Third-person Pronouns Research Articles

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

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.

TO DISCLOSE A LESS GENERIC PRONOUN: ADDRESSING NON-BINARY "THEY"

Since the 13th century singular they have been used freely to account to the lack of gender-fair pronoun in the English language. Singular they that is normally employed as a pronominal non-possessive indefinite singular pronoun, in contrast to an expression on he/she generic. This study aims to provide a linear timeline that accounts to the usage of singular they from 13th century to date. Discerns through the scope of Diachronic studies. This study offers an analysis of context with diachronic relevance. The study uses argumentative cross-examination methods, by combing previous findings conducted by researchers who had undertook and attempted to write under similar theme .The results of this study show periodical changes from 13th century to the next, implying that sociocultural changes may be reflected in linguistic changes. The article postulates some that can be interpreted as lenient acceptance for the application of singular they. This study concludes despite the constant rejection singular they are a proper substitute for the gender-neutral pronoun in the English language due to two major advantages for singular they could afford neutrality and naturalness element in comparison to neologism.

“Naming Their History”

“Naming Their History”

Parent-child conversations about animals on a visit to a (virtual) zoo

Children face multiple challenges in constructing an organized understanding of the animal domain, and parent-child conversations are a potential source of relevant information, both explicit and implicit. To understand these contributions, this study examined 41 parent-child dyads (child age range: 3–7 years) as they visited a virtual zoo displaying videos of a wide range of animals (humans, chimps, rhinos, beavers, owls, fish, and bees). Conversations were coded for mention of biological, psychological, and perceptual properties; gendered and neuter pronouns; comparisons between animals; and generic utterances. Conversations demonstrated principled variation in organizing the domain, using three subgroups: humans, non-human mammals, and fish and bees. This organization differed substantially from the responses participants provided in a subsequent biological property projection task. These findings inform the role of parent-child conversations in the development of the animal domain, and have implications for downstream consequences on beliefs regarding the natural world.

الجندر والترجمة: تحديات وحلول

This study explains the mutual relationship between translation studies and gender studies. It highlighted the term gender, its literal and lexical meaning by focusing on its historical evolution. Furthermore, it discusses various gender issues relating to translation. It emphasizes the challenges and problems of translation due to grammatical and social gender. The problems of translation relating to pronominal gender have been discussed as well. Moreover, this study explains the writing phenomenon of neutral gender. Strategies and possible solutions to various challenges and problems faced by a translator during rendering texts based on gender have also been discussed. The paper concludes with some recommendations and findings.

Feature Matching Does Not Equal Convergence: Acquisition of L2 French Accusative Pronouns by L1 Spanish Speakers

Our study aims to determine whether formal similarity between two languages (operationalized via the Feature Reassembly Hypothesis) allows adult L2 learners of French (Spanish native speakers; NSs) to straightforwardly acquire third-person singular accusative clitics in their L2. Additionally, we examined the role of surface similarity, since French and Spanish overlap and diverge in several ways. In terms of formal similarity, third-person accusative clitic pronouns in Spanish are almost perfect analogues of their French counterparts. In terms of surface similarity, however, while the feminine accusative pronouns are identical (“la” [la]), the masculine ones differ in Spanish (“lo” [lo]) and French (“le” [lǝ]). Participants included French NSs (n = 26) and Spanish-speaking L2 French learners (n = 36). Results from an offline forced-choice picture selection task and an online self-paced reading task did not support the Feature Reassembly Hypothesis because learners showed considerable difficulty with the interpretation and processing of these pronouns, revealing that, unlike French NSs, their interpretations and processing are guided by the feature [±Human] and, to a lesser degree, by gender, which might be due to the surface-level similarity between feminine accusative clitic pronouns in both languages.

Making a Case for Studying Gender-Neutral Pronouns in Speech-Language Pathology.

