On the manifestation of modern men's hegemonic masculinity in marriage announcement texts (on the material of Polish and Russian)

Abstract

The aim of this work is to make a comparative analysis of variant refractions of the gender identity of modern Polish and Russian men in the new social conditions based on the material of marriage announcements. The material for the research is marriage announcements in Russian presented in the talk show “Let's Get Married” on the Russian Channel One which has been broadcast since 2008. Marriage announcements in Polish selected for analysis are presented on the website https://www.duetcentrum.pl, which serves the Dating Center, whose first office was opened in Warsaw in 2002. In order to identify the types of gender identity of modern Polish and Russian men in speech practice, a comparative analysis of gender-oriented texts of male marriage announcements is made. It shows that the real masculinity of modern Slavic men is variable. Relying on the key nominative units and usual utterances in the composition of male texts allows determining the wide variation of the invariant masculinity standard, the diversity and plurality of gender characteristics of the modern male language identity, which depend on the subject's position, his system of values selected in the real conditions of the current time. The problem of establishing the dynamic modification of traditional gender values determining the specifics of public consciousness is becoming scientifically significant. A lingocultural analysis of marriage announcements with value-philosophical content, based on the same type of speech behaviour of Polish and Russian men, demonstrates the rootedness of the patriarchal foundations of the Slavic culture. There is a resemblance of the Russian and Polish mentality. In the course of further discussion of the results obtained, a special subject of the research is the study of the verbal manifestation of hegemonic masculinity in the framework of the marriage announcement. The structural components of the matrimonial text that are in the field of research attention are the analysis of male professions, the self-portrait and the portrait of a desired partner. It is concluded that, in the Russian texts, the patriarchal canon gets a tougher expression: male authors, using the strategy of power influence, demonstrate the usual ideas about gender superiority in family relations, verbally expressing it with lexemes with the modality of obligation (must be, should), with verbs semantics of sharp rejection (will not tolerate). The Polish male self-portrait is usually modelled based on the standard of a real man. The addressees depict the image of an ideal partner and friend, reliable, caring, responsible and hard-working, respecting women without focusing on their shortcomings. The level of requirements of both Polish and Russian men to a potential partner is high. In addition to the traditionally patriarchal traits of a kind, gentle, caring woman, external attractiveness and good manners are important for male authors. Separately, the article analyses the implicit manifestation of the male superiority features. As a kind of hegemonic, the type of romantic masculinity is considered in the work. © 2019 Tomsk State University. All rights reserved.