Media Discourse As A Base For Verbal Manifestation Of Female Linguistic Personality

Abstract

The main aim of the article is to identify the key features of the female linguistic personality explication in modern Russian and German media discourse at the verbal-semantic level. Using the methods of semantic and contextual analysis, a complex of preferred linguistic means has been identified that characterize the main distinctive features of a female linguistic personality in media discourse both in Russian and German. The presented research results are based on the analysis of publications - both printed and electronic - in Russian and German languages. The analyzed texts were written by women and are a part of women's media texts. The texts were taken from various sources including analytical, political, economic and business magazines and newspapers, periodicals, women’s magazines published primarily for a readership of women, etc. It has been established that the verbal-semantic level of the female linguistic personality in media discourse is realized by lexical-grammatical means, lexical combinations, formula phrases, i.e. is a gender-specific lexicon of a female personality. The significance for the theory of language is proved by the fact that the study of the verbal-semantic level of the female linguistic personality seems to be relevant for establishing the referential laws of the verbalization of the female linguistic picture of the world in media discourse.

Keywords: Female linguistic personalityfemale linguistic picture of the worldmedia discoursemedia textverbal-semantic level of the female linguistic personality

Introduction

The linguistic identity is a complex phenomenon, manifested in cognitive, psychological, communicative and axiological aspects. It includes a lingua-cultural component as well. Such scientific research areas as lingua-culturology, ethnolinguistics, psycholinguistics, text linguistics, sociolinguistics, pragmatics, cognitive science, pragmalinguistics and other anthropocentric oriented sciences reveal the phenomenon of "linguistic identity", female linguistic identity in particular.

The study of such a phenomenon as a “linguistic identity” was started by the German scientist Weisgerber (2004), as well as by the prominent Soviet philologist Vinogradov (1980). Research in this scientific field has been developing intensively due to a new scientific anthropocentric paradigm focusing its attention on the so-called "human factor". The problem of linguistic identity has been the focus of attention of numerous scholars – both Russian and foreign ones - since the eighties of the last century. It stirred heated debates among linguists, psychologists and sociologists. “The female linguistic personality is considered as a communicative model of an average native speaker who is in the communicative environment of media discourse” (Evsyukova & Agababyan, 2015, p. 176).

Women's media discourse is defined as a complex sociocultural phenomenon that both unites the female authors and female readers. The most important characteristics of women's media discourse are the focus on a female audience, i.e. articles are written by women and primarily for women; representation of the specifics of the verbal behaviour of a female discursive personality; the formation and transmission of the female linguistic picture of the world.

The concept of “linguistic identity” is a subject to constant research and detailed differentiation determined by both linguistic and extralinguistic factors. Female media discourse is a complex socio-cultural phenomenon that unites a woman author and a woman reader, as well as represents the specifics of a female linguistic picture of the world.

Problem Statement

Our study aims to identify the key ways for the manifestation of a female language personality in modern Russian and German media discourse. The research questions related to the manifestation of a female language personality in modern women media discourse imply the identification of verbal-semantic level elements of the phenomenon, marking certain specific associative structures, the analysis of semantic and grammatical relations. From this perspective, we consider the main characteristic features of a female language personality in modern media discourse to be the following ones: a high degree of evaluativeness, use of gender-marked lexical units, gender stereotypes of modern society, numerous associations, lexical and syntactical repetitions.

Research Questions

The linguistic factors influencing the language personality include the distinction between linguistic and speech personality, which is based on the distinction between language and speech. Krasnykh (2001) also studies the concept of a communicative identity, which is defined as “a specific participant of a specific communicative act, actually acting in real communication” (Krasnykh, 2001, p. 151).

It is a gender factor that mainly determines the key features of a female linguistic personality in modern media discourse. Nowadays the main characteristics of the female linguistic personality are identified at the verbal-semantic level of the language. They are manifested in phonology, vocabulary, grammar, conversational topics and styles (Pan, 2011). As cognitive phenomena in the field of cognitive studies, the main features of a female linguistic personality are represented by stereotypes, various meanings and certain concepts that create a colourful gender picture of the world. At the pragmatic level, primary attention of researches is given to study of goals, intentions, interests, attitudes and world perception that contribute much to understanding the essence of the female linguistic personality in modern media discourse (Khachmafova, 2010).

It should be underlined that any person throughout the whole life is judged by gender stereotypes that can be changed, destroyed and substituted by new ones. All these processes are reflected by modern media discourse. Home, family and work are not the only interests of a modern woman. Media texts introduce a new image of a successful woman, they help to create such an image, to form it in the mass consciousness. We consider a female linguistic personality as “a communicative model of an average native speaker who is in the communicative environment of media discourse. A female discursive linguistic personality is a complex system that is in constant interconnection and interaction with the linguistic environment, which generates a female discourse with characteristic conceptual meanings of a gender-motivated manifestation of female linguistic consciousness” (Volodina, 2018, p. 50).

