Current usage of the epicene pronoun in written English

Abstract

This paper deals with current epicene pronominal usage in written English. The first part focuses on the prescription of the so–called generic he and includes a short review of research into epicene pronominal usage in the last three decades. The results of previous research serve as a background to the present study, which, based on two corpora of written English, aims at elucidating singular epicene pronominal choices in the writing of British and American writers. The study shows that the traditional form he is no longer predominant, while singular they is the pronoun most likely to be used. He or she is shown to be used rather rarely. It is argued that the choice of singular epicene pronoun is considerably influenced by the semanto–syntactic type of the antecedent and by the social roles stereotypically associated with the referent. Also, differences between British and American writers are discussed. It is shown that American writers are more conservative in their choice of singular epicene pronoun and an explanation of the difference is suggested.

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