The linguistic representation of woman in Frech and Polish  Cover Image

Sur la représentation linguistique de la femme en français et en polonais
The linguistic representation of woman in Frech and Polish

Author(s): Józef Sypnicki, Jolanta Dyoniziak
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego
Keywords: linguistic image of the world; cognitive model; stereotype; metaphor; idiomatic expression; proverb

Summary/Abstract: The authors of the article attempted to present the stereotypical image of “woman“ in French and Polish. On the basis of the analysis of the linguistic corpus including two thousand proverbs, idiomatic expressions and metaphors that can be found in various linguistic dictionaries, the authors arrived at the conclusion that in both French and Polish: – the cognitive model of woman comprises three basic profiles (physical aspect, character and intellect traits, social roles); – the metaphoric representation of woman employs items belonging to the women's domain (home, kitchen), the men's domain (car, gun), the world of animals (goat, goose, horse) and the imaginary world (goddess, nymph, mermaid); – the stereotypes of women are usually negative, only those concerning mother are deprived of any disparaging elements.

  • Issue Year: 2005
  • Issue No: 17
  • Page Range: 162-176
  • Page Count: 15
  • Language: French