The Epicene Pronoun in Contemporary Newspaper Prose
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6031338 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Mark Balhorn (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2009 |
| Volume | 84 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 391-413 |
| Publication date | 2009-11-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | American Speech (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0003-1283 • E-ISSN: 1527-2133 |
| Publisher | Duke University Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1215/00031283-2009-031 |
| OpenAlex | W2170933122 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 12 |
| References cited | 19 |
This article is about the use of plural third-person pronouns with grammatically singular, indefinite, generic antecedents in the prose of current U.S. newspapers. After a review of studies of the statistical prominence of usage patterns such as A criminal is a criminal no matter what they wear in spoken English and the presence of such patterns in written English since the gender-neutral language reform movement of the 1970s, an argument is made for why they is an effective and at times optimal choice as an epicene pronoun. Then, a systematic sampling of pronoun chains in contemporary newspapers is used to investigate the effect of such factors as quoted versus nonquoted text, writers' sex, and antecedent type on rates of they usage relative to two other epicene alternatives: historically prescribed he and currently available he or she. The results indicate that although male and female writers use they at similar rates, females use he less often than males do. The results also indicate that with lexical NP antecedents, both male and female writers exhibit lower rates of they and greater use of the disjunction he or she. This is especially true with sex-stereotyped, occupational NP antecedents, such as a CEO or a doctor. It is argued that this pattern of use in contemporary newspaper prose is because of heightened sensitivity to sexism and because of psycholinguistic factors that allow male but not female writers to see themselves included in a generic he-reference chain
Antecedent (behavioral psychology · Argument (complex analysis · Linguistics · Media studies · Newspaper · Personal pronoun · Plural · Pronoun · Sociology · Variation (astronomy · Discourse Analysis in Language Studies · Gender Studies in Language · Medicine · Names, Identity, and Discrimination Research · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology
Fixing English
Epicene pronoun usage in the social sciences
Gendering in open access research articles
(Un)democratic Epicene Pronouns in Asian Englishes
Non-sexist Language Policy and the Rise (and Fall?) of Combined Pronouns in British and American Written English
Democratization and Gender-neutrality in English(es)
A corpus-based study of epicene pronouns used by Macedonian learners of English
Subject expression in L2 Spanish
Singularthey
How You Guys Doin'? Staged Orality and Emerging Plural Address in the Television Seriesfriends
Changes Over Time in the Comprehension of He and They as Epicene Pronouns
Gender bias in the Chinese epicene pronoun ta
The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language
HE and THEY in indefinite anaphora in written present-day English
Alternating Between Masculine and Feminine Pronouns
Effects of Pronoun Type and Gender Role Consistency on Children's Recall and Interpretation of Stories
Generic pronouns and sexist language
Non-sexist language reform and generic pronouns in Australian English
Generic he in conversation
Current Generic Pronoun Usage
A New Gender-Neutral Pronoun in Baltimore, Maryland
| Unique citing works | 12 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,75 |
| Citation span | 2010 - 2024 (15) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 12 |