Gender Specifics of the Grammatical Component of the Linguistic Personality of the Local Politician (Based on the Speeches of Vologda Region Politicians)

Abstract

This article dwells on issues related to the grammatical component of the linguistic personality of the local politician. The study of the grammatical component allows us to identify the communicative competence of a politician (ability to correctly use grammatical forms and syntactic constructions in speech) as well as contributes to understanding the strategies and tactics of his/her speech behaviour. The analysis of the grammatical component of the speech of politicians is based on the theory of gender differences. Male and female speech behaviour is a relevant area of modern research and is of great value to science. Therefore, the main purpose of this paper was to determine the fundamental differences in the grammatical component of the speech of Vologda Region politicians, both men and women. A frequency analysis of words by part of speech was performed; the morphological and syntactic features of the speech of male and female politicians were identified. The results of the study demonstrate that both men and women in politics employ in their speech communicative strategies and tactics that are completely uncharacteristic of their gender. This finding overturns the existing stereotypes about male and female speech. The generally accepted scientific conclusions that women’s speech is more emotional and expressive, while men’s speech, conversely, is more abstract and less figurative were not confirmed. The practical results of the research indicate that, at the local level, male politicians make use of the female style of speech behaviour, while female politicians adopt the male model of speech behaviour.