Information on the thesis

The  thesis  deals  with  the  gender  aspect  of  free-indirect  speech  (FIS)  in
English literary discourse on the material of female prose of the first half of the 20-
th  century.  Female  novels  reveal  gender  characteristics  of  linguistic  identity  of
women writers focusing on female artistic discourse. Thus, we have the correlation
of two concepts: artistic women’s text → artistic women’s discourse which depicts
a female view. The new woman-type novel brought to literature deep psychology,
rich discourse of inner world, changes in consciousness and subconsciousness as
well  as  the  world  of  women’s  feelings.  “Feminine”  writing  helped  women  to
develop  their  own  style  but  feminist  linguistics  seeks  the  ways  to  help  them
perceive  themselves  differently  by  means  of  the  language.  FIS  is  a  tool  which
reflects  character’s  deep  inner  world  that  helps  us  to  trace  gender  differences,
mostly  latent  in  the  direct  speech.  This  approach  to  the  research  enables
comprehensive  comparative  study  of  characters’  verbal  behavior  –  men’s  vs
women’s – as well as identifying specific linguistic features of the female author.
The  analyzed  gender  characteristics  of  male  vs  female  FIS  enabled  a  detailed
assessment of the underlying codes of female texts on different linguistic levels.
The study is conducted on the material of  English literary discourse namely in the
novels written by V. Woolf, D. Richardson, M. Sinclair.
The  analysis  highlights  the  philosophical  and  theoretical  basis  of  gender
analysis as well as characteristics of female authors reflected in FIS in the English
literary discourse; it also reveals lexical and grammatical patterns of female writing
in  FIS  basing  on  V. Woolf’s,  D. Richardson’s  and  M. Sinclair’s  creative  per-
sonalities. The expression of message in female FIS is clear and emotionally rich,
while in male FIS it is less dynamic, indicating woman’s emotionality and man’s
restraint  on  lexico-grammatic  level  in  the  novels  under  analysis.  We  have  also
outlined  the  pragmatic  model  of  female  behavior  in  the  prose  of  the  authors
mentioned above through the prism of FIS as well as identified gender aspect of
speech acts and the means of their implementation. Furthermore, gender commu-
nicative strategies and tactics in FIS have been identified as well. Communicative
and pragmatic gender discrepancies in female and male characters’ verbal behavior
have manifested themselves in FIS. The difference in the use of language means in
male  vs  female  FIS  is  caused  by  biological  factors,  namely  feminine  nature.  In
conclusion, communicative female behavior is highly emotional, sensual, indirect,
uncertain, whereas male’s – emotionally neutral, direct and implies confidence.
Keywords: gender, language personality, free-indirect speech, communicative
behavior, masculinity, feminity, feminity, female artistic discourse, female text, cha-
racter discourse, narration, narrator, speech act, communicative strategy and tactics.