In female media discourse, female identity is represented by various linguistic means (phonology, vocabulary, grammar, stylistic). It can be noted that the female linguistic picture of the world is presented to the world, to the society by the female linguistic personality. At the same time, the communicative behaviour of the female personality is one of the ways to present the female linguistic picture of the world in the media discourse.

Purpose of the Study

The main goal of this article is to define the specific ways of the female linguistic personality representation in the modern female media discourse through analyzing Russian and German women texts. Research objectives in this context are:

- Studying various means of verbal-manifestation of a female linguistic personality at lexico-semantic, grammatical and stylistic levels in modern media discourse;

- Analysis of intertextuality and precedence as the basic categories of media discourse of a female linguistic personality;

- Defining the features of a female linguistic personality manifestation in modern media discourse at the verbal-semantic level.

Research Methods

The investigation of a female linguistic personality in media discourse is based on the conceptual framework of objective-system approach and has an interdisciplinary character.

The research is based on the analysis of both printed and electronic versions of publications in Russian and German languages. The analyzed texts were written by women and are a part of women's media texts. The texts were taken from various sources including analytical, political, economic and business magazines and newspapers, periodicals, women’s magazines published primarily for a readership of women, etc.

The following research methods and techniques were used: the method of linguistic observation and description of linguistic facts as the main one; the method of frame modelling for the selection of frames, slots and sub-slots of the concept sphere of a female linguistic personality; the method of semantic and linguistic-stylistic analysis for describing linguistic means and stylistic devices of female media discourse; the method of discourse analysis for describing the process of immersing discourse-forming concepts in the discourse deployment of the sphere of media communication. The authors applied the methods of semantic and contextual analysis to identify a complex of preferred linguistic means of a female linguistic personality in modern female media discourse. Kitaygorodskaya and Rozanova (2010) distinguishes the parameters by which the linguistic personality is to be analyzed.

As a result of the analysis, it seems to us possible to identify a female linguistic personality in modern women Russian and German media discourse. The study of the verbal-semantic level of the female linguistic personality seems to be relevant for establishing the referential laws of the verbalization of the female linguistic picture of the world in media discourse.

Findings

A female linguistic personality in course of the study has been considered in the light of several scientific approaches to the phenomenon. Among them the definition of the linguistic identity by Bogin (2000): “...a person considered from his readiness to produce speech acts, to create and receive speech messages” (p. 130).

For a complete description of the female linguistic personality in media discourse, it is necessary to identify and analyze the linguistic content of frames, slots and sub-slots that most accurately reflect the worldview, emotional picture of the woman's world and form her conceptual sphere.

Analysis of practical material showed that a female media text is distinguished by a high degree of evaluativeness. It is highlighted by using intensifiers, extravagant adjectives, swear words, euphemisms and polite expressions.

In female media discourse, vocabulary with an emotionally expressive connotation prevails. With the help of emotional-evaluative vocabulary, the subjective attitude of the female author to the described subject or situation in the media text is realized.

The research revealed frequent use of evaluative adjectives, assessing participles and nouns, which clarify the position of a female author as well as express her attitude to a person or mark the assessment of the situation. The analysis of the material showed that one of the gender-related features of the female linguistic personality is the frequent use of adjectives in the superlative degree, which have an emotional impact on the reader. There are numerous examples when a female author expresses an assessment using superlative suffixes of adjectives or using words in a colloquial style.

Hyperbolized words and expressions in the structure of such stylistic devices as comparison and metaphor are also one of the striking characteristics of a female linguistic personality both Russian and German (Normurodova, 2019). Comparisons and metaphors in female media discourse realize the function of emotional impact on the recipient, in this case, on the readers.

A female linguistic personality is nationally-marked and is depended on the moral and ethical values that have been developed in the social national or ethnic environment. It is the lingua-cultural community that contributes to the development of linguistic personality typical of this society and it is media discourse that helps to express its essence.

The analysis showed that in women discourse the personal attitude to the subject is often realized with the help of colloquial vocabulary, slang vocabulary and vulgarisms (Crawford et al., 2004). Women are more careful and they still avoid using many crude words in their texts. Often the use of such words aims at expressing some ironical attitude to the situation or people mentioned in the article.

Female linguistic personality in Russian media discourse is more euphemistic if compared with the German one. Russian women authors more frequently use euphemistic substitutes.

