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The Extinction of Masculine Generics

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Brian D. Earp at National University of Singapore
Brian D. Earp
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Abstract and Figures

In English, as in many other languages, male-­gendered pronouns are sometimes used to refer not only to men, but to individuals whose gender is sometimes even to females (as when the c of women). These so-­called he/man or masculine generics have come under fire in recent decades for being sexist, even archaic, and positively harmful to women and girls;; and advocates of gender-­neutral (or nonsexist) language have put forward serious efforts to discourage their use. Have they been successful, and to what extent? In this paper, I review some of the main arguments in favor of abolishing sexist male generics. I then present three studies tracking the use of he/man terminology in academic, popular, and personal discourse over the past several decades. I show that the use of these terms has fallen dramatically in recent years, while nonsexist alternatives have gradually taken their place. We may be paying witness to the early stages of the ultimate extinction of masculine generics.
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Journal for Communication and Culture!2, no. 1 (spring 2012): 4=19
© Institute for Communication and Culture
E=ISSN & ISSN=L: 2247=4404
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Part 1: The Case against He/Man Language³A Very Brief Review
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Method, Materials, and Procedure
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The Extinction of Masculine Generics
Journal for Communication and Culture 2, no. 1 (spring 2012) a!
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E>%!A#,#! +>2B! #!1#*J%A!A%7$('%!('!,>%!'?1:%*!23!+7>2$#*$-!#*,(7$%+!('!#!
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Table 1: Gendered Terms and JSTOR 1970 ² 2000
Discussion!
E>%+%! *%+?$,+! 0*2)(A%! 7$%#*! %10(*(7#$! %)(A%'7%! ,>#,! #,! $%#+,! 2'%! +%F(+,!
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2)%*! ,>%! 0#+,! ,>(*,-! -%#*+.! +0%7(3(7#$$-! B(,>('! ,>%! A21#('! 23! #7#A%1(7!
B*(,('5! C#7*2++! A(+7(0$('%+D;! W,! ,>%! +#1%! ,(1%.! ,>%! ?+%! 23! humankind ²! #!
5%'A%*@('7$?+()%! '%#*@+-'2'-1! ²! >#+! 5*2B'! ('! 020?$#*(,-! U?(,%!
A*#1#,(7#$$-.! 3*21! #! 1%*%! ]V! ('+,#'7%+! ('! S[^\@S[^S! C7210#*%A! ,2! V.SZ[!
('+,#'7%+!23!mankind!A?*('5! ,>%!+#1%!0%*(2AD.!,2!S.S[T!('!S[[[@T\\\;!=,!(+!
(102*,#',! ,2! '2,(7%.! >2B%)%*.! ,>#,! %)%'! #+! *%7%',$-! #+! ,>%! -%#*! T\\\.!
mankind #00%#*%A! ('! 12*%! ,2,#$! #*,(7$%+! C:-! Va;ThD! ,>#'! (,+! '2'+%F(+,!
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(+! 2'$-! 2'%! 23! #! '?1:%*! 23! 5%'A%*@('7$?+()%! +-'2'-1+! C2*! '%#*@
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The Extinction of Masculine Generics
Journal for Communication and Culture 2, no. 1 (spring 2012) S\!
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-%#*! S[^\;! E>%! (A%#.! #00#*%',$-! >(,>%*,2! 2'$-! $#,%',.! ,>#,! #! 0%*+2'! 23!
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#!02++(:($(,-!+>2?$A!:%!1#A%!$('5?(+,(7#$$-!%F0$(7(,³+%%1+!,2!>#)%!7#?5>,!
2'!U?(,%!+?AA%'$-i! !
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23! #7#A%1(7! B*(,('5! ,2! ,>#,! 23! #! 12*%! 020?$#*! 1%A(?1.! The New York
Times;!
