Media and Dynamics of the Language Norm: the New Feminitives as a Reflection of Modern Social Challenges

The language of the media reacts most quickly to changes in public relations, produces and actively uses words that nominate new realities, give them an appreciation. Тhe media not only reflect, but also promote new sociocultural patterns of behavior, they are drivers of changes in the perception and interpretation of social phenomena.

One of the important challenges of recent times — using of feminine nouns to denote the professions and positions of women. Тhe Ukrainian media use feminitives in the texts, but also actively published materials on the subject. Most of media publications are positive about using such nouns. The key argument is the need to make a woman visible, the language — gender sensible. Such words are not new to Ukrainian vocabulary, they are recorded by

B. Grinchenko’s dictionary (1907–1909) and “Dictionary of Ukrainian language” in 11 volumes (1970–1980); some of them were previously used only in spoken style, others had no stylistic restrictions.

At the same time, according to the publications, women respondents mostly are not concerned with this problem and do not feel the discomfort of being called masculine universalisms; on the contrary, feminine nouns are often considered discriminatory. The arguments against feminites were that other meanings of some newly-formed feminine nouns were already enshrined in the language, and that the binary system resulting from the use of feminites ignored alternative definitions of gender.

The use of feminitives in the media has initiated an active public debate, which has led to changes in the Ukrainian spelling on May 22, 2019. The new rule regulates the ways in which feminitives are created, but does not oblige them to be used unless the speaker feels the need or perceives a word at a phonetic or connotative level. The media will continue to influence what words stand the test of time and how they will be interpreted in different environments of speakers.