Cover not available
Article published In:
Nonbinary pronouns as a site of advocacy in research and teaching
Edited by Lex Konnelly, Bronwyn M. Bjorkman and Lee Airton
[Journal of Language and Sexuality 11:2] 2022
► pp. 190–216

A thematic analysis of attitudes towards English nonbinary pronouns

| University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

The article provides a comprehensive overview of attitudes towards nonbinary pronouns, with the aim of better understanding why these pronouns are either accepted or rejected. Attitudes towards nonbinary they and the neopronouns ze and xe are explored with a thematic analysis of data derived from a larger online survey on pronouns (n = 1128). While the results demonstrate various polarized stances for both types of pronouns, the participants’ reactions highlight greater acceptance of and support for nonbinary they. In addition, the paper proposes that broader ideologies about gender are behind the participants’ overt reactions to nonbinary pronouns. Most notably, while some participants rejected the pronouns on the basis of a binary gender ideology, others viewed gender as a matter of self-identification, accepting any pronoun an individual chooses for themselves.

Keywords: nonbinary, pronouns, attitudes, ideologies, thematic analysis
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Language attitudes, ideologies and nonbinary pronouns
  • 3.Study design and methods
  • 4.Attitudes towards nonbinary pronouns
    • 4.1Results of the thematic analysis
      • 4.1.1Appeal to authority
      • 4.1.2Appeal to social norms
      • 4.1.3Appeal to sense & logic
    • 4.2Which stances are linked to acceptability?
    • 4.3Observations on gender and native language of participants
  • 5.Pronouns and (non)sexist language
  • 6.Discussion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 4 August 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jls.21025.hek
References
Ackerman, Lauren
2019 Syntactic and cognitive issues investigating gendered coreference. Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics 4(1): 1–27. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
American Dialect Society
2020 2019 Word of the year is “(my) pronouns,” Word of the decade is singular “they”. [URL] (May 31 2021)
American Psychological Association
2019 Singular “they”. APA style. [URL] (May 31 2021)
Anthony, Laurence
2018 AntConc. Version 3.5.7. Waseda University.Google Scholar
Baron, Dennis
1981 The epicene pronoun: The word that failed. American Speech 56(2): 83–97. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bjorkman, Bronwyn
2017 Singular they and the syntactic representation of gender in English. Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics 2(1): 1–13. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Blaubergs, Maija
1980 An analysis of classic arguments against changing sexist language. Women’s Studies International Quarterly 3(2): 135–147. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bradley, Evan
2020 The influence of linguistic and social attitudes on grammaticality judgments of singular ‘they’. Language Sciences 781: 1–11. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Braun, Virginia & Clarke, Victoria
2006 Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology 3(2): 77–101. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2016 (Mis)conceptualising themes, thematic analysis, and other problems with Fugard and Potts’ (2015) sample-size tool for thematic analysis. International Journal of Social Research Methodology 19(6): 739–743. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chak, Avinash
2015 Beyond ‘he’ and ‘she’: The rise of non-binary pronouns. BBC News Online. [URL] (January 14 2020)
Conrod, Kirby
2019 Pronouns Raising and Emerging. (Unpublished) PhD dissertation, University of Washington.
Corwin, Anna
2017 Emerging genders: Semiotic agency and the performance of gender among genderqueer individuals. Gender and Language 11(2): 255–277. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Curzan, Anne
2014 Fixing English: Prescriptivism and Language History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Darwin, Helena
2017 Doing gender beyond the binary: A virtual ethnography. Symbolic Interaction 40(3): 317–334. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Duggan, Maeve & Smith, Aaron
2013 6% of Online Adults are Reddit Users. [URL] (January 14 2020)
Garrett, Peter
2010 Attitudes to Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Guest, Greg, MacQueen, Kathleen & Namey, Emily
2014 Applied Thematic Analysis. Thousand Oaks: Sage.Google Scholar
Gustafsson Sendén, Marie, Bäck, Emma & Lindqvist, Anna
2015 Introducing a gender-neutral pronoun in a natural gender language: The influence of time on attitudes and behavior. Frontiers in Psychology 61: 1–12. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hekanaho, Laura
2020 Generic and Nonbinary Pronouns: Usage, Acceptability and Attitudes. (Unpublished) PhD dissertation, University of Helsinki. [URL] (May 31 2021)
Hernandez, Ellis
2020 Pronouns, Prescriptivism, and Prejudice: Attitudes Toward the Singular ‘They’, Prescriptive Grammar, and Nonbinary Transgender People. (Unpublished) MA thesis, Purdue University.
