Gender Discrimination in Job Titles in English Language: A Corpus-Based Critical Study

Abstract

Males and females have the same rights as members of society but females are discriminated against in terms of job titles. Fairclough's three-dimensional model was used to identify, expose, and challenge the implicit ideologies behind the use of such job titles and pronouns used after these job titles. This research is a mixed method research that aims to analyze the use of male-representing, female-representing, and neutral job titles and the use of pronouns after the use of these job titles in the British National Corpus (BNC). 15 job titles were selected for the study. Only those job titles were selected for which female-representing and neutral job titles were available and that are more frequently used by the people. Sketch Engine was used to know the frequencies of these job titles.  The frequencies of these job titles were compared to know what type of job titles are used more in the British National Corpus (BNC). The study showed that there is a big difference between the frequencies of male-representing and female-representing job titles and the frequency of male-specific pronouns is more than the frequency of female-specific pronouns after the use of male-oriented and female-oriented job titles and this leads to discrimination of females. It is suggested that job titles should be used appropriately so that no gender can be discriminated against.