Lexical representation of ''relationship/ ego orientation'' as one of the connotations of ''masculinity/ femininity'' cultural dominant idea (by English and Russian data)

The article is devoted to the lexical representation analysis of one of the connotations of the social group of ''masculinity/ femininity'' cultural dominant idea - ''relationship / ego orientation''. This cultural idea and its connotations were elaborated by Geert Hofstede on the basis of the sociological questionnaire results. A. Wierzbicka's research shows that national peculiarities may be proved by existence of particular language units and their frequency in the native speakers' speech. Broadening her methodology, the author of the article considers a number of elements in the synonymic rows of key words, representing these connotations, specificity of denotative and evaluative aspects of semantics, frequency of these synonymic row elements in speech actualization. For more objective results of the methodology there are two linguacultures analyzed - Russian, which G. Hofstede characterizes as the feminine one, and English characterized as the masculine one. In the paper the grade of cultural elaboration of concepts friend and independence that serve as the markers of ''relationship/ ego orientation'' connotations. The analysis results of the notions друг and friend show the relevance of the stylistic mark. The differences are the specific meaning ''communication without private sympathy'' of the English word, bigger elaboration of the English word in lexical systems, but higher speech usage frequency of the Russian word. This fact and the quantitative predominance of synonyms highlighting the emotional basis of friendship prove that Russian друг actualizes connotations classified as those of the feminine society. In the English language the emotional constituent of this word is less actualized and feminine society connotations are weaker expressed. The analysis of the notions независимость and independence shows higher usage frequency of the synonymic row lexemes in the English society and lack of negative evaluations of this phenomenon found in Russian linguaculture (вседозволенность 'permissiveness ). The findings reveal that the analyzed units may be interpreted as lexical representations of opposite ''femininity/ masculinity'' connotations of the compared linguacultures. This study presents evidence to the hypothesis about possible correlation between the linguistic analysis of lexical elaboration of connotations significant for cultures and the results of the anthropological research by G. Hofstede.

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