Male Features in the Political Discourse of Female Politicians

Abstract

The article is devoted to the description of masculine manner of speech in the discourse of female politicians. Being mainly a field of male activity, politics has become the area of strict rules, perseverance, pertinacity and leadership. The main point in politics is struggle and tough competition of interests. In these conditions strict power qualities exacerbate, humanism disappears in actions and behaviour. This exact style is typical of men, and not women, hence if a woman goes into politics, she has to play according to male rules achieving tough and uncompromising manners of speech. Therefore, entering this complex sphere, women need to obtain analytical, logical, direct and unemotional way of thinking both for their activity and speech. These are necessary qualities for being a successful politician and a person, who will obtain fame, respect and love of citizens. The materials chosen for the analysis are the speeches of two famous women politicians of different periods: Margaret Thatcher and Condoleezza Rice. The main method of linguistic analysis is comparison, i.e. we choose certain parts from speeches of both politicians and try to find male characteristic features.