Study #2: Gendered Terms and The New York Times 1970 ² 2000
The New York Times!(+!B(A%$-!*%725'(b%A! #+!,>%! '%B+0#0%*! 23! *%72*A!32*!
,>%! &'(,%A! 6,#,%+;! E>?+! (,! (+! #'! %F7%$$%',! 020?$#*! +2?*7%! ,2! ,*#7J! '2'@
#7#A%1(7! $#'5?#5%! ?+#5%;
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>,,09KKBBB;'-,(1%+;721K! 0*2)(A%+! #10$%! ²! #'A! %#+-@,2@#77%++! ²! A#,#.!
(A%#$! 32*! ,>%! 0?*02+%+! 23! ,>%! 0*%+%',! +,?A-;! ! ='! ,>(+! +,?A-.! =! ,*#7J%A! ,>%!
'?1:%*! 23! 277?**%'7%+! C:-! #*,(7$%! 72?',D! 23! #! +#10$%! 23! ,>*%%! 5%'A%*%A!
,%*1+!2)%*!,>%!0%*(2A!23!S[^\@T\\\;!
Method, Materials, and Procedure
R#,%*(#$+!?+%A!B%*%!,>%!2'$('%!#*7>()%+!23!New York Times!#*,(7$%+.!$27#,%A!
#,! >,,09KKBBB;'-,(1%+;721K! #+! B%$$! #+! ,>%! +(,%·+! ´#A)#'7%A! +%#*7>µ!
3?'7,(2';!O2*!%#7>!,%*1!('7$?A%A!('!,>%!+,?A-!Cmankind.!humankind.!#'A!he
or sheD.!=!72'A?7,%A!#'!#A)#'7%A!+%#*7>!:-!,-0('5!,>%!,%*1!('!U?2,%+!('!,>%!
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8F7%$!B2*J+>%%,!32*!$#,%*!#'#$-+(+;!!
Results!
E>%! A#,#! +>2B! #! +(5'(3(7#',! A%7$('%! ('! ,>%! '?1:%*! 23! New York Times!
#*,(7$%+!('!B>(7>!,>%!+%F(+,!,%*1!mankind!277?*+!2)%*!#!,>(*,-!-%#*!0%*(2A!
CS[^\@T\\\D9!3*21!Z]S!('+,#'7%+!('!S[^\@S[^S!,2!2'$-!SM[!('+,#'7%+!('!S[[[@
T\\\.! 2*! #! A%7*%#+%! 23! ]M;Mh;! ! _)%*! ,>(+! +#1%! 0%*(2A.! ('+,#'7%+! 23!
humankind!*2+%!3*21!2'$-!]!#*,(7$%+!('!S[^\@S[^S!,2!^]!#*,(7$%+!('!S[[[@T\\\.!
#'!('7*%#+%!23!S.T]]h;!O('#$$-.!#*,(7$%@('+,#'7%+!23!,>%!5%'A%*@('7$?+()%!he
or she!*2+%!('!,>(+!0%*(2A!3*21!ZV!,2!VZ].!#'!('7*%#+%!23!a\Zh;!E>%+%!*%+?$,+!
#*%!+>2B'!('!,#:?$#*!32*1!:%$2B!CE#:$%!TD;!!
Brian D. Earp
Journal for Communication and Culture 2, no. 1 (spring 2012) SS!
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Table 2: Gendered Terms and E>%!P%B!"2*J!E(1%+ 1970 ² 2000
Discussion!
E>%! 0?*02+%! 23!,>(+! +%72'A! +,?A-! B#+! ,2! %F,%'A! ,>%! *%+?$,+! 23! 6,?A-! jS!
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+,?A-! 0*2)(A%! 7$%#*! %10(*(7#$! %)(A%'7%! ,>#,! mankind >#+! :%%'! ('! +,%#A-!
A%7$('%!('!$#'5?#5%@?+%!2)%*!,>%!0#+,!,>(*,-!-%#*+³'2,!2'$-!('!#7#A%1(7.!
