Филологические науки/3.Теоретические и методологические
проблемы исследования
языка
Guseinova E. I., Galynska A. V.
Sumy
National Agrarian University, Ukraine
Linguistic
Genderology
The term “gender”
appeared in the contemporary linguistic paradigm much later, than in other
humanities, namely in the second half of XX century. Originally works in this
field and the first systemic descriptions of male and female peculiarities of
speech were made on the basis of German and Romanic language groups. But starting
with the middle of the nineties the researches in this sphere began to develop
rapidly. Nowadays this process is so swift, that
it is possible to speak confidently about the appearance of a new branch of
Linguistics – Linguistic genderology (or “Gender linguistics”).
Though “gender” is
not a linguistic category, the analysis of language structures enables us to
get the information about the role of the gender in this or that culture; about
the behavioral norms, fixed in various texts for men and women; about the way
the concept of gender norms, femininity and masculinity changes in time; which
stylistic peculiarities can be rendered as purely female or male; how
femininity and masculinity are conceived and interpreted in different languages
and cultures. Thus, language study helps determine by means of which linguistic
mechanisms the manipulation with gender stereotypes becomes possible.
D. Spender claims
that language in its essence is initially predisposed to the establishment of a
man’s superiority in the society. This statement provoked heated discussions
concerning the problem: if such phenomena are caused by the fact, that language
creates reality, or if words, which are at our disposal, are irrelevant to the
mental processes.
At the present
stage there is a number of works, where an attempt of systemic understanding
and language description is made in connection with the phenomenon of
sex; where a theoretical model of a gender is created and the systematization
of methodological approaches to the research of the gender problem in
linguistics is done. The questions, connected with the elaboration of a system
of linguistic research of a gender, with creation of concepts in gender
researches, are at the moment regarded of a paramount importance in modern
linguistics.
Generally, when
studying the problems of correlation between gender and language, we can
distinguish three main approaches:
A purely gender
approach comes to interpretation of an exclusively social nature of male and
female language and is aimed at revealing of those semantic differences, which can be
explained by peculiarities of redistribution of social power in society. For all
that “male” or “female” language is defined as a certain
functional derivative from the basic language, used in those cases, when
speech partners are on different levels of social hierarchy.
A
socio–psycholinguistic approach - reduces scientifically the “female” and “male” language
to the peculiar features of language behavior of sexes. For scientists, working
in this direction, statistics or determination of average parameters have a
fundamental importance and are a basic for creation of psycholinguistic
theories of male and female types of speech behavior.
The representatives
of the third direction emphasize a cognitive aspect of distinctions in the
language behavior of sexes.
In the modern
scientific paradigm all three approaches are considered to be complementary and
only in their integrity they possess an explanatory power. A.V.Kirilina,
making the more detailed and systemic analysis of linguistic genderology’s
problems, distinguishes six basic tendencies, which can be
differentiated conceptually, as well as from the point of view of
methodology and the character of material under investigation: sociolinguistic gender
researches, feminist linguistics, gender researches proper (studying speech behavior of
both sexes),
researches of masculinity (the youngest direction which appeared in the end of XX
century), psycholinguistic researches, cross-cultural, linguo-cultural researches
including the hypothesis of gender subcultures.
At the same time
A.V. Kirilina considers, that the given classification is rather relative,
and all these schools have much in common, since similar problematic and the
object of research are characteristic for all groups listed above.
First of all, as a
rule, the correlation between the language and sex become the object of research,
i. e. the question of how sex is manifested in the language – nominative
system, lexicon, syntax, the category of gender, etc. The main aim of
such researches is the description and explanation of how sex is shown in
the language, what estimations are ascribed to men and women in language and
in what semantic fields they are the most widespread.
In the second place, the aim of gender
researches in language can be considered as studying of speech behavior of
sexes, the allocation and the description of male and female speech
pattern’s features. Thus, the researches are more often held from the point
of view of socio–cultural determinism, or within the theory of biodeterminism.
In the third place, it is necessary
to emphasize that gender researches in linguistics are often of an
interdisciplinary and comparative character.
In the fourth place, practically any
area of linguistics can be viewed from the point of view of gender.
Finally, the gender
problematic in linguistics has a pronounced applied character,
and particularly within this research paradigm a great number of
successful attempts were made in the course of language planning and reforming.
Reference
Literature:
1.
Горошко Е. И., Кирилина
А. В. Гендерные исследования в лингвистике сегодня // Гендерные исследования. –
1999. - №2 – С. 234 – 241.
2.
Кирилина А. В. Гендер:
лингвистические аспекты. – М.: Институт социологии РАН, 1999. – 180с.
3.
Колосова О. А.
Когнитивные основания в языковых категориях. (На материале современного
английского языка): Дис… докт. филол. наук. – М., 1996. – 212с.
4.
Спендер Д. Язык,
созданный мужчиной. – Нью-Йорк: Харпер Коллинз, 1986. – 153с.