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ERIC Number: EJ1191590
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2018-Oct
Pages: 12
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0090-6905
EISSN: N/A
Available Date: N/A
Changes over Time in the Comprehension of "He" and "They" as Epicene Pronouns
Noll, Jane; Lowry, Mark; Bryant, Judith
Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, v47 n5 p1057-1068 Oct 2018
An epicene pronoun is a gender-neutral singular pronoun used in sentences when the gender of the subject is unknown or unspecified. In English, "he" and "they" are commonly-used epicene pronouns. Until recently, "he" has been widely accepted as being grammatically correct. However, many have argued that he is sexist because it may bias people to think about males. Two experiments were performed using a lexical decision task in which participants reacted to gendered words (e.g., "aunt" and "uncle") after reading sentences using "he," "they," or unrelated epicene pronouns. We conducted the experiments 15 years apart in order to explore whether change in pronoun usage and the social significance of pronouns would be associated with different priming effects. Both experiments demonstrated that pronouns influence the processing of gendered nouns. However, in Experiment 1 "they" facilitated the processing of feminine nouns whereas in Experiment 2, "he" slowed the processing of feminine nouns. We discuss these results with respect to language change and conclude that "they" is a more effective epicene.
Springer. Available from: Springer Nature. 233 Spring Street, New York, NY 10013. Tel: 800-777-4643; Tel: 212-460-1500; Fax: 212-348-4505; e-mail: customerservice@springernature.com; Web site: https://link-springer-com.bibliotheek.ehb.be/
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: N/A