:?,! ('! '2'@#7#A%1(7! B*(,('5! #+! B%$$;! W,! ,>%! +#1%! ,(1%.! ,>%! ?+%! 23!
humankind!>#+!5*2B'!('!020?$#*(,-!3*21!#!1%*%!]!('+,#'7%+!('!S[^\!²!S[^S!
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The Extinction of Masculine Generics
Journal for Communication and Culture 2, no. 1 (spring 2012) ST!
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Study #3: Gendered Terms in "Personal" Writing, 1990 vs. 2008
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Journal for Communication and Culture 2, no. 1 (spring 2012) SV!
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Table 3: Choice of Writers Using a Consistent Singular Approach to the Generic
Pronoun, Adapted from Meyers (1990)
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The Extinction of Masculine Generics
Journal for Communication and Culture 2, no. 1 (spring 2012) SZ!
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Table 4: Comparison of Choice of Writers Using a Consistent Singular Approach to the
Generic Pronoun in Meyers (1990) and the Present Study
Discussion!
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Brian D. Earp
Journal for Communication and Culture 2, no. 1 (spring 2012) SM!
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... 1975)-their use for generic reference has significantly decreased over the last decades (e.g., Baranowski, 2002;Earp, 2012). ...
... The use of grammatically masculine words for generic reference has been severely criticized as gender exclusive and sexist (e.g., Earp, 2012;Hamilton, 1988;Pusch, 1984;Romein-Verschoor, 1975;Sontag, 1973). Research into the processing and the cognitive effects of these masculine word forms supports the notion that they are indeed not interpreted as gender inclusive but lead to a male bias instead. ...
... There are several studies of English masculine generic pronouns that can shed light on this matter. However, as mentioned above, the use of generically intended masculine pronouns has significantly decreased in English over the past decades (Earp, 2012;LaScotte, 2016) in favor of an increased use of so-called singular they/their (e.g., A minister should take their loss). The research focus in English has shifted accordingly. ...
Masculine generic pronouns as a gender cue in generic statements
Article
  • Dec 2022
An eye-tracking experiment was conducted with speakers of Dutch (N = 84, 36 male), a language that falls between grammatical and natural-gender languages. We tested whether a masculine generic pronoun causes a male bias when used in generic statements—that is, in the absence of a specific referent. We tested two types of generic statements by varying conceptual number, hypothesizing that the pronoun zijn “his” was more likely to cause a male bias with a conceptually singular than a conceptually plural antecedent (e.g., Someone (conceptually singular)/Everyone (conceptually plural) with perfect pitch can tune his instrument quickly). We found male participants to exhibit a male bias but with the conceptually singular antecedent only. Female participants showed no signs of a male bias. The results show that the generically intended masculine pronoun zijn “his” leads to a male bias in conceptually singular generic contexts but that this further depends on participant gender.
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... 1975)-their use for generic reference has significantly decreased over the last decades (e.g., Baranowski, 2002;Earp, 2012). ...
... The use of grammatically masculine words for generic reference has been severely criticized as gender exclusive and sexist (e.g., Earp, 2012;Hamilton, 1988;Pusch, 1984;Romein-Verschoor, 1975;Sontag, 1973). Research into the processing and the cognitive effects of these masculine word forms supports the notion that they are indeed not interpreted as gender inclusive but lead to a male bias instead. ...
... There are several studies of English masculine generic pronouns that can shed light on this matter. However, as mentioned above, the use of generically intended masculine pronouns has significantly decreased in English over the past decades (Earp, 2012;LaScotte, 2016) in favor of an increased use of so-called singular they/their (e.g., A minister should take their loss). The research focus in English has shifted accordingly. ...
