professions and adjectives

[soidisantfille.livejournal.com]

Do adjectives continue to be gendered if they are attached to a profession that is masculine noun, but can be used also for women, as in доктор, проФессор, врач, преподаватель, etc.? For example, is it possible to say "Она хорошая врач." or would it remain "Она хороший врач."?

On a somewhat related note, in the case of писатель, I know there is the feminine form писательница, but I seem to recall being told that most female writers would prefer to be called simply писатель, because писательница is considered derogatory. Is this true?

Comments

[halevi.livejournal.com]

In this case adjective remains masculine: "Она хороший врач".

Your mind about word "писательница" is true.

[soidisantfille.livejournal.com]

Does this go for преподавательница and учительница also?

[gera.livejournal.com]

In my opinion писательница is perfectly ok and not in the least derogatory.
Учительница is used almost exclusively for female teacher.
Преподавательница is somewhat clumsy. Not so much derogatory as bad stylistically.

[oryx_and_crake]

Преподавательница is somewhat clumsy - I don't agree. It all depends on context.

Преподавательница вошла в аудиторию - perfectly OK, and I even think that you cannot use преподаватель here.
Она - хорошая преподавательница - sounds clumsy, indeed, "она - хороший преподаватель" is much better.

Писательница, поэтесса may have a shade of contempt in them - but this really is a matter of taste. Some people feel that писатель, поэт (male or female) creates "real literature", and писательница, поэтесса just write some sloppy chick lit about birds and flowers and sunsets and how Emma loved Bill and he treated her badly but her true love conquered all and he then remorsed and they lived happily ever after.

[wolfie-18.livejournal.com]

Anna Akhmatova hated the word поэтесса. With good reason :)))

[gera.livejournal.com]

Still this is the word most commonly used for a female poet, including Akhmatova.

[halevi.livejournal.com]

"Преподавательница" --- yes, it does.

"Учительница" --- no, it does not. It is used for female teacher in school. Most often (but not exclusively) it is used for female teacher of the youngest pupils.

There are also "врачиха", "директриса", "председательша". But these words are not wellcome in literary speech.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Generally speaking, the situation with professions/masculine nouns is still quite shaky and, obviosly, undergoes a certain evolution right now. Writers and linguists may feel it, but there still is no definition for the current trends. I can only quote the famous Russian science fiction writers, Strugatsky Brothers:
"Замужняя технолог, еврейка-агитатор... Язык человеческий протестует против таких сочетаний [...]. Молодая пешеход добежал до переход... "

(very roughly: "a technologist that has a husband, a Jewish girl - the propagandist... the very human tongue rises against those combinations [...] A young pedestrian, she made it to the pedestrian xing..."" -- the funniest part of it doesn't exist in English, namely the discrepance between male nouns/female verbs and vice versa.)

[oryx_and_crake]

...he-technologist and she-technologist
...tomcat and pussycat?

There was a pregnant paleontologist in a book I recently translated, but it sounds much funnier in Russian. Беременный палеонтолог. The book said it was an oxymoron. Doubly so, in Russian.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Tom-technologist and pussy-technologist... Oh boy :)
A pregnant paleontologist. Gosh. In Russian, mightily reminds me of that old country rhyme (I know no better way to describe what частушка is) sung by Valery Zolotukhin:
Хулиган я, хулиган,
Хулиган я временный.
Не скажу, в какой деревне
Есть мужик беременный.

(I'm a hooligan, a hooligan,
A temporary hooligan:
Won't tell you in what willage
there is a pregnant man.)

[oryx_and_crake]

Частушка is a country comic song :-)


Disclaimer: contains explicit language and some adult themes
http://www.volod.ru/texts/chastushk.htm