What’s in a Sociopolitical Pronoun? A Linguist Looks at Grammatical Gender in Gender Declaration

Abstract

Language practices, whether global, national, or at the personal level, carry influence for both good and ill. It is important that linguistic ventures into sociopolitical realms be well-informed. One such incursion has arisen from professors and administrators in university and government offices, who declare their pronoun choice, appending statements such as my pronouns are she, her, hers, at the end of their signature lines in letters and emails. While this assertion is straightforward in the English language, with its limited gender and case morphology, the linguistic landscape in other languages navigates a much greater challenge. Details of gender representation in the grammars of five other languages reveal a complexity not imaginable for English. Should the practice spread internationally, gender pronoun declarations will look very different.