Purpose The purpose of this article is to review current policies and research in the field of speech-language pathology in regard to targeting gender-neutral pronouns in language therapy and propose further research on the topic. Method Official documents from the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association for the practice of speech-language pathology were searched for information about pediatric language therapy and ethical requirements of practice as they relate to targeting gender-neutral pronouns in treatment. Conclusions Based on the current standards, it is ethical and within the scope of practice for speech-language pathologists to target gender-neutral pronouns in language treatment. Research on the topic is needed to establish evidence-based practice guidelines. Recommendations are provided for potential research questions and methodologies.

Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine Position Statement and Guideline: Infant Feeding and Lactation-Related Language and Gender.

Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine Position Statement and Guideline: Infant Feeding and Lactation-Related Language and Gender.

Pronouns Beyond the Binary: The Change of Attitudes and Use Over Time

Gender-inclusive language, such as the Swedish pronoun hen, may aid in breaking a binary notion of gender and avoid sexism. The present study followed the implementation of a gender-inclusive third-person pronoun singular (hen) in Swedish in two surveys with representative samples in 2015 (at the time when hen was introduced in the official Swedish dictionary; N = 1212) and in 2018 (N = 2009). The surveys comprised measures of attitudes toward, and use of, hen as well as possible predictors such as area of residence, age, preferred pronoun, political orientation, and interest in gender issues. Results showed that attitudes toward hen became more positive and that use of hen increased between 2015 and 2018. About half of the population used hen in their communication in 2018, which is a 14-percentage-point increase from 2015. Younger age, she or hen as preferred pronoun, political left-wing orientation, and interest in gender issues predicted a more positive attitude and a more frequent use. Furthermore, the positive change between 2015 and 2018 was larger among younger people, indicating that hen will remain in the Swedish language. The present research is unique in that it follows a gender-fair language initiative during its implementation in representative samples, thereby providing insights for social movements aiming for gender-fair language. We also discuss the theoretical implications of a gender-inclusive pronoun in comparison with past studies on gender-fair language.

He wouldn't, but I would: The effects of pronoun-induced language vividness in whistleblowing policies

In this study, we conducted two experiments to test whether varying the types of pronouns used in a company's internal whistleblowing policy influences employees' reporting intentions. We focus on two fundamental types of whistleblowing policy content: Reporting Responsibility (i.e., information about how to report through whistleblowing channels) and Anti-retaliation (i.e., information about retaliation protections). Within these types of content, we examine the effect of pronoun congruency, which occurs when vivid pronouns are used in a manner that emphasizes the intended theme of the message. First, we conducted a 2 × 2 experiment where policy content type (Reporting Responsibility or Anti-retaliation) and pronoun type (first-person or third-person) were manipulated between participants. The results indicate a significant interaction where more vivid first-person pronouns are more effective than third-person pronouns in improving employees' reporting intentions when they only receive Reporting Responsibility policy content. However, third-person pronouns are more effective than first-person pronouns when participants only receive Anti-retaliation content. In our second experiment, participants viewed both types of content simultaneously in a 2 × 2 between-participants experiment where pronoun congruency was manipulated. Results indicate that pronoun congruency within Reporting Responsibility content significantly affects reporting intentions, such that congruent first-person pronouns are more effective in increasing reporting intentions than incongruent third-person pronouns. The subsequent manipulation of pronoun congruency in Anti-retaliation policy content has no significant incremental effect on reporting intentions. Implications are discussed in the paper.

Japanese children’s knowledge of the locality of zibun and kare

ABSTRACT Although the Japanese reflexive zibun can be bound both locally and across clause boundaries, the third-person pronoun kare cannot take a local antecedent. These are properties that children need to learn about their language, but we show that the direct evidence of the binding possibilities of zibun is sparse and the evidence of kare is absent in speech to children, leading us to ask about children’s knowledge. We show that children, unlike adults, incorrectly reject the long-distance antecedent for zibun, and while being able to access this antecedent for a non-local pronoun kare, they consistently reject the local antecedent for this pronoun. These results suggest that children’s lack of matrix readings for zibun is not due to their understanding of discourse context but the properties of their language understanding.

