that they both belong to a type of language that possess a natural gender system or a notional gender system. In this case, sexism is expressed in the use of masculine pronouns to replace common nouns of gender in inclusive contexts. In English, there are speech patterns as follows: The teacher is responsible for his students. The word ―teacher‖ is an inclusive word for both genders (can refer to either male or female), but its corresponding possessive pronoun is "his" (masculine) rather than "her" (female). Or: If a friend wishes to become a member, please ask him to write for information. The word "friend" is also an inclusive word for both genders, but it‘s personal pronoun is "him" (masculine) rather than "her" (female). Even in similar cases of 11 marked nouns such as ―actor‖, "actress", masculine nouns are often used as inclusive nouns. In Vietnamese, in the education sector, a similar example is the use of the word "thầy" as a title of honor and as a personal pronoun. Nowadays, when referring to those who participate in pedagogy, people use the phrase ―thầy cô giáo‖. But in the general relationship between teachers and learners, people often only use the term ―thầy-trò", but not ―cô-trò". Thus the word ―thầy‖ was also used to refer to females in this case. In other words, the word ―teacher‖, which was originally a masculine word, is now used as an inclusive nouns referring to both gender. While translating documents and learning materials from foreign languages to Vietnamese, it is also difficult to avoid using the second personal pronouns "anh" - a pronoun that includes both men and women. Nguyen Lai (1997: 62) wrote: ―Và khi xuất hiện thì ngôn ngữ ấy là của tôi và của anh, ngôn ngữ ấy cho tôi và cả cho anh …‖ 2.2.4. Lexical void In English, many authors believe that, except for certain words depicting females such as: mother, waitress, etc.. and words that refer to occupations that are traditionally believed to be done only by women: nurse, secretary, etc., the actual use of language gives people the impression that humanity is all male (Miller and Swift, 1972). For example, when one hears the word doctor, that person immediatelly feels that it is a masculine rather than feminine word. These two authors argue that the phenomenon exist dueto English as well as the culture it reflects have a tendency to favour males. In terms of word structure, although in English, there is a female morpheme – woman, but there is no word fisherwoman but only fisherman, in that - man is the male morpheme. In Vietnamese, in essence, the phenomenon of lexical void is similar to that of other languages, but the form of expression is somewhat different. For example, when hearing words such as: bác sĩ, kỹ sư, etc., most Vietnamese people immediately feel that they are more masculine than feminine. 12 Many linguists have tried to trace the origin of these that lexical void and there have been different interpretations. But we can generalize these interpretations into two main groups: Linguistic and sociological explanations. Linguistically, lexical voids affecting the creation of feminine forms of words is due to what many authors refer to as phonological institution. In other words, in some languages, the "female" suffix in some words have performed a function other than the female marking function. There is another sociological explanation. According to this, the cause of the lexical voids in words indicating women in certain occupations is the impact of social factors. It is easy to notice that the absence of female words mainly occurring in the noun area depicting professions with high social prestige. In English, doctor, lawyer etc. are professional nouns with high social prestige that according to traditions, women have difficulties in catching up with. There is a similar phenomenon in Vietnamese, with nouns referring to people with high-reputation professions such as: bác sĩ, tiến sĩ, công an, ... or nouns referring to people possessing characteristics that the society considers typical of men (strong, seasoned, cheeky) such as: đồ vật, cầu thủ, trộm cướp, etc. Another example in Vietnamese is a way to use the word thầy in the way of depicting the teacher-student relationship or thầy-trò to refer to the relationship between teachers and learners. The fact that there is no way to say the relationship between female teachers and students is the trace of an ancient concept: Teaching is considered to be the profession of man. Lexical voids are found in the area of nouns depicting people who do certain occupations that, although open to men, are not attractive to the majority of men. This phenomenon is common in many European languages. For example, in Italian, Dutch, and French there is no word for male midwives and neither is there in English. In Vietnamese it is the opposite, when we say "nhân viên đỡ đẻ" or "đỡ đẻ", the listener still understand that these are feminine nouns. Just like in English, there is no noun illustrating men who work as midwives in Vietnamese. The same argument can be made for words like hộ lí (health specialization), thư ký giám đốc (administrative area) etc. These are the manifestations of lexical voids, which have contributed to the increase in the invisibility of women in language - a feature of gender discrimination against women in language. 13