Linguistic researches of gender characteristics in business documentation in English

Shingareva M.Yu. – Candidate of philological science, associate professor

Antontseva D.A.-- candidate for a master's degree

Summary: Numerous gender researches of the western and local linguists were carried out not only in spheres of the household speech, fiction, comparison of communicative roles of men and women, features of a language picture of the world, formation of gender roles and behavior models. The part of researches is devoted professional, in particular to oral communication of men and women and discrimination on a workplace.

Key words: gender, business documentation, linguistic experiment, summary, cover letters.

Sh. Kendall and D. Tannen in the collaboration of "Gender and Language in the Workplace" allocate two main groups of researches of a gender in professional communication: 1) the works studying communication of representatives of both genders in collective (how men and women interact in groups); 2) the works devoted to identification of how in professional communication there is a designing of the expert status, i.e. the authoritative and competent person (how men and women enact authority in professional positions) of [Kendali 1997].

The analysis of theoretical base of foreign and local researches which is carried out by us in the professional sphere allowed to expand the offered characteristics of groups and to generalize them in the following classification. In our opinion, five main scientific directions are allocated today studying manifestation of a gender in the professional sphere: 1) the direction studying realization of communicative strategy on a workplace [Johnstone 1993; Kendall 1997; Nelson 2012; Preisler 1986; Tannen 1994; Schnurr 2009, etc.], 2) research of gender features of manifestation of the power and discrimination [Kolosova 1996; Bradley 1998; Yelvington 1995, etc.], 3) studying of strategy of success of men and women at work [Jeffrey 2006; Ilnykh 2010; Brzezinski 2011; Evans 2000; Frankel 2004, 2007; Freeman 2010; Heim 2005; Hoffman 1974, etc.], 4) research of the gender lines shown in specific professional spheres [Brown 1987; DeLaat 2007; Mcllwee 1992; Ocon 2006; Powell 1994, 2010; Sparkling 2011; Steedman 2009; Williams 2010; Zuckerman 1995, etc.], and also 5) linguistic researches of the professional speech of men and women [Zherebkina 2000; Kirilina 2000; Cameron 2008; Coates 1997; Miller 2006; Nilsen 1997; Plante 2009; Rayson 1997; Smith 2012; Tannen 1990, etc.]. We will dwell upon several research works within allocated with us above the directions.

One of the first works lighting various communicative strategy on a workplace is work D. Tannen "Talking from 9 to 5: Women and men at work". The author analyzes the speech of men and women in various professional situations - at the solution of problems, in the relations when the woman is a head - tries to offer an explanation why men and women address to different strategy of communicative interaction at work. In the book Tannen holds the opinion that the gender isn't a major factor of a choice of this or that communicative behavior, and is presented by an element of a complex of personal factors (territorial, class, ethnic, religious, age and spiritual). Tannen notes that strategy of communication at men and women on a workplace represent communicative rituals (English. conversational rituals) which are realized as communicative tendencies and aren't absolute norms of speech behavior. It is more difficult for women to find suitable communicative tendencies as they historically were included into group later working and are according to Tannen, "historically not typical workers" [Tannen 1994:21 - 132].

The researches of men directed on the help to women in receiving a desirable senior position are interesting. So, JI. Frankel in two books under the general name "Nice girls don't get it" studies the most widespread mistakes preventing to women to achieve success. The author considers that for the woman to make favorable impression and to be much more important than the darling, than to achieve success. For this purpose Frankel differentiates concepts of "the lovely girl" (nice girl) and "the successful woman" (winning woman). According to the author if to clean some features of behavior interfering creation of a successful image (children's expectations, influence of parents, misunderstanding strong and weaknesses, etc.), most of women can become full-fledged dear heads [Frankel 2004, 2007].

Linguistic researches of the professional speech of men and women are one of the most popular directions today. Here two types of works attract attention: the works lighting the gender asymmetries of professional words and expressions recorded in dictionaries, and the works lighting gender distinctions both in oral and in written forms of professional communication. It is possible to refer to the first type, for example, works A. P. Nielsen. In Webster's dictionary she found 517 names of professions with signs of two childbirth, 385 with signs only of a masculine gender and 132 with signs of a feminine gender. The researcher sees an explanation of this disproportion in historically developed features of division of professional activity where men possess indisputable superiority. Besides, men gave names to many professions which are used now in language for this reason one female [Nilsen 1997] is the share of five man's professions.

