FEMINITIVES IN RUSSIAN SPEECH: THE HISTORY OF THE EMERGENCE AND PROSPECTS FOR DEVELOPMENT

Abstract. This article is devoted to the study of feminatives in Russian speech. The aim of the study is to determine the degree of feminitives-neologisms integration in everyday Russian speech and to assess the prospects for the development of this linguistic phenomenon. Feminatives are a nominative category of designating females in a certain sphere. The issue of androcentricity of language appeared in linguistics in the twentieth century, which was caused by changes in the social society system. Achievements of the feminist trend drew researchers’ attention to the problem of the correlation of speech and gender, as well as to the linguistic reflection of male dominance. The explicitness of the category of gender and the historical tendency to form feminitives become the reasons for the special interest of researchers in the formation of feminitiatives- neologisms in Russian. The theory of naming subjects of a certain kind of activity (e.g. profession) becomes a key aspect of case studies. The research includes a description of the gender category in Russian, a historical note on the development of the gender notion of nouns categorization. Particular attention is devoted to the issue of formation of representations about the naming subjects of professional activity in Russian. Social changes provoked the active reproduction of already existing correlates of the feminine gender and feminitive neologisms to nominate female persons in certain professional and social spheres.

In the course of this study a diachronic analysis of the system of feminitive creation in Russian was carried out.

The article presents the results of a sociological survey of 300 Russian university students on the level of feminatives-integration in Russian youth speech. Particular attention is paid to the evaluation of the need for the development of feminine categories and their stylistic evaluation by native speakers.

The trend of feminization of speech is traced in the texts of the media. The analysis of the national corpus of the Russian language of the media texts provides the results on the frequency of use of feminatives in modern journalism, also demonstrates the stylistic characteristics of the use.

Keywords: feminitive, grammar category of gender, modern Russian speech