Introduction
The question of the presence or the absence of a gender category for a noun in
English continues to be one of the controversial ones. Many scholars dealing with the
problems of theoretical and practical grammar believe that there is no such grammatical
category in the English language. A number of scholars disagree with this statement
and provide evidence in favor of the existence of a gender category in the English
language. Gender differences between members of different sexes are reflected in any
language. Studies of different language systems reveal that there are many similar
phenomena in languages of different systems: androcentricity, gender stereotypes, etc.
These phenomena can manifest themselves in different ways, which explains the need
to compare languages.
Modern linguistic literature, which is devoted to the study of the relationship and
mutual influence of gender and language is becoming more and more. Linguistic
theories which have been intensively developing in recent years have repeatedly
analyzed the category of gender in the English language.
Gender refers to factors that are always present in one way or another in
communication: in some contexts it is clearly perceptible, in others - as meaningful
fun. The anthropo-oriented approach that emerged in the humanities in the second half
of the 20th century indicated an increased interest in various parameters of the human
personality, including the human being as a socially conditioned mental construct.
Analysis of language not as a system, but as a result of human speech activity
contributes to a deep penetration into the space of culture; at the same time, the
importance of studying the linguistic personality increases. It seems that the interaction
of language and culture (including gender) is universal in the sense that it manifests
itself in all languages and cultures. On the other hand, it, apparently, has national
specificity due to differences, first of all - the structures of the language, reflecting the
uniqueness of a particular culture. Moreover, different aspects of this interaction are
studied and analyzed to varying degrees.
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The surge of interest in gender studies in linguistics is also due to the intensive
development in Western European countries of a powerful protest, to varying degrees
of ideologically biased feminist discourse, including the emergence of a linguistic
reform trend, which sets the goal of combating sexism on the basis of the movement
for political correctness in the language. At the stage of the third wave of feminism in
the situation of the crisis of feminism, the need arose for a comprehensive, including
linguistic, study of the content of feminist discourse, which was rapidly developing
during the second wave of feminism in the last decades of the twentieth century.Under
the influence of social changes that were outlined in the society of English-speaking
countries in the 60s and intensified to date, namely the growth of the feminist
movement and the movement for political correctness, many linguists consider the
category of gender of the English language as a category reflecting the social structure
of society.
The focus of gender studies is on the cultural and social factors that determine
the attitude of society towards men and women, the behavior of individuals in
connection with belonging to one or another sex, stereotypical ideas about male and
female qualities - everything that transfers the problem of gender from the field of
biology to the sphere of social life and culture.
The rise and rapid development of the feminist movement contributed to the
understanding by women of their importance and the possibility of self-realization in
various fields of activity in many Western countries, primarily in English-speaking
ones. That is why the research, which is now known as gender linguistics, is carried
out on the material of the English language. The concept of gender has already become
quite widespread in all spheres of social and academic life, so that few people doubt
the need for gender analysis in the humanities. And although gender is primarily a
social phenomenon, it is directly manifested not only in sociology and psychology, but
also in language.
Culture and language are permeated with gender relations. The focus of gender
studies is on the cultural and social factors that determine the attitude of society towards
men and women, the behavior of individuals in connection with belonging to one or
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another sex, stereotypical ideas about male and female qualities - everything that
transfers the problem of gender from the field of biology to the sphere of social life
and culture.
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