I.A. Zherebkina writes that in the professional world there is a double standard for reviewers of female and man's floors accenting psychological and cognitive inferiority of the woman. Words with prototypical signs of a sort have paramount importance at creation of advertizing texts in the field of vacancy of workplaces. And it was confirmed with data of the linguistic experiment made with 120 students of one of the American colleges. Examinees were offered to define the interest in announcements of employment, leaning on lexical material of advertisements. The result was paradoxical: if in the announcement of employment the traditional lexicon was used, only 5% of women and 30% of men showed interest in the specialty which is usually carried out by an opposite gender. When the lexicon with the neutralized signs of a floor was used, 25% of women and 75% of men expressed interest in receiving work for an opposite gender. If in announcements the lexicon where women and vice versa were invited to the works which are traditionally carried out by men was used, the percent of the interested women increased to 45%, and men — to 65%. Such "narrowing of cognitive space" of the woman and her alienation from big professional activity didn't become obsolete and until now [Zherebkina 2000: 30 - 89].

The live speech of men and women can refer to works of the second group, for example, researches J. Coates in household and partially in professional spheres. The author considers that women more often than men, resort to use of parenthetical constructions. As proof the author offers the following explanations for the received conclusions: 1) women are more inclined to discussion of the questions demanding a step, to them human feelings are important;

2) women avoid any manifestations of a categoriality since don't want to act as the expert, and aim to reduce a distance among themselves and the interlocutor;

3) women use parenthetical constructions (type I mean, I think, well, just, sort of) for conversation maintenance, providing the principle of cooperation. However refusal of performance as the expert means now for women loss of working prestige and a place in primary segment of labor market [Coates 1997].

All above-mentioned researches concern, mostly, gender aspects of oral business communication, and also the researches of the professional thesaurus and sociocultural features shown in the professional sphere. However undoubted interest is represented not only norms of functioning of oral speech in the professional sphere of men and women, existence of gender asymmetries in the name of professions, speed of men and women response to various vacancies, success strategy, but also features of written language in the professional sphere.

The summary and cover letters used at employment are specific object of the linguistic analysis as can be considered from various positions. Considering the summary and cover letters as examples of document texts, we can apply to them the principles of the linguistic document analysis of texts developed in local document linguistics. However because these documents represent a special genre of official style, their complex analysis is impossible only within document linguistics. In our opinion, and undoubted need of application to the summary and cover letters of the functional and stylistic analysis is obvious. Using the functional and stylistic analysis to texts of the summary and cover letters, we can define their functional style, a text genre, the main subject, idea, the sphere of communication, to consider them in the substantial and logical plan, to define functional and semantic type of the speech, to reveal the style lines inherent in the text, to analyse stylistic means at all levels of the text, to define, whether there are in texts of the summary and cover letters destroying style elements [Artamonov 2004:5].

The summary and cover letters to the summary in English is a genre of private business official style documentation. On them, as well as on all genres of this style, all-style lines extend, and also the specific genre originality, characteristic for these documents is allocated. In this regard, research of linguistic features of the summary and cover letters only within document linguistics or functional stylistics can be defective. Moreover, belonging to private business documentation leaves a certain mark on character of texts of the summary and cover letters, doing them less regulated and more focused on the identity of the sender.

Thus, we consider that linguistic research of texts of the summary and cover letters to the summary in English requires use of the complex analysis which is based on a basis of the functional and stylistic analysis which aspects are listed above, with application of research methods in document linguistics (for the analysis of typological and composite characteristics of the summary and cover letters).

References:

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2. Kendall, S. Gender and language in the workplace : Gender discource / S. Kendall, D. Tannen // Ed. by R. Wodak. - London: Sage, 1997. - 189 p. Kennedy,
3. Brzezinski By, Nl. Knowing your value: women, money, and getting what you're worth // M. Brzezinski by. - N.Y.: Weinstein Books Publishing, 2011. - 187
4. Borissova, I.e., Business documents in good English / E. Borissova, O. Shalifova // Uch. a Handbook for senior students. - Samara: Publishing house SamGU, 2002. - 104 p.