gender in the english language

English Philology Department

Gender in the English language: a diachronic perspective

8.030502 – the English Language and Literature
Course Paper

CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………3-5
CHAPTER I. THEORETICAL BASIS FOR THE STUDY OF THE CATEGORY OF GENDER IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
1.1. The study of Gender in Modern Linguistics……………………….6-8
1.2. Contradictory Views on Gender in Modern English………………8-10
1.3. The Category of Gender in Germanic languages: a historical overview………………………………………………………………………10-15
CHAPTER II. HISTORICAL DYNAMICS OF THE CATEGORY OF GENDER IN ENGLISH
2.1. The Category of Gender in Old English…………………………16-20
2.2. The Category of Gender in Middle English and in Early New English…………………………………………………………………………21-23
CONCLUSION ………………………………………………………24-25
REFERENCES………………………………………………………..26-28

INTRODUCTION
The category of gender is the feature of most languages all over the world. This causes great interest of linguists to this problem. In works of different researchers we can find out all changes which this category made during long period of time. Especially in English a lot of consequences between linguists take place around the problem of the category of gender.
In the past several years the problem of gender identity attracts a great interest from linguists. Their works are connected with feminist movements which are very popular in our modern world, some people do not believe that their gender identity corresponds to their biological sex. The problem of gender identity had been studied by L. Litosseliti, J. Sunderland, R. Carter, C. Candlin, A. Curzan, M. Talbot, P. Treichler, S. Wolfe, P. Persson, J. Moulton [19; 23; 24; 33].
The researches of other linguists are directed to natural gender. In accordance to their studies gender differentiation was made by sex. A lot of linguists insist on the opinion that in English we have only natural gender. The

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