Linguocultural aspect of professional self-presentation of a Russian female citizen in social networks

This article is devoted to identifying the linguocultural features of the professional self-presentation of Russian women in social networks. The relevance of the study is due to the increased functionality of these websites, which are becoming an alternative platform for career advancement and the sale of different goods and services. We conducted a survey of 55 respondents, which allowed us to establish how often they use social networks to search for specialists in a particular field and how important gender is for them when choosing a professional. Based on the results of the survey, we came to a conclusion that the gender of an employee in such areas as massage, medicine, tutoring, the beauty industry, and photography is especially important for the representatives of Russian linguoculture. It is important to note that the respondents most often search for these specialists using social networks. We assumed that this fact causes an increased interest in feminitives in the modern Russian language because it is important for communicators not only to know exactly the gender of a specialist, but also to be able to refer to it when sharing their experience in using certain goods or services. To confirm our assumption, we selected and analyzed professional accounts on the Vkontakte social network. We found out that women regularly use feminitives as a tool for professional self-presentation on their pages. The feminitives medsestra (nurse) and massagistka (masseuse), already fixed in the language, are the most frequently used words. Feminitives-neologisms are less often used in this function in social networks; however, they are gradually becoming more and more in demand within the Internet discourse.