Masculine generic pronouns as a gender cue in generic statements
Preprint
  • Nov 2022
An eye-tracking experiment was conducted with speakers of Dutch (N=84, 36 male), a language that falls in between grammatical and natural gender languages. We tested whether a masculine generic pronoun causes a male bias when used in generic statements, that is, in the absence of a specific referent. We tested two different types of generic statements by varying conceptual number, hypothesizing that the pronoun "zijn" ‘his’ was more likely to cause a male bias with a conceptually singular than a conceptually plural antecedent (e.g., "Someone (CONCEPTUALLY SINGULAR)/Everyone (CONCEPTUALLY PLURAL) with perfect pitch can tune his instrument quickly"). We found male participants to exhibit a male bias, but with the conceptually singular antecedent only. Female participants showed no signs of a male bias. The results show that the generically-intended masculine pronoun "zijn" ‘his’ leads to a male bias in conceptually singular generic contexts, but that this further depends on participant gender.
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... Remarkably, Lakoff (1973), who was one of the early critics of a gender bias in the English language, stated that trying to change the pronoun usage of English speakers and replacing generic he would be futile. Time has proven that her prediction was wrong; the frequency in use of generic he has since decreased, while usage of the gender-neutral alternative singular they has increased (Baranowski 2002;Earp 2012;LaScotte 2016). More recent studies on generic pronouns have thus focused on singular they, but by comparing singular they to its predecessor of sort he, some conclusions regarding the processing of masculine generic pronouns can still be drawn. ...
... However, the pioneering studies on English masculine generic pronouns seldomly used online tasks. Newer studies do not fill this gap either, since the research focus now is on singular they, as its use has vastly increased while generic he has lost in popularity (Baranowski 2002;Earp 2012;LaScotte 2016). One exception are the two experiments by Noll et al. (2018), which suggest that the use of generic he leads to a male bias nowadays; in an experiment conducted 15 years earlier, however, they found no evidence of a male bias. ...
The male bias of a generically-intended personal pronoun in language processing
Preprint
  • Aug 2020
A self-paced reading experiment tested if a generically-used masculine personal pronoun leads to a male bias in online processing. We presented Dutch native speakers (N=95, 47 male) with generic statements featuring the masculine pronoun hij ‘he’ (e.g., Someone who always promises that he will really be on time, such as Ms/Mr Knoop, will sometimes be late anyway). We further presented participants with control items expressing the same meaning, but without the pronoun. Reading times were significantly higher when a female individual was given as an example (i.e., Ms Knoop in the example above) following the masculine generic pronoun hij ‘he’, but not in the control condition. This effect did not interact with participant gender. This shows that the generically-intended masculine personal pronoun leads to a male bias in online processing for male as well as female participants. Masculine personal pronouns are still commonly used for generic reference in many languages such as Dutch, but the results of this experiment refute the notion that a pronoun such as hij ‘he’ can be readily processed as gender-neutral.
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... Relevant studies revealed a variety of results with regard to pronoun usage and preference. In the study of Earp (2012) wherein 64 participants were asked to write about "The Moral Individual", the results revealed that "he" and "he or she" were among the most used pronouns. On the other hand, LaScotte (2016) noted that in his study, the singular "they" is the most commonly used pronoun. ...
Can I Call You “They”? Pronoun Preference and Linguistic Ideology of Gay Language Teachers
Article
Full-text available
  • Oct 2022
This study focused on examining the pronoun preferences of gay language teachers. The generic pronoun “he”, the nonbinary pronouns “he or she” and “they”, and the neopronouns “ey”, “ne”, “xe”, and “ze” were included. The participants ranked them from their least preferred pronoun to their most preferred pronoun. This set of data was analyzed through the use of frequency count. The results showed that most of the participants preferred the pronoun “he or she”. In addition, their linguistic ideologies were also drawn out based from their attitude expressed toward pronouns. They were analyzed using the mean scale and frequency count was utilized for the descriptive statistics. The results revealed that most of the respondents are leaning towards having LGBTQ affirmative ideology. However, the data also showed that there are respondents who are leaning towards having two linguistic ideologies instead of only one.
