Thesis Title:
Non-binary linguistic forms: internal and external factors influencing their acceptability
Thesis Abstract:
In languages with grammatical gender, the increasing visibility of non-binary gender identities has given rise to innovation in linguistic forms signifying these identities. Most prominent are innovative pronouns, such as English definite singular they, but languages such as French, Spanish or Hebrew also possess innovative strategies to replace gendered morphological exponents. The acceptance of these forms has been shown to be influenced by factors such as amount of exposure, gender identity, or attitude towards trans & non-binary communities; thus, some innovations are more successful than others.
In the context of linguistic variation and change, and taking a sociosyntactic approach, I will investigate the syntactic changes underlying the emergence of innovative non-binary forms, and to what extent internal (linguistic) or external (social) factors influence their eventual acquisition and acceptance. While there have been limited synchronic syntactic analyses of innovative pronouns, this project will contribute a diachronic analysis of such innovations, as well as a syntactic analysis and comparison with other morphological innovation strategies. It will also further document as-yet underreported areas of linguistic variation and change and provide a deeper understanding of some linguistic challenges facing trans & non-binary communities.
Primary Supervisor:
Dr David Adger