Author’s name:
Maria Yu. Tovkes – HSE University, Nizhny Novgorod, Russia
Abstract:
The article analyses stereotypes as one of the cognitive mechanisms of gender categorization, since conceptual transformations manifest themselves primarily at the basic level of categorization. A stereotype identifies the best example within a category that corresponds to the col-lectively recognized expectations of the linguistic community; restricts membership and ranks various elements within this category; correlates individually profiled and collectively recognized meanings; and distinguishes between the ideal norm and its deviations. The purpose of the study is to present a model of a stereotype as a means of structuring thematic groups as areas of definition of semantic, and therefore linguistic, actualization of the most representative features of the MAN / WOMAN concepts in various discursive practices. The research methodology includes cognitive modeling, the theory of linguistic conceptualization and categorization, sociolinguistic theory of gender, prototype theory, and stereotype theory. The research methods combine fundamental (lexical-semantic, conceptual-definitional, prototypical analysis) and corpus linguistics methods (frequency analysis, concordance analysis). The material of the study is a corpus of texts compiled according to the keywords мужчин* / женщин*, мужск* / женск* and including 4,000 contexts of the main corpus of the RNC and the media corpus of the RNC. As a result, the most frequent areas of determining the gender characteristics as gender interpretants are identified, namely: the thematic blocks “Personal Characteristics” and “Professional Characteristics.” When characterizing men, the group “Deviant Behavior” is additionally highlighted. Personal characteristics are divided into character traits, appearance, age, and clothing markers. Thus, the thematic groups of the pro-fessional characteristics block correspond to four key spheres of social life; markers of men’s and women’s appearance are discussed equally with character traits and retain visual gender differences. The importance of social (family roles) and cultural (professional sports, science, art) spheres of activity for men and women is profiled. The cultural sphere (personal fulfilment sphere, hobbies) is the most frequent for men and women (sport, art, science). When comparing contexts with a male–female gender pair, an insignificant number of contexts with manifestations of androcentrism and new gender identities have been found. Thus, the modern mechanism of basic gender categorization is a combination of traditional fundamentalist asymmetries and globalist tendencies of gender neutralization. Conceptual transformations of gender differences do not affect the prototypical core, but reveal themselves in the expansion of non-prototypical components, ranking their structure and rethinking gender asymmetry.
| Section | LANGUAGE AND CULTURE |
| DOI: | 10.47388/2072-3490/lunn2023-63-3-116-135 |
| Downloads | 223 |
| Key words | cognitive linguistics; gender; stereotype; thematic block; RNC |