Marlis Hellinger
Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt am Main
After a brief definition of "sexist language", and an illustration of the major categories of gender (grammatical, lexical, referential, social) by examples from English, German, and a few other languages, the focus will be on androcentric "generics" and the psycholinguistic effects of such expressions as "generic he" in English or "generic" masculines in German (and, by implication, in Polish).
The paper will explore the question of which factors will determine the choice of gender-inclusive alternatives in selected countries (either towards more female visibility or a more neutral wording), how proposals developed on the grassroots level of feminist linguistic activism are negotiated in (supra)national institutional contexts, and how such recommendations must be evaluated in the light of psycholinguistic evidence.
Grassroots level recommendations are not necessarily adopted by key (supra)national language planning agencies. E.g., while feminist activists in the German-speaking countries have always supported feminisation as a major reform strategy, the German Federal administration has restricted female visibility to explicit female reference, while maintaining the status quo, i.e. the prescription of masculine/male generics in neutral (gender-indefinite) contexts.
A similar decision was made by UNESCO, to the effect that all UNESCO documents (which must be published in six languages, among them Arabic, Russian and Chinese) must simply carry a footnote explaining that any person-denoting term is to be interpreted as referring equally to women and men. Such decisions contradict the empirical evidence available concerning the psycholinguistic effects of false generics.
Official language planning agencies tend to interpret feminist activists' recommendations as a challenge to the linguistic (and political) status quo, and will therefore keep reform measures to a minimum. This illustrates the function of language as a symbolic arena for the negotiation of the gender relations in a country.