THE PROBLEMS OF GENDER-ROLE REFERENCES IN SUB-STANDARD LEXIS OF THE ENGLISH AND RUSSIAN LANGUAGES

This article presents the results of a study of sub-standard lexical units representing the image of a woman and a man in Russian and English linguistic cultures, selected from “Explanatory dictionary of youth slang: words incomprehensible to adults” by T.G.Nikitina3 and “Dictionary of Contemporary Slang” by Tony Thorne4. This is facilitated by the thematic division of the sub-standard lexemes selected for analysis, which allow verbalizing the gender-role references presented in the sub-standard lexical fund of the Russian and English languages, which will become the basis for constructing the image under study. Russian and English sub-standard gender-role references describe character, appearance, and sexual relationships. According to the results of the study, the frequency of gender role references, reflecting the degree of severity of the identified characteristics of the gender image, is presented. Special attention is paid to the definition of figurative characteristics corresponding to men and women and transmitted through sub-standard lexemes. The results of the study confirm the existence of different interpretations of the roles of men and women in the language, reflected in the vocabulary focused exclusively on the masculine view, and associated with gender stereotypes prescribing certain historically established relationships between men and women. The study also identified positive and negative characteristics of the studied images, which are explained by the asymmetric representation of the male-female opposition and confirm the patriarchal relationship between them. The article outlines the prospects of the research that will allow us more fully and in a versatile way to describe the mechanisms of the presentation of gender relations in sub-standard vocabulary and identify their universal and specific features in the sub-standard lexical fund of the Russian and English languages. The research was conducted using methods appropriate to the goals and objectives of the scientific investigation, taking into account the specificity of the analyzed linguistic material: the continuous sampling method, analysis, synthesis, comparison, and generalization. The volume of the studied material includes 281 sub-standard lexemes nominating male and female gender in Russian and 318 sub-standard lexemes in English.