It should be noted that “the linguistic identity has linguistic as well as axiological competence; it includes both mental and social components, representing their communication and, thus, identifying it with a certain cultural community” (Volodina, 2018, p. 30) and reflects the existing system of values.

Emotional and evaluative vocabulary reflects the subjective attitude of journalists to an object or situation, and also represents emotions in relation to them.

Female media texts contain such intensifiers as so, much, quite, vastly, etc. The analysis shows that the use of intensifiers is determined by the desire to strengthen the assessment, clarify the attitude.

Frequency of modal words in the texts analyzed is rather high, which can be explained by the tendency to the logical assessment of the utterance as well as to expressing a certain degree of author's confidence, doubt about its reliability, to the clarification of their position or attitude to the described facts or events.

Note that at the verbal-semantic level, the individual author's peculiarities of the speech behaviour of the female author are formed. To such individual author's peculiarities, various occasionalism and unusual word formation and usage can be referred. The author's position and attitude towards the problem mentioned are demonstrated with the help of new formations.

The analysis identified a wide use of jargon in female media discourse which the main function is labelling and the manifestation of group affiliation, the women media discourse contains vocabulary that is sometimes artificially introduced into the characteristics of a linguistic identity to demonstrate its belonging to a given environment, gender identity (Bentum et al., 2019, pp. 98-130).

Analysis of media texts in Russian and German has shown that intertextuality is an important component of women's media discourse, due to the fact that female authors actively use intertextual inclusions both in headings and in media texts. The study of the peculiarities of the implementation of the category of intertextuality in modern media texts contributes to a comprehensive description of the female linguistic personality.

Intertextuality is a style-forming category for scientific, journalistic, mass media discourses, and is also a key feature of advertising, television and the Internet.

Being a fragment of national culture, the media create a picture of the world, a portrait of the speech era, acting as a model of the national and cultural specifics of speech communication, a source of cultural information.

In modern women's media discourse, the main linguistic methods of implementing the category of intertextuality were considered allusions, aphorisms, quotations, reminiscences, foreign-style inclusions that perform certain functions in the media text: a description of the socio-historical and cultural situation, an allusion to the quality and characteristics of a certain personality, events.

The research shows that in women's media texts, reminiscences most often represent transformations of the original text.

The quotation is a striking characteristic of the title of the female media discourse since serves to attract readers to the questions and problems posed.

Often allusions demand a certain intellectual level and cultural background of a woman author and a woman reader as allusions are based on the extralinguistic presuppositions of the addressee and the addressee. The allusive quotation is a common technique in women's media text to attract the attention of the addressee. In this case, the quote performs an emotional-evaluative and informative function.

One of the ways of manifestation of intertextuality in women's media texts is aphorisms. Women's media text is distinguished by the presence of aphorisms, it is a striking feature of female fashion magazines.

Proper precedent names in women's media texts refer the reader to other texts of history and culture and perform a meaning-generating function. Proper precedent names are an important component of creating an image of a female media text, with the help of which a dialogue between the author and the reader is realized. As an example, we can consider mythological proper names as precedent names.

Precedent phenomena in women's media texts represent the female worldview, female linguistic consciousness. Women use precedent phenomena to stimulate readers' interest.

Intertextual inclusions and precedence give impetus to the creation of a language game in women's media discourse. The language game is a marker of the linguistic creativity of the female linguistic personality.

The study of women's media discourse has led to the conclusion that the use of precedent phenomena is a characteristic technique of the language game.

The female linguistic personality accumulates in the modern media discourse the culture, history, traditions of Russian and German linguistic cultures, fixed in the collective and individual linguistic consciousness. Thus, the main functions of the category of intertextuality in the female media text are the function of influencing the addressee, the function of the author's assessment, the expressive-emotional function. Intertextuality is a reflection of the lingua-cultural consciousness of a female linguistic personality in media discourse.

Intertextual inclusions act as means of verbalizing the basic concepts of a female linguistic personality in media discourse and forming a female media linguistic picture of the world.

Conclusion

A female linguistic personality in media discourse is presented by a hierarchical set of basic concepts, with stable interconnections and relationships.

The analysis shows that intertextuality is one of the main linguistic features a female linguistic personality in women's media discourse. Intertextual inclusions and precedent phenomena actualize female linguistic consciousness in media tests.

A female linguistic personality has a set of preferred lexical and grammatical means that present the main distinctive features of a female personality in media discourse. Evaluation in women's media text plays an important role in the selection of topics and problems.

The main linguistic means of assessment objectification in female media discourse are metaphors, comparisons, modal words, verbs, emotional-evaluative lexical units, and repetitive syntactic constructions. Quotations and language games also are the ways of expressing the author's assessment in the media text. An implicit assessment of a female discursive personality is expressed primarily by metaphor and language play.

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