Post #2 - Sept 16 - Research Topic/Issue w/10 sources

Alright, ya'll. I'm PRONOUN-cing my topic: inclusive pronouns. At this point, I've researched for several hours--had a great time, BTW! The deeper I get into this topic of a gender-neutral pronoun and current informal use of the singular they as a stand-in, the deeper the topic gets. It's really quite fascinating.


Some of these articles mention (or are penned by) heavy-hitters from the last 50 years of the writing industry and education. Other articles quote unconventional pronoun usage by some of the historical greats: Chaucer and Shakespeare. This pronoun thing bridges gaps like gender equality, sex, vocation, age, and language. What have I learned? As my kids would say, "English haz the big dumb!" (I'm hip when I say phrases I don't understand, right?) My mother tongue lags behind the times. Many other languages have gender-neutral pronouns woven into the language from the jump. But our ever-changing American English is my thang. I guess I'll keep playing until I find a reason to stop.

With no further fanfare, here are my tentative ten. Oh, and I'm rollin' APA-style in the hizzle cuz I like the dates in my face.

  1. Greenfield, J., & Youngblood, C. (1979). A Proposed New Pronoun. Technical Communication, 26(1), 11-29. Retrieved August 30, 2020, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/43091921
    • This article started my research journey. These authors came up with an entirely new set of genderless pronouns (i.e., E, ers, erm) and exhaustingly explained how these awkward newbies nicely mimicked established grammar. Examples of s/he sentences were given and then modified using these weird updates. Nice idea, but it's really too funky.
  2. Baron, D. (1981). The Epicene Pronoun: The Word That Failed. American Speech, 56(2), 83-97. doi:10.2307/455007
    • Mega cool with heavy citations. This guy lists many hopeful winners of the debate including pronouns I've never heard of, some from other languages, and some that people just plain made up. I'm talking weird potential pronouns like en,  thon, ip, le, hiser, shim, co, vis, tey, ze, and that's just a few.
  3. Darr, B., & Kibbey, T. (2016). Pronouns and Thoughts on Neutrality: Gender Concerns in Modern Grammar. Pursuit: The Journal of Undergraduate Research at the University of Tennessee, 7(1), 71–84.

  4. Fuller, M. M. (1973). In Business, the Generic Pronoun “He” Is Non-Job related and Discriminatory. Training & Development Journal, 27(5), 8.

  5. Steinmetz, K. (2020). People Have Invented More Than 200 Gender-Neutral Pronouns. Here’s Why “They” Is Here to Stay. Time.com, N.PAG.

  6. Nordlinger, J. (2015). What Are Your Pronouns? National Review, 67(20), 26–28.

  7. Nevins, D. (2006). The Trouble With Himorher. Writing, 29(2), 7.

  8. McWhorter, J. (2013). The Royal They. New Republic, 244(6), 9.

  9. Locker, M. (2019). Merriam Webster Names “They” as Its Word of the Year for 2019. Time.com, N.PAG.

  10. Johnson, C. S., & Kelly, I. K. (1975). “He” and “She”: Changing Language To Fit a Changing World. Educational Leadership, 32(8), 527.

  11. Gilbert, J. (2019). Pronouns are personal. Spotlight - Einfach Besser Englisch, 14, 47–48.

  12. Garner, B. A. (2020). Sex and the Singular Pronoun. National Review, 72(2), 33–36.

  13. Foertsch, J., & Gernsbacher, M. A. (1997). In Search of Gender Neutrality: Is Singular They a Cognitively Efficient Substitute for Generic He? Psychological Science (0956-7976), 8(2), 106–111. doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.1997.tb00691.x


Comments

  1. Samantha RoybalSeptember 16, 2020 at 5:04 PM

    Rachel, this is such an interesting topic! It is great that you have already done so much research on it, and it is awesome that your kids inspired your interest in the topic. It seems like you are already very knowledgeable, but the great thing about this topic is that I am sure you can find so much more!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Rachel - ENGL 3341September 16, 2020 at 6:34 PM

    REVISION
    I know that some of my articles quote the original Middle English by Chaucer and pronoun usage flip flopping, but I’d like to pull a timeline and include a side-by-side comparison of the Women’s Movement. I think some usage changed in alignment with feminism.

    ReplyDelete

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