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CHAPTER 4 CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION 4.1 Conclusion As I have stated before in the previous chapters, sexist language is defined as words, phrases and sentences that exclude gender. The language has either the masculine or feminine form. After all, I found some languages used in the novel that direct to sexist expression. The sexist expressions that I found are further classified into three kinds of sexist expressions; non-parallel structure,lexical asymmetry and generic words. The generic words are further divided into two kinds of generic forms of ‘he’ and ‘she’. From these kinds of sexist expression, I find many pairs of masculine and feminine word form for each kind of sexist expression. The first kind of sexist expression is non-parallel structure. I find 9 pairs of words that belong to non-parallel structure in the novel. This kind of sexist expression is similar to binary antonym. For example, words like boy&girl have clear definition which defines boy for male child and girl for female child. So basically these words are called as non-parallel structure and it can be simplified as binary antony since people know this term in common. After searching the meaning from the context and dictionary, the usage of those words is only to define male or female child which means the contextual and lexical meanings are similar. For some cases like the word stud and whore, both words are known to have negative meaning. However, the definition of whore in dictionary shows that there are some terms that have the similar meaning with it, which are sluts, and pros. If we see the comparison between the word stud with whore, sluts and pros, women has the words that contain negative 66 67 meaning more than men. Therefore, I think that these terms are sexist sincemen only have one word, stud, describing men who have sexual relationship, while women in contrast have three terms, whore, sluts and pros. So, based on the theory of Parks & Robertson (1998) about sexist language, non-parallel structure is one of the kinds of sexist expressions that excluding gender. Second kind of sexist expression is lexical asymmetry. I find 7 pairs of masculine and feminine word for. However, it is different from non-parallel struture because the feminine word form has the base word from masculine word form which is added with the suffix –ess. For example, the word waitercan be used to identify male gender. On another occasion, a female waiter is called waitress which word comes from the base word of masculine form. This creates the perspective that feminine word from comes from masculine which makes people think women’s status is below man’s status or in another word, women are inferior to men. Furthermore, the definition for women based on dictionary is similar to the usage in the novel yet it has additional definition which directs to negative impression. For example, the word mistress has two definitions based on Cambridge (2005) dictionary as I have explained in chapter 3. The usage of mistress in the novel is based on the second meaning of the lexical meaning, which is not a female master but a woman who has sexual relationship with married man. Since the usage directs to negative impression for women, so the words belong to lexical asymmetry are sexist. The third kind of sexist expression is generic words ‘he’ and ‘she’. I found 21 sentences that contain the sexist expression direct to generic ‘he’ while 9 sentences direct to generic ‘she’. The usage of generic ‘he’ considers that male is more superior 68 than female. For example the word snowmancontains the masculine form ‘man’ which makes the expression is used only for male. On the other hand, the usage of teacher directs to generic ‘she’ because the usage of this word is based on the context which means it relates to the story from the novel saying that women are supposed to be the teacher. This makes people think that being a teacher is mostly occupied by female. Therefore, I think that generic words either ‘he’ or ‘she’ has the meaning of excluding gender so both are sexist expressions. Furthermore, the questionnaire results show a different perspective between women and men. For example, most female respondents which are about 52% of the respondents, answer the word driver refers to woman and 40% of the male respondents answer the word driver as refers to man, while the other 8% of the respondents answer for referring to both man and woman. Thereafter, I conclude that the word driver based on the contextual meaning or based on the story of the novel refers to generic ‘he’ while the perspective of more than a half of the respondents defines it as generic ‘she’. Therefore, the word can be referred to either generic ‘he’ or ‘she’. In the whole conclusion, I think that the words, phrases and sentences are sexist if it has the means to exclude either gender and contain masculine or feminine word form which means that those three criteria, non-parallel structure, lexical asymmetry and generic words are considered sexist. In addition, the contextual and lexical meaningsplayan important role to decide whether the words, phrases and sentencesare sexist. Moreover, I think that the referents also play an important part to define sexist expression as theory of referring expression from Hurford, Heasley, & Smith (2007). People who do not know much about English vocabulary might not 69 be aware to use the sexist expressions in their daily language whether it is oral or written. At last, I think that most of Margaret’s works portray women’s discrimination which lead most of her works to the feminism movement. Therefore, her works either poetry or novel could be containing sexist expressions. 4.2 Suggestion In any kind of study, there might contain the imperfection. Hence, I would like to suggest those who are interested in the further research on English sexist language, to find more samples on generic ‘she’ since I only found a few of feminine word form while mostly contain masculine word form. Then, the research can be widened to find another word form that is sexist not only from novels but also from movies or dialogs and give the alternatives to replace the sexist expression.For the readers, I think it’s better for us to enhance our knowledge on language that we use every day so that we will not use the sexist expression and we can even avoid using sexist expression by using the alternative items. It is for the better acknowledgement for both genders, male and female in the society so that there discrimination of gender in language can be erased.