Functions of a pair of lexemes man and woman in sentences from the National Corpus of Polish and their application in research on gender stereotypes

Nawoja Mikołajczak-Matyja

Uniwersytet im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu


Abstract

The article concerns functions a pair of lexemes man and woman plays in the corpus
material and the potential of these functions to enrich sociolinguistic knowledge.
The purpose of analyses undertaken in the study was to verify the possibility of ordering
occurrences of the semantic binary opposition in Polish sentences with the use of functions
extracted in the analyses of texts in other languages, and the possibility of applying
this ordering in research on gender stereotypes. The analyses were carried out on a set
of 500 sentences with lexemes man and woman selected from the National Corpus of Polish. Results confirmed usefulness of the classification of functions employed in other
languages. However, it was necessary to distinguish an additional function of relations
and dependences, which implies the need to modify the classification for opposition
pairs which are made of names of clearly contrasting socio-cultural categories. Examples
of the analyzed pair of lexemes in two strongest functions are also provided, confirming
the applicability of the presented classification to obtain sociolinguistic data on gender
stereotypes.


Keywords:

corpus linguistics, sociolinguistics, semantics, binary semantic oppositions, gender stereotypes


Baker P. (2005): Public discourses of gay men. Londyn.
Crossref   Google Scholar

Baker P. (2006): Using corpora in discourse analysis. Londyn.
Crossref   Google Scholar

Baker P. (2010): Sociolinguistics and corpus linguistics. Edinburgh.   Google Scholar

Baker P. (2012): Corpora and gender studies. [W:] Corpus applications in applied linguistics. Red. K. Hyland, Ch. M. Huat, M. Handford. Londyn, s. 100–116.   Google Scholar

Davies M. (2012): A new approach to oppositions in discourse: The role of syntactic frames in the triggering of noncanonical oppositions. “Journal of English Linguistics” 40 (1), s. 41–73.
Crossref   Google Scholar

Davies M. (2013): Oppositions and ideology in news discourse. Londyn.   Google Scholar

Hassanein H. (2018): Discourse functions of opposition in classical Arabic: The case in Hadīth genre. “Lingua” 201, s. 18–44.
Crossref   Google Scholar

Hsu Ch. Ch. (2015): A syntagmatic analysis of antonym co-occurrences in Chinese: contrastive constructions and co-occurrence sequences. “Corpora” 10 (1), s. 47–82.
Crossref   Google Scholar

Hunston S. (2002): Corpora in applied linguistics. Cambridge.
Crossref   Google Scholar

Jones S. (2002): Antonymy: a corpus based perspective. London.
Crossref   Google Scholar

Jones S. (2006): A lexico-syntactic analysis of antonym co-occurrence in spoken English. “Text & Talk – An Interdisciplinary Journal of Language, Discourse Communication Studies” 26 (2), s. 191–216.
Crossref   Google Scholar

Jones S. (2007): ‘Opposites’ in discourse: A comparison of antonym use across four domains. “Journal of Pragmatics” 39, s. 1105–1119.
Crossref   Google Scholar

Jones S., Murphy L. M. (2005): Using corpora to investigate antonym acquisition. “International Journal of Corpus Linguistics” 10 (3), s. 401–422.
Crossref   Google Scholar

Kostić N. (2011): Antonymous frameworks in Serbian written discourse: phrasal contexts of antonym co-occurrence in text. “Poznań Studies in Contemporary Linguistics” 47 (3), s. 509–537.
Crossref   Google Scholar

Kostić N. (2015): Antonymy in language use: from core members to ad hoc couplings. “Poznań Studies in Contemporary Linguistics” 51 (1), s. 133–161.
Crossref   Google Scholar

Lakoff R. (1975): Language and woman’s place. “Language and Society” 2, s. 45–80.
Crossref   Google Scholar

Lobanova A., Van Der Kleij T., Spenader J. (2010): Defining antonymy: a corpus-based study of opposites by lexico-syntactic patterns. “International Journal of Lexicography” 23 (1), s. 19–53.
Crossref   Google Scholar

Maass A., Arcuri L. (1999): Język a stereotypizacja. [W:] Stereotypy i uprzedzenia. Red. C. N. Macrae, Ch. Stangor, M. Hewstone. Gdańsk, s. 161–188.   Google Scholar

Mills S. (2008): Language and sexism. Cambridge.   Google Scholar

Muehleisen V., Isono M. (2009): Antonymous adjectives in Japanese discourse. “Journal of Pragmatics” 41, s. 2185–2203.
Crossref   Google Scholar

Murphy M. L. (2003): Semantic relations and the lexicon. Cambridge.
Crossref   Google Scholar

Murphy M. L., Paradis C., Willners C., Jones S. (2009): Discourse functions of antonymy: A cross-linguistic investigation of Swedish and English. “Journal of Pragmatics” 41, s. 2159–2184.
Crossref   Google Scholar

Pearce M. (2008): Investigating the collocational behaviour of MAN and WOMAN in the British National Corpus using Sketch Engine. “Corpora” 3 (1), s. 1–29.
Crossref   Google Scholar

Steffens M. (2018): Antonymic discourse functions and manipulation: a corpus analysis of present-day French. “Corpus Pragmatics” 2 (3), s. 313–332.
Crossref   Google Scholar

Szałkiewicz Ł., Przepiórkowski A. (2012): Anotacja morfoskładniowa. [W:] Narodowy Korpus Języka Polskiego. Red. A. Przepiórkowski, M. Bańko, R. L. Górski, B. Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk. Warszawa, s. 59–96.   Google Scholar


Published
2021-09-30

Cited by

Mikołajczak-Matyja , N. (2021). Functions of a pair of lexemes man and woman in sentences from the National Corpus of Polish and their application in research on gender stereotypes. Prace Językoznawcze, 23(3), 115–131. https://doi.org/10.31648/pj.6840

Nawoja Mikołajczak-Matyja  
Uniwersytet im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu