Sexuality Flashcards
Gender neutral pronoun in Swedish
Hen as a gender neutral alternative to ‘han’ (he) and ‘hon’ (she)
Examples of gender neutral pronouns in English
‘Ze’ and ‘thon’. These have been suggested as an alternative when someone’s gender is unknown or unclear. This has been encouraged by the LGBT community when, for example, addressing transgender people who may feel uncomfortable being addressed by ‘he’ or ‘she’
Charles Crozat Converse (1884)
Decided that English needed a new pronoun, a singular and gender neutral pronoun. He proposed it be called thon, apparently a blend of that + one. Shows this is not a new topic.
Casey Miller and Kate Swift (1971)
Proposed that we introduce three new pronouns - tey, ter and tem (to operate as singular
versions of they, their and them).
Proposed that we introduce three new pronouns - tey, ter and tem (to operate as singular versions of they, their and them).
Dr Richard Neal (2005)
Applied for intellectual property rights over two similar pronouns hesh and hir (the former being an
alternative to he and she or s/he, the latter her/his).
Brighton 2012 - gender neutral pronouns
A more recent example occurred in Brighton in 2012 with the suggested use of the gender neutral ‘Mx’ (short for ‘Mixter’) by the local council. The idea was met with some criticism, The Sunday Express led with the headline ‘Now the PC brigade want to stop calling us “Mr and Mrs”
The problem with gender neutral pronouns
- None of these gender neutral pronouns caught on
- These words are harder to change because they are so common
- Research a few years ago suggested that our most commonly used words are the most resistant to change despite often being the most irregular
Polari (Paul Baker Guardian article)
- A form of language most commonly associated with gay men
- In the past it was associated with chorus boys in the West End
- It arose from a number of overlapping ‘low’ forms of slang that were associated with travelling or stigmatised groups
- It was a secret language. Due to the stigmatisation of homosexuality these men needed a way to express themselves
- Polari was also a way of initiating people into the gay subculture
- Polari can be seen as a form of anti-language
A feature of Polari
Cockney rhyming slang
Lavender language
The special dialect and vocabulary of the language of the gay community
Bill Leap
According to Bill Leap, coordinator of the 10th Annual American University Conference on
Lavender Languages and Linguistics, the LGBT
community do communicate with each other in ways that are ‘different from the linguistic practices of non-lesbian/gay-identified persons’.
Characteristics of lavender language according to Paul Baker
Acronyms
Plays on words
Double meanings
Valentova and Havlicek
- Czech linguists Valentova and Havlicek investigated what is called someone’s ‘perceived sexual orientation’.
- They looked at whether or not someone could tell a man’s sexuality based on their aesthetics and voice.
- Participants could detect someone’s sexuality based on both their voice and how they looked (even by facial features).
- Participants stated that there was a certain femininity in the voice of the homosexual men, such as elongated /l/ vowel (/l:/) sound in words like ‘towel’.
Research support for Valentova and Havlicek
- Research conducted by Northwestern University in 2004 supports Valentova and Havlicek’s findings.
- This research found that lesbian, gay and bisexual people showed no difference at birth in vowel production, but chose to selectively adopt vowel productions of certain social groups.
- Their research also found that gay/bisexual men did not necessarily adopt vowel sounds from women and that lesbian/bisexual women did not necessarily adopt vowel sounds from men – it was more from their social groups.
