GENDER ASYMMETRY IN THE ENGLISH PHRASEOLOGY: SOCIOCULTURAL PECULIARITIES

The study of phraseological units has gained prominence in the field of gender studies. This paper aims to reveal gender asymmetry in the phraseology of the English language and to provide sociocultural explanation to this phenomenon. To suffice the goal, the objectives include characterizing male and female referents in English idioms, conducting quantitative and qualitative analysis of gendered idioms, and classifying gendered idioms according to the structural and semantic criteria. The research is based on the Oxford Dictionary of Idioms. The employed methods are continuous sampling, descriptive and comparative analysis as well as statistical analysis of the gathered data. The analysis revealed 221 phraseological units with a gender component: 147 of them refer to the masculine gender, while 61 refer to the feminine gender. The results show that there is still a strong gender asymmetry in the English language which favours male referents. First of all, men are often covered in terms of their professions while women's occupation is basically restricted to that of a housewife. In addition, women's appearance is often objectified, whereas men are not represented in such terms. Finally, negative representation of women's personality traits prevails over positive examples. Thus, the findings show that gender asymmetry persists to exist in the English phraseology.