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... Finally, people estimated the number of male jobholders to be higher when occupations are described with masculine than feminine forms . These results call into question the use of masculine forms to refer to people in general, because its use has the potential to (unintentionally) minimize women's importance and actual visibility (Earp, 2012). ...
Unconscious Bias in Job Titles: Implicit Associations Between Four Different Linguistic Forms with Women and Men
Article
Full-text available
The use of masculine forms in job titles (e.g., fireman, salesman) can deter women from applying or being selected for certain positions. The current research investigated the degree to which masculine linguistic forms are effective as generics. An experiment (N = 273) assessed to what extent four linguistic forms of job titles in German—masculine, abbreviated form with slashes, gender neutral, or masculine with brackets (m/f/d)—are implicitly associated with women and men using an Implicit Association Test. Masculine job titles were more strongly associated with men relative to women. In contrast, job titles using the slash form and gender-neutral form eliminated this male bias in implicit associations. The masculine form with brackets (m/f/d) produced similar effects to the conventional masculine form, and as such, was also ineffective in reducing a male bias. The present work contributes to the growing literature on the role of gender-inclusive language in recruitment and selection.
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... The more recent research trend of testing generically-intended masculine role nouns with online methods tapping into earlier stages of processing, such as eye-tracking and EEG, has not been extended to the previously heavily researched English pronouns. This can partly be explained by the fact that the use of generically-intended masculine pronouns in English has declined over the years due to intentional changes, and so has research into this phenomenon [13,14]. However, in other languages, such as Dutch, generically-intended masculine pronouns are still very commonly used and little is known about how they are processed. ...
The male bias of a generically-intended masculine pronoun: Evidence from eye-tracking and sentence evaluation
Article
Full-text available
Two experiments tested whether the Dutch possessive pronoun zijn ‘his’ gives rise to a gender inference and thus causes a male bias when used generically in sentences such as Everyone was putting on his shoes. Experiment 1 (N = 120, 48 male) was a conceptual replication of a previous eye-tracking study that had not found evidence of a male bias. The results of the current eye-tracking experiment showed the generically-intended masculine pronoun to trigger a gender inference and cause a male bias, but for male participants and in stereotypically neutral stereotype contexts only. No evidence for a male bias was thus found in stereotypically female and male context nor for female participants altogether. Experiment 2 (N = 80, 40 male) used the same stimuli as Experiment 1, but employed the sentence evaluation paradigm. No evidence of a male bias was found in Experiment 2. Taken together, the results suggest that the generically-intended masculine pronoun zijn ‘his’ can cause a male bias for male participants even when the referents are previously introduced by inclusive and grammatically gender-unmarked iedereen ‘everyone’. This male bias surfaces with eye-tracking, which taps directly into early language processing, but not in offline sentence evaluations. Furthermore, the results suggest that the intended generic reading of the masculine possessive pronoun zijn ‘his’ is more readily available for women than for men.
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... English) have so far managed to adopt more neutral language (e.g. replacing the generic 'he' with 'he/she' , 's/he' , singular 'they' and, in some cases, generic 'she' ;Earp 2012;Mills 2008), other languages are still governed by grammatical masculine terms that are used in their singular form to refer to women, and in their plural forms to refer to undefined gender referents and mixed-gender groups (as well as groups of women only). In this article, we investigate a specific linguistic phenomenon, that of uno (one.m.sg) (and una, one.f.sg) ...
