Gender-Neutral Pronouns He and They

• 영문명: Gender-Neutral Pronouns He and They
• 발행기관: 융합영어영문학회
• 저자명: 윤정회(Yoon, Jung-hyoe)
• 간행물 정보: 『융합영어영문학(구.English Reading and Teaching)』제7권 3호, 141~160쪽, 전체 20쪽
• 주제분류: 인문학 > 언어학
• 파일형태: PDF
• 발행일자: 2022.12.31

영문 초록

This paper attempts to investigate the Korean EFL students’ understanding of singular they in comparison with gender-neutral he. When it comes to the choice of third person singular pronouns in gender-indeterminant contexts, prescriptive grammar prefers gender-neutral he, while descriptive grammar recommends singular they, among other alternative pronoun forms. As grammar books and guideline sources gradually adopt singular they as a proper, or a better, pronoun candidate compared to gender-neutral he, an experimental study was designed to examine how Korean learners of English acquire this recent language change in EFL contexts. In a naturalness judgment task, the Korean EFL learners judged singular they in informal contexts as less natural than in formal contexts and even as unnatural when the antecedents included ‘every/any,’ though it has been reported that native speakers prefer singular they in informal contexts rather than in formal contexts.

목차

Ⅰ. Introduction

Ⅱ. Issues of Epicene Pronouns

Ⅲ. The Study

Ⅳ. Results and Discussion

Ⅴ. Conclusion

Work cited

키워드

단수대명사 they 중성대명사 he 격식체 언어변화 EFL 습득 singular they gender-neutral he formality language change EFL acquisition