How Much Gender Is Too Much Gender?

Dembroff, Robin; Wodak, Daniel

doi:10.4324/9781003164869-27

Cited by 8 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…Drawing on 15 years of fieldwork, Nordmarken (2019) reports instances of speakers avoiding making gender attributions by using they/them pronouns for everyone. Nordmarken (2019, 54) finds, however, that this practice is “not pervasive.” These findings mirror the empirical and theoretical literature on gender-inclusive language, in which there has been little consideration given to the idea of eliminating gender-specific pronouns and using universal gender-neutral pronouns for everyone (but see Dembroff and Wodak 2021; Wayne 2005). 1…”

Section: Gender-inclusive Language Reformssupporting

confidence: 70%

A Little Word That Means A Lot: A Reassessment of Singular They in a New Era of Gender Politics

Saguy

Williams

2021

Gender & Society

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Singular they has emerged as a key term in contemporary gender politics, reflecting growing usage of they/them as nonbinary personal pronouns. Drawing on interviews with 54 progressive gender activists, we consider how singular they can be used to resist and redo aspects of the prevailing gender structure. We identify three distinct usages of singular they: (1) as a nonbinary personal pronoun, (2) as a universal gender-neutral pronoun, and (3) as an indefinite pronoun when a person’s self-identified gender is unknown. While previous research on singular they as a gender-inclusive language practice has focused primarily on its usage as a nonbinary personal pronoun, our findings point to the relevance for gender politics of all three usages. Our analysis offers new insight into how nonbinary they challenges dominant gender norms and practices beyond incorporating additional gender categories. Given our findings, we propose further investigation of how using gender-neutral pronouns for everyone in specific contexts can advance progressive activists’ goals. Finally, we argue that the longstanding usage of singular they as an indefinite pronoun has new importance today in affirming gender as a self-determined identity.

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Section: Gender-inclusive Language Reformssupporting

confidence: 70%

A Little Word That Means A Lot: A Reassessment of Singular They in a New Era of Gender Politics

Saguy

Williams

2021

Gender & Society

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“…To name a few proposed drawbacks, binary gender pronouns reinforce the idea that gender is binary, exclude gender nonbinary individuals, and may promote a gender hierarchy that disadvantages women by making gender “omnirelevant” (Bigler & Leaper, 2015). In these debates, some have pointed out that other languages function without binary gender pronouns and have advocated for eliminating gender pronouns entirely in English (Dembroff & Wodak, 2018, 2021). The present work informs these debates by investigating lay beliefs about pronouns in English and Turkish.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Which pronouns should languages have? In English, some arguments call for eliminating gender pronouns and using identity-neutral pronouns for everyone (e.g., Dembroff & Wodak, 2018, 2021; A. C. Saguy & Williams, 2019).…”

Section: Language and Social Identitymentioning

confidence: 99%

People’s beliefs about pronouns reflect both the language they speak and their ideologies.

Bailey,

Dembroff,

Wodak

et al. 2024

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

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Pronouns often convey information about a person's social identity (e.g., gender). Consequently, pronouns have become a focal point in academic and public debates about whether pronouns should be changed to be more inclusive, such as for people whose identities do not fit current pronoun conventions (e.g., gender non-binary individuals). Here, we make an empirical contribution to these debates by investigating which social identities lay speakers think that pronouns should encode and why. Across four studies, participants were asked to evaluate different types of real and hypothetical pronouns, including binary gender pronouns, race pronouns, and identity-neutral pronouns. We sampled participants from two languages with different pronoun systems: English (N = 1,120) and Turkish (N = 260). English pronouns commonly denote binary gender (e.g., he for men), whereas Turkish pronouns are identityneutral (e.g., o for anyone). Participants' reasoning about pronouns reflected both a familiarity preference (i.e., participants preferred the pronoun type used in their language) and-criticallyparticipants' social ideologies. In both language contexts, participants' ideological beliefs that social groups are inherently distinct (essentialism) and should be hierarchal (social dominance orientation) predicted relatively greater endorsement of binary gender pronouns and race pronouns. A preregistered experimental study with an English-speaking sample showed that the relationship between ideology and pronoun endorsement is causal: Ideologies shape attitudes toward pronouns. Together, the present research contributes to linguistic and psychological theories concerning how people reason about language and informs policy-relevant questions about whether and how to implement language changes for social purposes.

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“…This view is further developed by Dembroff and Wodak (2021), arguing that it is not only gendered pronouns that we should refrain from using, but gendered honorifics, generics, and suffixes as well. They argue that English should not be any more gendered than it currently is raced, and since English currently does not have race-specific pronouns, honorifics, generics, or suffixes, we should not have gender-specific ones either.…”

Section: The Story So Farmentioning

confidence: 99%

How to Do Things with Gendered Words

Hernandez,

Crowley

2024

The Oxford Handbook of Applied Philosophy of Language

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With increased visibility of trans people comes increased philosophical interest in gendered language. This chapter aims to look at the research on gendered language in analytic philosophy of language so far, which has focused on two concerns: (1) determining how to define gender terms like ‘man’ and ‘woman’ such that they are trans inclusive, and (2) if, or to what extent, we should use gendered language at all. We argue that the literature has focused too heavily on how gendered language can harm trans people and has not considered how trans people use gendered language to create meaning and joy for ourselves. Pulling from the literature in sociolinguistics, we look at examples of how trans people use language to make their lives better by gaining recognition, playing with gendered language, finding joy in gendered language, and taking control of definitional power, concluding that debates about gendered language need to consider not only how such language harms trans people but also how trans people use it for our own liberation.

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How Much Gender Is Too Much Gender?

Cited by 8 publications

References 17 publications

A Little Word That Means A Lot: A Reassessment of Singular They in a New Era of Gender Politics

A Little Word That Means A Lot: A Reassessment of Singular They in a New Era of Gender Politics

People’s beliefs about pronouns reflect both the language they speak and their ideologies.

How to Do Things with Gendered Words

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