Gender voices in Chinese university students’ English writing: A corpus study

Gender fair language aims to reduce gender-bias and discrimination. However, little research has focused on how L2 English learners use these expressions. The present study seeks to investigate whether recent improvements in the social status of women in China are reflected in gender representation in university students’ writing. A corpus study is conducted to investigate how the L2 English learners in China use epicene pronouns, i.e. gender-neutral third person singular pronoun in Written English Corpus of Chinese Learners (WECCL2.0). AntConc 3.5.8 is adopted to analyze the patterns of epicene pronoun-singular they, generic he, and he or she in the corpus in relation to antecedent types. The findings indicate that more effort is needed to promote gender fair language use for L2 learners in China and a shift in focus from “accuracy” to “appropriateness” is necessary when it comes to the use of language in L2 English teaching and learning.

A Gender Gap in Publishing? Understanding the Glass Ceiling in Pediatric Orthopaedic Surgery.

Women are underrepresented across most surgical specialties and especially in the field of orthopaedic surgery. Despite pediatric orthopaedic surgery being one of the most gender diverse subspecialties in orthopaedics, women may still face barriers to academic advancement. Research presentations at national meetings and publication record are important drivers of advancement in the field of academic orthopaedic surgery. The aim of this study is to assess whether research abstracts authored by women are less likely to be published than abstracts authored by men. Abstracts from research podium presentations given at the Pediatric Orthopaedic Society of North America annual meetings from 2006 to 2020 were reviewed to assess research quality and determine basic study characteristics. For each abstract, author gender was determined through a search of institutional websites and professional networking websites for gender-specific pronouns. Resulting publications corresponding to the 2006 to 2018 were identified using a systematic search of PubMed and Google Scholar databases. Kaplan-Meier inverse survival analysis with log rank test were used to determine differences in publication rates based on whether the last (senior) author was female versus male. Multivariate, binary logistic regression was performed to assess factors predictive of eventual publication. One thousand five hundred and eighty-one of 1626 (97.2%) of abstracts from 2006 to 2020 had an identifiable last author gender, with 17.8% (281/1581) female. No differences in study quality were identified across genders including sample size, level of evidence, or impact factor of journal if leading to publication. Women were more likely to author abstracts in foot, ankle, or lower extremity surgery [17.8% (50/281) vs. 12.9% (168/1300), P=0.032] and less likely to author abstracts focusing on the hip [11.0% (31/281) vs. 17.1% (222/1300), P=0.012]. Abstracts with women as the last author were significantly less likely to be published compared with abstracts with men as the last author [59.6% (143/240) vs. 67.9% (783/1154), P=0.013]. Multivariate analysis demonstrated that last author female gender was predictive of a lower likelihood of publication (odds ratio: 0.684, 95% confidence interval: 0.513-0.912, P=0.010). Women were less likely to be the last author of abstracts presented by study groups [2.1% (6/281) vs. 5.5% (71/1300), P=0.019]. In pediatric orthopaedic surgery, abstracts authored by women are less likely to reach publication, despite no identifiable differences in study quality. Reasons for this discrepancy must be explored including insufficient mentorship, exclusion from study group participation, or potential bias against female researchers in the field of orthopaedic surgery. Level IV.

The Obligated Self: Maternal Subjectivity and Jewish Thought

The Obligated Self: Maternal Subjectivity and Jewish Thought

Epicene pronoun usage in the social sciences: The case of research articles

Language is subject to change in almost all dimensions, albeit slowly in some dimensions and relatively quickly in others. With changes unfolding in society, the reflection of emerging linguistic shifts in the language employed in speaking and writing might be traced through language analysis. This study dealt with the latter with a specific reference to the use of epicene pronouns in English academic writing, i.e., its status in the early 2010s, how it progressed through the end of the decade, and its present status in the field. Therefore, we analysed five scholarly journals from the social sciences, all of which were indexed in the Web of Science between 2010 and 2019. All issues of these five journals were perused with a specific focus on the pronouns used to refer to gender-unknown individuals. The results indicate that a notable change has occurred in the social sciences, which suggests that the awareness of and sensitivity to this matter has invited the attention of both writers and editors in regard to observing gender neutrality.

Analyse des réseaux de personnages dans les textes de Leslie Kaplan : du postmodernisme à l’inconscient

The texts of Leslie Kaplan question the irreducible opposition between the real and the non-real. Her characters and their intentional absence confuse the repository and fictional worlds, not only to point out the thin margin between reality and fiction, but to underline the impossible delimitation between the real and the fictional, or even between the text and the world. This article studies the characters of Kaplan and aims to demonstrate their identity crisis through the study of their literary onomastic and the use of the neutral pronoun ‘it’ and allegoric expressions. In addition, the objective of this article is to shed light on the Kaplanian characters as Kunderian models, while stressing the particularity of their physionomy, which consists to present ‘fuzzy’ characters that are present and absent at the same time, engaging the reader in the fictional process as a try to complete the missing details. This article concludes that the Kaplanian characters are not only the prototypes of the postmodern being, but they are also introverted, psychopaths and a demonstration of different facets of the unconscious.

Processing pronouns in global discourse context

This study examined the interpretation and processing of third-person pronouns when global discourse context supports a less-salient referent as antecedent of a subject pronoun. In particular, we investigated whether such information cancels a default generalized conversational implicature (GCI) biasing a local subject antecedent interpretation for an English overt pronoun. Eye-tracking data was recorded as participants heard four-sentence mini-stories with one of three Contexts: one biasing the subject of the previous clause as antecedent (SB), one biasing another human referent (OB), and one neutral to biasing either referent. Results showed that looking patterns did not diverge in OB and Neutral conditions until after crucial information tying into the larger discourse context was given in the post-pronoun verb. Strong preferences for non-subject referents did not emerge until after the sentence ended, a time-course consistent with participants calculating and then cancelling a default implicature for a subject antecedent. Meanwhile, discourse context reinforcing the default subject implicature in the SB condition facilitated processing, in terms of less time spent looking at either human referent compared the Neutral condition. Overall, results suggest that upon hearing an overt pronoun, English speakers first calculate a GCI that results in a local subject antecedent interpretation, but that, like all implicatures, this GCI can be defeated by contextual factors.

Weighing Psycholinguistic and Social Factors for Semantic Agreement in Dutch Pronouns

Previous research has shown that Dutch pronominal gender is in a process of resemanticization: Highly individuated nouns are increasingly referred to with masculine and feminine pronouns, and lowly individuated ones with the neuter pronounhet/’t‘it’, irrespective of the grammatical gender of the noun (Audring 2009). The process is commonly attributed to the loss of adnominal gender agreement, which is increasingly blurring distinctions between masculine and feminine nouns and, therefore, requires speakers to resort to semantic default strategies (De Vogelaer & De Sutter 2011). Several factors have been identified that influence the choice of semantic vis-à-vis lexical agreement, both linguistic and social. This article seeks to weigh the importance of both structural and social factors in pronominal gender agreement in Belgian Dutch, using the Belgian part of the Spoken Dutch Corpus. A multivariate statistical analysis reveals that most effects are structural, including noun semantics and the syntactic function of the antecedent and the pronoun, as well as the pragmatic status of the antecedent. The most important social factor is speech register. We argue that these effects support a psycholinguistic account in which resemanticization is seen as a change from below, caused by hampered lexical access to noun gender.

Why shall I call you ze?

It was the Oxford University’s Students Union (OUSU) which first promoted the use of gender-inclusive pronouns to avoid gender-binarism in the English-speaking European academic life. OUSU finds it supportive if students declare their chosen pronouns by which they wish to be addressed at meetings (he, she or ze). Public attention turned to the emergence of the new pronoun. The present study aims to explore the social perception of the newly appearing gender-neutral neologism by mapping public attitude towards the idea of institutionally introducing a neopronoun (ze) in the English language for the sake of celebrating gender diversity. The discourse plane investigated in the research was comments given to online newspaper articles. The genre of comments provides insights into the opinions and feelings of the general public. A near-thousand comments of online dialogues displayed on the websites of six British newspapers (three broadsheets and three tabloids) during a one-year timespan (December 2016 – December 2017) were analysed qualitatively. Arguments on either discourse position were studied, hidden premises were uncovered. The results of the exploratory study reveal that there is a notable imbalance in the voicing of opinions: the promotion of the gender-neutral English pronoun is markedly underrepresented in the public (1.32%) while the set of arguments against its introduction is versatile. The findings of the analysis indicate that the voice of the people does not consider pronoun-binarism as a sign of exclusion or the marginalizing of gender-diverse people; however, the novel pronoun tends to excite shock and refusal in the public.

