Women Evaluation In English Maxims

Abstract

The article addresses evaluative senses in English aphorisms about women. Maxims are considered to be an important type of aphoristic texts due to their high degree of axiological markedness. In the course of the gender analysis of the 19th-21st centuries aphorisms with direct or metaphoric designations of women, the focus was made on the aphorisms' meaning, as well as their semantic volume and linguistic features, which can be accounted for by gender influence. Gender analysis is the principal research method because it enables a description of the maxims' meaning as related to the phenomenon of gender. The maxims' semantic space and their linguistic features were identified using semantic analysis. Changes in the meaning of the components of the maxims in a certain distribution were determined as a result of the contextual analysis application. It is pointed out that gender evaluation of women is frequently expressed in maxims about marriage, love, and friendship. The conclusion is made that the highest frequency value is typical of evaluating women's psychological features, social roles, appearance, and age. The correlation between gender evaluation and the cultural stereotypes of the speaking community is justified. The means of expressing evaluation are described regarding their frequency value.