LEXICAL, STYLISTIC AND SYNTACTIC GENDER ASPECTS OF ARTICLES IN FASHION MAGAZINES

LEXICAL, STYLISTIC AND SYNTACTIC GENDER ASPECTS OF ARTICLES IN FASHION MAGAZINES
Egor DENISOV, an.III, Facultatea de Limbi și Literaturi Străine
The given research was aimed at identifying lexical, stylistic and syntactic gender aspects in British Fashion magazines. Vocabulary choices of women focused on common vocabulary layer, while men choices were neologisms, professionalisms and vulgar words. Most preferred were declarative, interrogative and imperative sentences. Exclamatory sentences represented mostly women speech style. Women syntactic choices were complex sentences, while men mostly used simple sentences. Among stylistic devices were metaphors, simile, personification and metonymy.
This research is devoted to the linguistic analysis of gender representation by various lexical, stylistic and syntactic means in fashion magazines articles.
This work is an attempt to study subsystems of male and female speech styles. 
The working hypothesis suggests that there are two completely different speech styles: male and female, which express themselves in different ways.
The research objectives are:
to select British Fashion Magazines for analysis;
to outline similarities and specific features of male and female speech styles;
to determine lexical, stylistic and syntactic aspects of the given articles;
to conclude results obtained during the given study.
The methods applied in the study include:
Structural Analysis consists in revealing structural peculiarities of gender representation in British Fashion Magazines;
Linguistic Analysis is aimed at finding general lexical, stylistic and syntactic characteristics of the articles;
Statistical Analysis comprises collected data presented in tables and figures
The study material is based on ten fashion articles taken from the following sources:
1. British Fashion Magazine “GQ”
2. British Fashion Magazine “COSMOPOLITAN”.
The starting point of the research was to select British fashion magazines whose target audience differs by gender. Nowadays there is a great number of fashion magazines subdivided according to the perception strata and interests. In the practical part of the study we paid attention to the structure and format of the selected article, vocabulary gender features, stylistic devices and syntactic features used in the articles.
During lexical analysis we looked at the vocabulary representing gender styles that is used in fashion magazines written for men and women.
The next step of our study was aimed at determining stylistic devices reflecting men and women speech styles of the English language.
The target audience of fashion magazines for women is women with a clearly expressed feminine type of thinking. In such magazines a certain attention is paid to the creation of the image of its reader. This is a young, ambitious woman who exactly knows what she wants, leads a healthy way of life and wants to be aware of the recent trends in fashion. As for the choice of lexis for male magazines it is obvious that the usage of foul language prevails. [1] Female vocabulary is relatively narrower; the major part of women use the basic part of the vocabulary, which means that they use the most common and highly spread words in contrast to men who use a great number of neologisms, professionalisms and vulgar words in their speech. [3]
It goes without saying that there is a certain correspondence between language and society. Language is inherently social and in all of its aspects can neither function nor develop without interacting with the society. Sociolinguistics is the study of language use within or among groups of speakers. The group that sociolinguists have generally attempted to study is called the speech community. [2]
Summing up research results we can say that women prefer diminutives and adjectives that describe their personality and inner world. Men are more laconic and do not use so many descriptive adjectives. On the contrary, they used a number of vulgar words as a symbol of their masculinity.
Various stylistic devices such as phonetic, morphological, lexical, syntactic, and graphic means are often used in fashion articles. They are aimed at achieving a common task – to represent the consumer’s point of view. Stylistic Devices help to create a visual image of the written text or just attract the reader’s attention. The most highly spread Lexical Stylistic Devices in the selected articles are Metaphor, Simile, Personification, and Metonymy.
Syntactic analysis results proved that the place of the Syntactic Stylistic Devices in the articles is based on peculiar syntactical arrangement. They include stylistic inversion, detached constructions, and repetition. When people form sentences, they do many things, they ask questions, make requests, make statements, or explain feelings and emotions, because of that syntactic devices correlate with five basic communicative sentence types: Declarative, Interrogatives, Imperatives, Exclamatory and Vocatives. The syntactic analysis of the selected articles has shown that men are laconic; they prefer simplicity and use, as a rule, Simple sentences rather than Compound or Complex ones. As for the sentence functions we may say that in the GQ magazine articles category “HOW TO DRESS: …” Imperative and Declarative sentences are most commonly used, as the articles deal with the instructions that help the reader to be prepared for the job interview, wedding or first date.
The analysis of sentence types in women fashion magazine articles proved that women prefer Simple and Compound sentences rather than Complex sentences with subordinate clauses. Women are more laconic and express themselves in easier ways, but still they are more expressive and emotional. Exclamatory Sentences used in articles express powerful feelings and emotions triggered by fashion items in women. Authors of the articles targeted to women use the so-called “woman’s modals” while structuring the sentences. Usually the author of the article cares about the target audience she writes to and takes into consideration the concept of complexity, trying to use sentences in such a way as to show her attitude towards the subject she writes about. The author makes statements while giving pieces of advice, so we can say that such type of sentences is highly spread and common for all selected articles as well as Imperatives with the help of which the author expresses an order, a request or gives advice.
Conclusions
We compared and identified differences capable to distinguish between male and female peculiarities of speech as well as the detailed analyses of differences in the articles on the stylistic and syntactical levels. From the syntactic point of view we can say that there are differences in forming the sentences and their functions. The usage of the lexis and stylistic devices also plays an important role in making the article more man or woman targeted.
The results obtained during the quantitative research cannot be absolutely accurate, since it is virtually impossible to keep pace with all new changes that appear in the fashion world. However, it allows us to gain some insight into the gender phenomenon.
The results of the given research may be used in the fields of linguistics and sociolinguistics.
Bibliography
Smith P.M. “Language, the Sexes and Society” Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1985; p. 211
Wardgaugh, R. An Introduction to Sociolinguistics. UK: Blackwell, 2002, p.432
Шатова Ф.О. «Гендерные особенности мужских и женских журналов. Раунд первый» ЯрославльRecomandat
Elena Șapa, dr., conf. univ., cond. ştiinţific