Description
In many languages, masculine pronouns (e.g., he/him) have been used for referring not only to male people, but also in generic use (a student should always address his supervisor politely) or when the gender of someone is unknown (someone left his coffee mug in the pantry). Languages with such gendered pronouns ‘force’ referential use to be gendered, also when the person referred to does not identify as male or female. For English, the pronoun they is used increasingly often in such cases (among other non-gendered pronouns or NGPs). While advocated by many, there also is considerable opposition to this type of language change: English linguists in the 19th century already opposed its use in singular form (Bradley, 2020).Various studies have explored people’s attitudes towards gender-fair language and NGPs (e.g., Bradley, 2020; Hekanaho, 2020; Koeser et al., 2015; Sendén et al., 2021), but none – to our knowledge – have explored its effects specifically on spoken language perception. This is the focus on the current study. Due to the temporal nature of spoken language, perception of speech allows for less conscious reflection; pausing and re-reading are possible for texts, but usually not for listening. This means that intuitive evaluation will play a relatively large role in speech perception. Additionally, the use of they as a non-gendered pronoun is relatively recent. Therefore, we hypothesized that the use of they would be evaluated more negatively than the use of gendered pronouns (he/his, she/her).
This study, pre-registered at AsPredicted.org (https://aspredicted.org/JL7_4KH), investigated whether people notice and appreciate the use of this pronoun in informal, spoken English in 18 Tiktok-style videos. In these videos, the actor discusses six everyday topics where they consistently refer to themselves with I (e.g., "I will get my diploma this Friday"), and to others with either a feminine, masculine, or a non-gendered pronoun (e.g., "my colleague will get her/his/their diploma this Friday"). A total of 107 participants watched these short videos in which each video used either of three pronoun types: feminine, masculine, or non-gendered pronouns. A within-subjects analysis of variance revealed that over 60% of the participants noticed the non-gendered pronoun in spoken language, but not significantly more so than the gendered pronouns. Pronoun appreciation was measured on a 7-point scale consisting of two constructs: comprehension and appropriateness (Hornikx et al., 2010; Land et al., 2002). The results showed that non-gendered they (M = 5.77, SD = 0.81, 95CI [5.61, 5.92]) was not appreciated less or more than feminine (M = 5.83, SD = 0.83, 95CI [5.67, 5.99]) or masculine pronouns (M = 5.70, SD = 0.84. 95CI [5.54, 5.86]) (F [2, 212] = 1.83, p = .16, ηp² = .02). Finally, participants’ gender and personal views did not influence the relationship between pronoun type and appreciation.
Unexpectedly, there was no difference in noticing nor appreciation of the three pronoun types (they, he/him, she/her). This lack of significant effects aligns with some recent research on attitudes towards and use of gender-inclusive pronouns (in Swedish) that shows an increasing acceptance (Gustafsson Sendén et al., 2021). The pattern in pronoun appreciation we observed in our study was found in a mostly young, highly educated Western sample of participants. Whether this pattern generalizes to other populations, is subject to further investigation. We will discuss possibilities to empirically test the hypothesis of increasing appreciation towards the use of they.
Period | 9 Feb 2024 |
---|---|
Event title | Etmaal van de Communicatiewetenschap |
Event type | Conference |
Location | RotterdamShow on map |
Degree of Recognition | National |