Martynyuk A. A Regulative Function of Gender-Marked Language Units (Based on the Cоntemporary English Publicistic Discourse).

The paper is a complex study of the impact a gender-marked grammatical, lexical and phraseological units, functioning in the written рublicistic English language discourse (the 70s of the 20th - early 21st centuries), exerts on constructing gender identity of an individual as the subject of this discourse. The paper is based on the functional methodology integrating cognitive, pragmatic and semantic aspects in analysing language units functioning. The meaning of а language unit is viewed as a frame-structure integrated into cognitive structures of discourse, reflecting gender stereotypes. It is claimed that being part of a gender stereotype bound up with the social and political structures of the English culture, a gender-marked language unit functions in discourse as a gender-specific regulator of individuals' behaviour. On the basis of structural, semantic, pragmatic and cognitive analyses of the gender-marked language units there has been discovered a system of gender-specific behaviour patterns, constructed in the English publicistic discourse. This system reflects the dichotomy between business and intimate patterns of life: men's behaviour is regulated in accordance with their prototypical role of procurer and women's - in accordance with their prototypical roles of wife and mother.