The masculine form in grammatically gendered languages and its multiple interpretations: a challenge for our cognitive system

Abstract

We analyze the semantic ambiguity of the grammatically masculine form in languages where this form has more than one meaning (e.g., French, German, English to some extent) when used to refer to human beings. We discuss this ambiguity in terms of inference processing, meaning activation, and the link between language and the way we perceive reality. Importantly, we attempt to identify and explain the cognitive mechanisms at the very heart of gender biases when readers (and speakers) construct mental representations of gender through language. We ground our argument in memory-based approaches to reading, the meaning activation selection model and the thinking-for-speaking hypothesis. This paper provides a cognitive perspective to understanding why, in grammatical gender languages, gender representations are male biased.