Gender-Colored English Neologisms in Cinematic Discourse

Abstract

The paper dwells upon the study of English neologisms with a gender component in cinematic discourse. The paper considers gender-colored neologisms of the space of cinematic discourse, classified on a semantic basis into neologisms that characterize genres of cinema, participants of cinematic discourse (filmmakers, viewers, actors), the process of creating a film. The research material was the neological units of cinematic discourse with a gender component which were taken from modern English-language online dictionaries, guides, glossaries, social news sites. The paper gives definitions of such notions as “neologism”, “cinematic discourse” and also identifies “distorted” and “fair” gender stereotypes in the composition of the definitions and contextual field of the neologisms under consideration. The presence of a rather large stratum of new terms related to the considered groups which include a gender component indicate the connection between cultural and linguistic aspects of life: new words reflect the changing realities, preferences of people and the relationship of old language forms with new concepts and ideas. Neologisms under study are grouped by gender opposition if there are similar neologisms in meaning but different in gender. Synonymous rows of some gender-coloured neologisms that characterize a certain gender and do not have a “gender opposite” are given. In addition, the authors consider neologisms that are applicable to both sexes simultaneously. In the process of the research, the authors turn to the presence of gender stereotypes in the composition of the neologisms under consideration. The authors distinguish between fair and distorted gender stereotypes. Based on the definitions and contextual field of the considered English neologisms with a gender component of cinematic discourse, it is concluded that there are both fair and distorted gender stereotypes in different neologisms, and fair gender stereotypes prevail over distorted ones.