语言测试中的性别歧视研究——以2004-2010年湖北省高考英语试卷阅读材料为例

Research on Gender Discrimination in Language Testing: A Case of English Reading Materials in College Entrance Examination of Hubei Province

性别是导致测试偏颇性的重要因素之一。2004-2010年湖北省高考英语试卷35篇阅读材料的内容与语言都存在着一定程度的性别歧视。在内容方面,有姓名的男女人物出现频次男性远远多于女性;在男女性职业数量及类型上男性不仅多于女性,且其职业地位均较高;而话题类型也以男性擅长的自然科学类居多。在语言方面,材料中男女角色的数量男性明显多于女性;描述男女的修饰词男性以褒义词居多,女性则有少数消极词汇;通称结构亦多以表示男性的名词或代词等来通指男女两性。测试人员应通过平衡材料话题类型分配、协调男女角色比例、多用中性词汇等进一步完善湖北省高考英语试卷,尽量减少性别偏颇性的存在,最大限度地保证试卷的公平性。

Gender is one of the major factors that will bring about testing bias. The author took thirty-five reading materials in college entrance examination of Hubei province as an example and analyzed their content and language both qualitatively and quantitatively. The research on the content includes the number of male and female roles with names, the number and type of jobs the male and female have respectively, and topic type of the material, while the study on the language involves the number of male and female roles, the adjectives describing the male and female, and the general addressing of both gender. The results indicate that gender discrimination does exist in these reading materials. Thus, further improvements, like balancing the distribution of topics and male and female roles, using more neutral words, etc., are needed in the design of them so as to avoid testing bias and ensure fairness.