A Tentative Study On Sexism In English As Foreign Language Testing

Sexism in the texts of the National Matriculation English Tes（tNMET） is one ofthe major research targets in the field of English teaching and reforming. NMET isauthorized by national education agency to be critical criteria for senior high schoolstudents to enter the college and university. The culture of testing materials embodiedin English tests assimilates and spreads the authoritative system of concepts,knowledge and values of a certain society. English tests serve as an essential sourcefor students to receive knowledge, acquire language skills, and accept social normsand values.Under the framework of CDA, this thesis makes a case study of the widely usedand authoritative English tests------National Matriculation English Test.This thesis unveils the hidden unbalance of gender presentation in NMET byway of content analysis, linguistic analysis, and the critical discourse analysis. Theresearch findings show that unbalanced gender presentation phenomenon iswidespread and prevalent in the texts of NMET as to the following aspects:1. From the perspective of content analysis(1) Females are generally underrepresented both as ordinary people and asoutstanding people.(2) Females are far less visible than males in occupational roles and assignedwith limited variety of occupations. Occupations for females are often restricted totraditional service and entertainment jobs, while males are portrayed in respected and skillful occupations.2. From the perspective of linguistic analysis(1) There are a number of masculine generic constructions used extensively,although compilers have made attempts to avoid the masculine generic to some extentby using nonsexist constructions. However, these attempts are often inconsistent, evenin the same text.(2) Male firstness (the fact that appear first)is almost twice as much as the factthat females appear first, which implies that females are thought of inferior to males.(3) The frequencies of exclusive nouns and the addressing terms for females andsignal that females are often identified by their family relations while males’ generallylies in their professional capacity.(4) For the occupational words, the words for female are often marked, whilethe words for males are unmarked.3. From the perspective of critical discourse analysis(1) In the texts, males have more chances to become the protagonists thanfemales.(2) Females are depicted as with the characteristics of verbose, indecisive,dependent and querulous qualities.This thesis reveals unbalanced gender presentation in NMET from a quite newway of CDA. Instead of simple representation of sexism, this thesis attempts to wakenpeople’s critical awareness on the content in text materials and to compilesex-equitable and "healthy" English tests in order to have a positive effect on learners’gender socialization and finally realize sex-equality in society.