Uno: A corpus linguistic investigation of intersubjectivity and gender
Article
  • May 2020
JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE AND DISCRIMINATION Generic masculines – masculine forms used for women – are employed in many languages, for example English (Mills 2008), French (Coady 2018), Spanish (Bengoechea 2011) and German (Motschenbacher 2016), providing accounts of how gender is made visible in the language through morphological, lexical and syntactic units. These accounts are also linked with how gender is seen in societies and culture, reproducing an imbalance between women and men. Specifically, language discrimination against women is based on the idea that speakers orient themselves towards androcentric language, recognising ‘men’ as a metonym for the group ‘human being’ (Alvanoudi 2014), causing a linguistic invisibility of women. Similarly, studies in Italian have also discussed the use of masculine forms to refer to, talk about and describe women (Cavagnoli 2013), or have shown how these are used in specialised (Nardone 2016, 2018) or media corpora (Formato 2014, 2016, 2019). This article investigates the use of a specific (and underexamined) generic masculine in Italian – namely, the indefinite pronoun uno.m.sg (in comparison with una.f.sg) labelled ‘impersonal masculine’ (Formato 2019:69) – in three subcorpora of the Perugia Corpus (TV, Web and Spoken; Spina 2014). Uno.m.sg is seen as constructing ‘extended intersubjectivity’, that is, the awareness of a general third party (3rdP) acting as the social bearer of the utterance (Tantucci 2013, 2016, 2017a). The results show that the masculine impersonal uno.m.sg is widely used in the three subcorpora and in several functions, confirming that grammatically gendered language is still employed within a ‘masculine as a norm’ order.
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On Sharing Pronouns
Article
Full-text available
  • Jun 2021
In this essay I explore the emerging practice of “sharing one’s pronouns,” for example, in one’s email signature or professional website. I explain the reasoning behind this practice, and ask, in particular, whether it is all-things-considered desirable that it should become a widespread social norm. I provide arguments in favour of, as well as against, this proposition. Along the way I touch on some ongoing debates within the philosophy of sex and gender.
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Comprehension of gender-neutral forms and the pseudo-generic masculine in German: a visual world eye-tracking study
Thesis
  • Jun 2020
Geschlechtergerechte und -inklusive Sprache hat sich während der vergangenen Jahre zu einem umstritteten Thema entwickelt und wird interdisziplinär von der theoretischen bis zur Psycho-Linguistik, Soziologie sowie Wirtschaft diskutiert – und von allen, die Sprache nutzen. Untersuchungen zum Deutschen, die hauptsächlich auf Fragebögen beruhen (im Überblick von Braun et al. 2005), Lückentexte verwenden (Klein 1988) und Kategorisierungen mit Bildzuordnung abfragen (Irmen & Köhncke 1996) disqualifizieren generisch verwendete maskuline Formen als pseudo-generisch: sie verfehlen ihre grammatisch vorgeschriebene Funktion, Referent*innen jeden Geschlechtes einzubeziehen. Ausgewogenere, Geschlechter gleichermaßen benennede Ausdrücke (Paarformen wie Lehrer und Lehrerinnen) stellen explizite Referenz her zu weiblicher Präsenz und Teilhabe, wodurch sie folglich eine gleichberechtigtere Interpretation begünstigen. Echtzeit(“online”)-Methoden, um die Verarbeitung geschlechtersensibler Sprache zu untersuchen, sind innerhalb der Forschung zum Phänomenon überraschend selten vertreten, abgesehen von den Reaktionszeitmessungen (Irmen & Köhncke 1996, Irmen & Kaczmarek 2000) und Blickbewegungsstudien beim Lesen (Irmen & Schumann 2011). Zusätzlich wurde geschlechterneutrale Sprache (GNS) in der Mehrheit der Experimente nicht fokussiert, und wenn GNS Teil der Stimulusmaterialien war, fielen die Ergebnisse uneindeutig aus (De Backer & De Cuypere 2012), oder sie befanden solche Alternativen als uneffektiv (ähnlich der maskulinen Generika, s. Braun et al. 2005), obwohl Richtlinien zu nicht-diskriminierender Sprache diese gemeinhin/ empfehlen. Geschlechterneutrale (GN) Ausdrücke für persönliche Referenz im Deutschen umfassen • nominalisierte Partizipien; Substantivierungen im Allgemeinen: Interessierte, Lehrende • Kollektiva im Singular: Publikum, Kollegium • Zusammensetzungen (u. a. mit einer Begrifflichkeit von "-person"): Ansprechpersonen, Lehrkräfte • Paraphrasierungen, die ein (genderisiertes) Subjekt umschreiben und somit in den Hintergrund rücken: z. B. Passiv- und Relativkonstruktionen In einer Blickbewegungsstudie im "visual world"-Design wurde das Verständnis von Generika unter der Verwendung maskuliner Nomen und GN-Formen für Rollen- und Berufsbezeichnungen im Plural getestet. In komplexen Stimulusszenarien sollte Referenz zu den auf einem Bildschirm präsentierten Referent*innen hergestellt werden. Am Ende einer jeden Stimuluseinheit wurde eine Frage gestellt, sodass das Bild, das mit den Referent*innen am ehesten übereinstimmt, (erneut) identifiziert werden musste. Die Grafiken bildeten 1) eine einzelne Person (Protagonist*in des Settings) ab, 2) eine ausschließlich weibliche Personengruppe, 3) eine ausschießlich männliche Gruppe, 4) eine gemischtgeschlechtliche Gruppe bestehend aus weiblichen und männlichen Mitgliedern. Diese Gruppenreferent*innen wurden auditiv vorgestellt mit entweder a) Maskulina (die Lehrer), b) spezifisch weiblichen Nomina, also Feminina (die Lehrerinnen), oder c) einer der oben genannten drei nominalen GN-Varianten (die Lehrkräfte). Die Ergebnisse bestätigen den häufigen männlichen Bias, eine Schlagseite grammatisch maskuliner Formen, die generisch verwendet werden, hin zu männlichen Referenten, das heißt, deren spezifisch männliche Interpretation. Weiterhin hatte der Grad an Stereotypizität von Nomen – wie stereotyp Rollen und Berufe be-/ gewertet werden – einen Einfluss auf die Antworten. Die GN-Alternativen, welche generell dafür bekannt sind bzw. wurden indefinite Referenz zu erzielen (ergo "markiert” sind für geschlechterfaire Sprache), stellten sich als am qualifiziertesten heraus, gemischtgeschlechtliche Interpretationen hervorzurufen. War eine persönliche Referenz zuvor mit GN-Termini etabliert worden, wurde eine inklusive(re) Antwort durchgängig bewirkt. Darauf deuten sowohl Blickbewegungen als auch Antwortproportionen hin, doch unterschiedlichen Ausmaßes in Abhängigkeit vom GN Nominaltyp. Konzepte, die in ihrer linguistischen Form von Geschlecht abstrahieren (es "neutralisieren") treten als inklusiver in Erscheinung, und sind somit bessere Kandidatinnen für eine generische Referenz als jener im Maskulinum.
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Generic ‘you’ and gender in Hebrew journalistic interviews
Article
  • Nov 2020
  • J PRAGMATICS
Generic singular ‘you’ in Modern Hebrew may be masculine (M-you) or feminine (F-you). Only the former, representing the crosslinguistically unmarked masculine gender, has been recognized as generic. F-you has been evaluated as triggering negative emotions, on the part of men and women alike, for displaying aggressive feminism. This is the first attempt to analyze, both quantitatively and qualitatively, the distribution of M-you and F-you in a sample of journalistic personality interviews in four dyads: MM (male interviewee/male interviewer), MF (male interviewee/female interviewer), FM and FF. We see M-you forms decreasing from 100% in MM to just 8% in the FF dyad, and F-you can well be a true generic. Women’s use is more varied than men’s, and seems to reflect performative choices in doing gender. Reasons for choosing the dispreferred forms in each dyad include topic and shifted viewpoint. Finally, the rhetorical and performative values of generic ‘you’ are highlighted by its prevalence in the journalistic margin blurbs.
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