James Pennell

“A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE USE AND ACCEPTANCE OF GENDER-NEUTRAL PRONOUNS IN FRENCH AND ENGLISH”

My research explores how French and English speakers are adapting to the apparent shift towards a less binary and rigid system of reference. French has explicit grammatical gender, but English doesn’t, so how do these different systems influence speakers in their acceptance and use of gender-neutral pronouns? Can such differences, if there are any, be explained by each language’s respective grammatical evolution, or do social attitudes have a greater influence? Looking specifically at the use of ‘iel’ in French and ‘they’ in English, my research explores the history of neutral pronouns in English and French and analyses the current change that each language is undergoing.

Damien Hall, School of Modern Languages, Newcastle University

Daniel Duncan, School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics, Newcastle University

Lauren Ackerman, School of Education, Communication and Language Sciences, Newcastle University