ERIC Number: EJ1373675
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2022
Pages: 18
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0163-853X
EISSN: EISSN-1532-6950
Masculine Generic Pronouns as a Gender Cue in Generic Statements
Discourse Processes: A Multidisciplinary Journal, v59 n10 p828-845 2022
An eye-tracking experiment was conducted with speakers of Dutch (N = 84, 36 male), a language that falls between grammatical and natural-gender languages. We tested whether a masculine generic pronoun causes a male bias when used in generic statements--that is, in the absence of a specific referent. We tested two types of generic statements by varying conceptual number, hypothesizing that the pronoun "zijn" "his" was more likely to cause a male bias with a conceptually singular than a conceptually plural antecedent (e.g., "Someone" (conceptually singular)/"Everyone" (conceptually plural) "with perfect pitch can tune his instrument quickly"). We found male participants to exhibit a male bias but with the conceptually singular antecedent only. Female participants showed no signs of a male bias. The results show that the generically intended masculine pronoun "zijn" "his" leads to a male bias in conceptually singular generic contexts but that this further depends on participant gender.
Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Indo European Languages, Form Classes (Languages), Cues, Masculinity, Grammar, Gender Differences, Context Effect, Inferences, Bias
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Netherlands
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A