Answer these questions.
- Do you think that using gender-specific language affects people’s attitudes to men and women’s roles in society?
- Does your language ever use male words generically? If so, give examples of words you use to avoid gender stereotyping.
- How do you feel about imposing language changes of the different kinds that David Crystal describes?
- Do terms of address (i.e. Mr, Mrs, etc.) in your language indicate whether people are married?
- Do you think it is better if terms of address indicate marital status or not? Why?
- A grammatical problem in this area is the use of he/his to refer to a person of either gender. In the sentence ‘A government minister may have to neglect his family’, the minister could be a man or a woman. However, the use of ‘his’ assumes, perhaps wrongly, that it is a man. How could you rewrite this sentence to avoid this problem?
Possible Answer
1–5 Personal answers
6 The sentence can be altered by either using his or her: A government minister may have to neglect his or her family. Or by making it plural: Government ministers may have to neglect their families. It is also becoming increasingly common and acceptable for their to be used as a generic pronoun to refer to one person, e.g. A government minister may have to neglect their family. Note that some people consider this to be incorrect. Note also that some writers use the pronoun s/he instead of he or she.
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