Samuel N. Rosenberg (1936–2020)

Samuel N. Rosenberg (1936–2020) Christopher Callahan Samuel Nathan Rosenberg was born January 19, 1936 in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Israel and Etta Friedland Rosenberg, and the brother of Alex Rosenberg and Sylvia Rosenberg Fogelman. He died on June 30, 2020 at his home in Bloomington, Indiana, at the age of 84. Sam seems to have been destined for the Academy from his earliest years. He was an avid reader even before primary school and began learning French in the first grade, later taking first prize in a city-wide competition for excellence in French. Multilingualism came naturally to him: exposed to Yiddish from infancy, pressed into learning Hebrew for his bar mitzvah, and constantly pursuing French, his command of the most refined stylistic registers in French received plaudits in mid-life from no less erudite a scholar than Michel Zink of the Collège de France (and now of the Académie française). He pursued French Studies, along with Italian and Latin, at Columbia College, receiving his A.B. in 1957 with "Highest Honors, Distinction in French"—noted in English, despite the Latin text of the rest of the diploma! While at Columbia, he worked at WKCR, the campus radio station, and his "mellifluous FM dj voice" made a lasting impression on everyone who met him. Click for larger view View full resolution Sam in 1962. Courtesy estate of Samuel N. Rosenberg. His insatiable curiosity was matched by a strong sense of ethics. Colleagues have since described him as "a champion of human rights and empathetic to a fault," qualities for which he was well-known by everyone he worked with. Indeed, he is described by his collaborators as "the ultimate gentleman—affable, courteous, distinguished—and an unstinting mentor." Equally erudite and [End Page 355] humble, he was gifted with "an incomparable sense of generosity and camaraderie." Click for larger view View full resolution Sam in 2016. Photo by Chris Callahan. Sam's decision to pursue his doctoral work at Johns Hopkins was doubtless influenced by the migration to Hopkins of his mentor Dr. Nathan Edelman, who had become chair of Romance Languages there the previous year. Once enrolled, he met his most formative—and formidable—mentor in Dr. Anna Granville Hatcher, who directed his dissertation. Sam later recalled her course in Old Provençal, taken in his first semester at Hopkins, as a baptism by fire, which nonetheless gave him a methodology for dissecting ancient languages in the minutest detail and a holistic grasp of both the source literary text and its cultural context. Sam went on to impart this approach to philology to his own students and to live it in the collaborative, interdisciplinary scholarship which marked his career. As Sam was drawn to both historical and modern grammar and stylistics, his dissertation focused on modern French syntax because, in Sam's words, "Miss Hatcher explained that Miss Pope [From Latin to Old French] had said it all"; with time he realized that wasn't the case, but more on that below. His dissertation research was facilitated by a Fulbright to study in Paris in 1960–1961. He described his great fortune at being able to stay in the apartment, situated Place de Furstemberg in the St. Germain-des-Prés neighborhood, of the celebrated composer/pianist Alexander Tcherepnin and his wife, Ming, also a concert pianist. Sam's arrival and the Tcherepnins' departure overlapped by one week, during which evenings filled with music, wine, and scintillating conversation stretched into the wee hours. In 1962, Sam took a lectureship at Indiana University, earning the rank of Assistant Professor in 1965 upon receipt of his Ph.D. [End Page 356] in Romance Philology. His dissertation, Modern French 'ce': The Neuter Pronoun in Adjectival Predication, published in 1970, was in fact not his first book-length work. Two years earlier, he had offered the English-speaking world a translation of Antoine Meillet's groundbreaking The Indo-European Dialects, a publication which both signaled his ongoing interest in historical linguistics and opened for him a scholarly path in translation; he remained active in both of these fields for the rest of his life. Sam's training and...