Konnelly, Lex & Cowper, Elizabeth
2020 Gender diversity and morphosyntax: An account of singular they . Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics 5(1): 1–19. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lund Eide, Mari
2018 Shaping the Discourse of Gender-Neutral Pronouns in English: A Study of Attitudes and use in Australia. (Unpublished) MA thesis, University of Bergen.
Marquis, Marriott
2015 Word of the year is singular “they”. [URL] (January 14 2020)
Martyna, Wendy
1978 What does ‘he’ mean? Use of the generic masculine. Journal of Communication 28(1): 131–138. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Matsuno, Emmie & Budge, Stephanie
2017 Non-binary/genderqueer identities: A critical review of the literature. Current Sexual Health Reports 91: 116–120. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mauri, Michele, Tommaso, Elli, Caviglia, Giorgio, Uboldi, Giorgio & Azzi, Matteo
2017 RAWGraphs: A Visualisation Platform to Create Open Outputs. New York: Association for Computing Machinery.Google Scholar
Merriam-Webster
2019 A note on the nonbinary ‘they’. [URL] (January 14 2020)
Milroy, James
2001 Language ideologies and the consequences of standardization. Journal of Sociolinguistics 5(4): 530–555. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Milroy, Lesley
2004 Language ideologies and linguistic change. In Sociolinguistic Variation: Critical Reflections, Carmen Fought (ed), 308–342. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Parker, Linden
2017 An Exploration of Use of and Attitudes Towards Gender-Neutral Pronouns among the Non-Binary, Transgender and LGBT+ Communities in the United Kingdom. (Unpublished) MA thesis, University of Essex.
Parks, Janet & Roberton, Mary Ann
1998 Contemporary arguments against nonsexist language: Blaubergs (1980) Revisited. Sex Roles 39(5): 445–461. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pauwels, Anne
2010 Socially motivated language reform in a global lingua franca: The case of gender reform in English. In Language in its Socio-Cultural Context, Markus Bieswanger, Heiko Motschenbacher & Susanne Mühleisen (eds), 21–33. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Preston, Dennis
2011 The power of language regard – Discrimination, classification, comprehension, and production. Dialectologia 7(2): 9–33.Google Scholar
Rosa, Jonathan & Burdick, Christa
2016 Language ideologies. In The Oxford Handbook of Language and Society, Ofelia Garcia, Nelson Flores & Massimiliano Spotti (eds), 103–123. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sallabank, Julia
2013 Attitudes to Endangered Languages: Identities and Policies. New York: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Scelfo, Julie
2015 A university recognizes a third gender: Neutral. New York Times. [URL] (January 14 2020)
Seargeant, Philip
2007 Language ideology, language theory, and the regulation of linguistic behaviour. Language Sciences 311: 345–359. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Silverstein, Michael
1979 Language structure and linguistic ideology. In The Elements: A Parasession on Linguistic Units and Levels, Paul Clyne, William F. Hanks & Carol L. Hofbauer (eds), 193–247. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society.Google Scholar
Song, Hyunjin & Schwarz, Norbert
2009 If it’s difficult to pronounce, it must be risky: Fluency, familiarity, and risk perception. Psychological Science 20(2): 135–138. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
van Dijk, Teun A.
2006 Ideology and discourse analysis. Journal of Political Ideologies 11(2): 115–140. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Vergoossen, Hellen, Renström, Emma, Lindqvist, Anna & Gustafsson Sendén, Marie
2020 Four dimensions of criticism against gender-fair language. Sex Roles 83(4–5): 328–337. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wales, Katie
1996 Personal Pronouns in Present-Day English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Walsh, Olivia
2016 Linguistic Purism: Language Attitudes in France and Quebec. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zimman, Lal
2017 Transgender language reform: Some challenges and strategies for promoting trans-affirming, gender-inclusive language. Journal of Language and Discrimination 1(1): 84–105. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2019 Trans self-identification and the language of neoliberal selfhood: Agency, power, and the limits of monologic discourse. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 2561: 147–175. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 3 other publications

Goldenberg, Julieta & Rogers Brubaker
2024. Emerging Pronoun Practices After the Procedural Turn: Disclosure, Discovery, and Repair. Sociological Science 11 ► pp. 91 ff. DOI logo
Jones, Lucy
2023. Language, gender and sexuality in 2022. Gender and Language 17:2 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
YILDIRIMÇAKAR, Ziyattin
2023. Lêgerîna Kurmanciyeke Standard: Lêkolîneke Kalîtatîv bi Mamosteyên Zanîngehê yên Beşên Kurdî re. Kurdiname :9 ► pp. 15 ff. DOI logo

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.