Mass media discourse deployment and its gender specificity: sociolinguistic perspective

Abstract

The current paper deals with the sociolinguistic analysis of mass media discourse deployment and its gender specificity. It reveals sociocultural factors and psychological peculiarities affecting speech generating mental activity of male and female authors of British news texts as representatives of the native English-speaking community. The paper also touches upon the differences in male and female perception of events and their reflection in gender-neutral texts giving rise to feminine and masculine forms of writing. An attempt has been made to classify and describe linguistic parameters of newspaper texts written by male and female authors. The authors pay special attention to the gender analysis of structural, contents and stylistic aspects of news texts. The proposed matrix for identifying gender of a news text author has been validated by the results of the sociolinguistic experiment providing some insights into gender specificity of the mass media texts on various levels of language.

Cosmo Girls: The Construction of Feminine Discourse in Cosmopolitan Magazine

“…The advertising industry "has historically legitimized differences between the sexes by portraying gender norms in both idealized and stereotypical ways" (Lay, 2018, p. iii). Despite being written 'for women', women's magazines commonly typecast femininity as empathetic, maternal, non-verbal, and heterosexual, among other things (Wood, 1994;Skrynnikova et al, 2017). In magazines, gender binaries "are manifested in [linguistic] content and structure" (Skrynnikova et al, 2017, p.309).…”

“…In magazines, gender binaries "are manifested in [linguistic] content and structure" (Skrynnikova et al, 2017, p.309). Linguistic patterns that reinforce male and female norms may influence an individual's gender identity, inducing change in accordance to specific societal expectations (Skrynnikova et al, 2017).…”

Cosmo Girls: The Construction of Feminine Discourse in Cosmopolitan Magazine

“…The advertising industry "has historically legitimized differences between the sexes by portraying gender norms in both idealized and stereotypical ways" (Lay, 2018, p. iii). Despite being written 'for women', women's magazines commonly typecast femininity as empathetic, maternal, non-verbal, and heterosexual, among other things (Wood, 1994;Skrynnikova et al, 2017). In magazines, gender binaries "are manifested in [linguistic] content and structure" (Skrynnikova et al, 2017, p.309).…”

“…In magazines, gender binaries "are manifested in [linguistic] content and structure" (Skrynnikova et al, 2017, p.309). Linguistic patterns that reinforce male and female norms may influence an individual's gender identity, inducing change in accordance to specific societal expectations (Skrynnikova et al, 2017).…”