GENDER NEUTRALITY IN POLITICS WITHIN THE SCOPE OF LINGUISTICS AND THE FEATURES OF GENDER-NEUTRAL SPEECH

Politics has enduringly been the common denominator behind the majority of global events for many centuries. The world’s politicians have greatly relied on their communication skills to achieve a desired outcome in the political arena. English-speaking political figures are especially relevant in that regard, considering that English maintains the status of the global lingua franca.

In the current political discourse, diversity is held in the highest regard. The concept of gender is, in turn, considered to be a crucial diversity-related aspect as the field continues to be overwhelmingly male-dominated.

Even though the idea of gender has been thoroughly studied by numerous researchers, the extensive scope of this area within linguistics requires further investigation. Gender differences are inevitably represented in language. In contrast to a number of other major languages, English grammar tends to gravitate toward gender neutrality.

The relevance of this article can be attributed to the importance of politics in research. Politics provide the impetus for many global developments and are thoroughly studied by professionals in various fields, including linguistics.

This publication’s objective is to analyze the speech of political figures with a focus on gender-neutral linguistic units. The materials used include written texts as well as video recordings. Qualitative analysis has been employed in processing the findings for this study.

As a result, the following conclusions have been reached:
1. Gender neutrality is an essential linguistic aspect, especially in fields such as translation or interpretation when gender is not considered important or must be overlooked.

2. Gender-marked grammatical forms are largely scarce in English, making English benefit from the use of gender-neutral forms.

3. One way to express gender neutrality in English is through androcentrism, the placing of the masculine above the feminine. However, this phenomenon is becoming increasingly unpopular and obsolete.

4. On some occasions, gender neutrality may prove to be impractical especially as far as a specific gender is concerned.

Keywords: gender marking, English language, politics, gender, politicians