Female Friendship: Analysis of Phrase in Media Discourse and Drawing up a Definition

Abstract

The article is devoted to the analysis of the phrase female friendship against the background of the phrase male friendship, the features of their functioning in artistic, journalistic and network discourses. It is noted that the expression is actively used: the Yandex system issues several million responses to the query “female friendship”. The authors believe that the phrase demonstrates a stable character, since it is reproducible, expressive, has evaluative connotations that are additional to the main denotative meaning. It is emphasized that male friendship is traditionally considered a value and this is how this phenomenon can be described in an explanatory dictionary. The combination female friendship was portrayed, which made it possible to draw up a definition that can be included in the dictionary. It was revealed that the phrase female friendship is ambivalent, and has evaluative semantics, both positive and negative. It has been established that in one of the meanings, female friendship is associated with close relationships between women, psychological harmony, based on common interests; on the other hand, with false intimacy between women, such relationships, which are characterized by competitiveness, including in relations with men, unreliability, superficiality.