CROSSCULTURAL COMMUNICATION: GENDER ASPECT OF ENGLISH

Abstract

Particular ways of lessening the effect of «political incorrectness» of the English language are analyzed in the article. Thus, the article is devoted to the tendency to eliminate sexisms in modern English. The role of English in today’s world is impossible to overestimate. It refers to Ukraine too since English has been declared the working language of the country. This implies the development of communicative competence which enables users to employ the language efficiently in academic and professional environments.Communicative competence is not only about linguistic competences, i.e. mastering the language as a system. Those who use the language should be sensitive to its varieties depending on the environment it is employed in, to social conventions
(rules of politeness, norms governing relations between generations, sexes, social groups, etc.). In this connection there arises the issue of bias-free language, the language which is politically correct: language speakers should be aware of the fact that the language they use may offend or humiliate others. Unfortunately, this aspect the language is often left beyond the attention of language users, language teachers and learners, translators and interpreters.