Variation in English gendered pronouns
Analysis and recommendations for ethics in linguistics
This paper describes an ongoing shift in the pronominal system of English that is primarily related to transgender
and non-binary identities. Apparent time evidence suggests that this is an ongoing change, and metalinguistic comments support the
indexical link between the change and the increased visibility of transgender and non-binary English speakers. Sociopragmatic
variation enabled by this change shows that the pronoun system of English functions much less like a grammatical gender (noun
class) system, and much more like a system of honorifics. The second half of the paper puts forward a position for social justice
around pronoun use and gender autonomy, including advice for professional linguists who work in related fields.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 1.Variation and change in the pronoun system
- 1.1Production of singular they in sociolinguistic interviews
- 1.2Online acceptability judgment study
- 1.3Pragmatics of pronominal choice
- 2.What should we do about it?
- 2.1How to start noticing
- 2.2How to talk about it
- 2.3How to teach it
- 3.Conclusion
- Notes
-
References
References
Ackerman, Lauren
2019 Syntactic
and cognitive issues in investigating gendered coreference.
Glossa: A Journal of General
Linguistics 4(1): 1–27.
Bjorkman, Bronwyn M.
2017 Singular they
and the syntactic representation of gender in English.
Glossa: A Journal of General
Linguistics
2
(1): 1–13.
Boyer, C. Reyn & Galupo, M. Paz
2018 Transgender friendship
profiles: Patterns across gender identity and LGBT affiliation.
Gender
Issues 35(3): 236–253.
Butler, Judith
1990 Gender
Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of
Identity. London: Routledge.
Butler, Judith
1993 Bodies
That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of
‘Sex’. London: Routledge.
Conrod, Kirby
2017 Names
Before Pronouns: Variation in Pronominal Reference and Gender (Paper presented
at Northwest Linguistics Conference, University of British
Columbia; May 6, 2017).
Conrod, Kirby
2018 Pronouns
and Misgendering (Paper presented at New Ways of Analyzing
Variation, New York University; October 18–22, 2018).
Conrod, Kirby
2019 Pronouns
Raising and Emerging. Doctoral dissertation, University of Washington.
Curzan, Anne
2003 Gender
Shifts in the History of English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Eckert, Penelope
1996 Vowels
and nail polish: The emergence of linguistic style in the preadolescent heterosexual
marketplace. In
Gender and Belief
Systems,
Natasha Warner,
Jocelyn Ahlers,
Leela Bilmes,
Monica Oliver,
Suzanne Wertheim &
Melinda Chen (eds), 183–190. Berkeley: Berkeley Women and Language Group.
Eckert, Penelope
2014 The
problem with binaries: Coding for gender and sexuality.
Language and Linguistics
Compass 8(11): 529–535.
Foertsch, Julie & Gernsbacher, Morton Ann
1997 In search of gender
neutrality: Is singular they a cognitively efficient substitute for generic he? Psychological
Science 8(2): 106–111.
Herman, Jody L., Flores, Andrew R., Brown, Taylor N. T., Wilson, Bianca D. M. & Conron, Kerith J.
2017 How Many Adults Identify as
Transgender in the United States? Los Angeles, CA: The Williams Institute.
Hutton, Christopher
2017 Legal
sex, self-classification and gender self-determination.
Law and
Humanities 11(1): 64–81.
James, Sandy E., Herman, Jody L., Rankin, Susan, Kiesling, Mara, Mottet, Lisa & Anafi, Ma’ayan
2016 The
Report of the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey. Washington, DC: National Center for Transgender Equality.
Konnelly, Lex & Cowper, Elizabeth
2020 Gender
diversity and morphosyntax: An account of singular they
.
Glossa: A Journal of
General
Linguistics 5(1): 1–19.
McConnell-Ginet, Sally
2013 Gender
and its relation to sex: The myth of ‘natural’ gender. In
The
Expression of Gender,
Greville Corbett (ed), 3–38. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.
Muysken, Pieter
2008 Functional
Categories. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Pullum, Geoff
2003 Postcard
from Vegas, 2: Syntactic data collection on the strip.
Language
Log (blog).
[URL] (
January 31 2022)
Pullum, Geoff
2017 A
letter saying they won.
Language Log (blog).
[URL] (
January 31 2022)
Sanford, Anthony J. & Filik, Rurth
2007 “They”
as a gender-unspecified singular pronoun: Eye tracking reveals a processing cost.
Quarterly
Journal of Experimental
Psychology 60(2): 171–178.
Sprouse, Jon, Schütze, Carson & Almeida, Diogo
2013 Assessing
the reliability of journal data in syntax: Linguistic inquiry
2001–2010.
Lingua 1341: 219–248.
Weinreich, Uriel, Labov, William & Herzog, Marvin
1968 Empirical
Foundations for a Theory of Language
Change. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Cited by
Cited by 2 other publications
Jones, Lucy
2023.
Language, gender and sexuality in 2022.
Gender and Language 17:2
► pp. 1 ff.
Knisely, Kris Aric
2023.
Gender‐justice beyond inclusion: How trans knowledges and linguistic practices can and should be re‐shaping language education.
The Modern Language Journal 107:2
► pp. 607 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 20 march 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.