Education of the republic of uzbekistan termez state university foreign philology faculty the department of english language and literature



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Gender in Modern English and the means by which it can be expressed



THE MINISTRY OF HIGHER AND SECONDARY SPECIAL
EDUCATION OF THE REPUBLIC OF UZBEKISTAN TERMEZ STATE UNIVERSITY

FOREIGN PHILOLOGY FACULTY
THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

"Gender in Modern English and the means by which it can be expressed"

DONE BY:
SCIENTIFIC SUPERVISOR:

CONTENT
INTRODUCTION…………………………………………...............……...….…2
Main Part
1.Gender in Old English………………………………………………………… 4 2.Gender in Modern English………………………………………………….26
3. Gender neutrality in English……..........……................................................33
CONCLUSION……………….........………………………......….....…..…...43
REFERENCE………………………………......................…....………...........46
Introduction
The category of gender in English is a controversial subject. The majority of linguists stick to the opinion that there is no grammatical category of gender in modern English. The maintain that in modern English the biological division of masculine and feminine genders is render only by lexical means: special words (boy, girl), lexical affixes (actor, actress), special derivatives (he-cat, she-cat, male nurse).
The category of gender linguistically may be either meaningful (rendering the actual sex-based features of the reference) or formal. In Russian the category of gender is meaningful only for animate nouns but for inanimate nouns it is formal. In English gender is a meaningful category practically for all nouns (the exception takes place only with none-person animate nouns) because it reflects the real gender attributes of the referent denoted. It is realized through obligately correspondence of every noun to the third-person singular pronouns: he, she, it. Thus personal pronouns are gender classifies in English.
Gender is a constant feature category (it is expressed not through variable forms of words but through nounal classification: each noun belongs to only one of three genders) but there is a group of nouns in English which can denote either a female or a male in different context: the common gender nouns (professor, president, friend, doctor, etc.). For them the category of gender is a variable feature of category.
When there is no contextual need to specify the sex of the referent common gender nouns are substituted by the masculine pronoun (every student must do his best). There are some cases of transposition when nouns of neuter gender are used as if they denote female or male beings and are substituted by the pronouns he or she. In most case such used as stylistically colored. It is known as a stylistically device of personification and takes place in some traditionally fixed contexts (vessel -she, Britain -she, the sea -she, death - he, etc.).
Death is the only freedom I will know
I hear his black wings beating about me.
A system of grammatical gender, whereby every noun was treated as either masculine, feminine, or neuter, existed in Old English, but fell out of use during the Middle English period; therefore, Modern English largely does not have grammatical gender. Modern English lacks grammatical gender in the sense of all noun classes requiring masculine, feminine, or neuter inflection or agreement; however, it does retain features relating to natural gender with particular nouns and pronouns (such as womandaughterhusbandunclehe and she) to refer specifically to persons or animals of one or other sexes and neuter pronouns (such as it) for sexless objects. Also, in some cases, feminine pronouns are used by some speakers when referring to ships (and more uncommonly some airplanes and analogous machinery), to churches, and to nation states and islands.
Some aspects of gender usage in English have been influenced by the push towards a preference for gender-neutral language. This applies in particular to the 21st-century avoidance of the default generic he when referring to a person of unknown gender in favor of the neuter they as a third-person singular. Certain traditional feminine forms of nouns (such as authoress and poetess) are also increasingly avoided, with the male form of such nouns (author and poet) having become gender-neutral.[1]


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