Gender neutral language in French: Difference between revisions

* '''Refeminization''':<ref name=":0">Divergenres (2021): ''Guide de grammaire neutre et inclusive''. Québec. Online at: https://divergenres.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/guide-grammaireinclusive-final.pdf.</ref> Before the 17th century, French had — as Italian, Spanish, and other Romance languages still have today — a feminine inflection for female professionals. However, for several reasons (both societal, i.e., misogynistic<ref name=":1">Becquelin, Hélène: ''Langage en tout genre. Argument historique''. Université de Neuchâtel. Online at: https://www.unine.ch/epicene/home/pourquoi/argument-historique.html (12.12.2023).</ref> and linguistic<ref name=":2">MOREAU, Marie-Louise. ''L’accord de proximité dans l’écriture inclusive. Peut-on utiliser n’importe quel argument ?'' In : ''Les discours de référence sur la langue française'' [en ligne]. Bruxelles : Presses de l’Université Saint-Louis, 2019 (généré le 12 décembre 2023). Disponible sur Internet : <<nowiki>http://books.openedition.org/pusl/26517</nowiki>>. ISBN : 9782802802457. DOI : <nowiki>https://doi.org/10.4000/books.pusl.26517</nowiki>.</ref>, as the French language was being standardized and dialect speakers were expected to learn French), grammarians made sure that the feminine denominations vanished from the language.<ref name=":1" /> Today, a lot of people talk of 'feminization', because they feel like these occupational titles are neologisms. However, they actually aren't, since they are being recovered from an older version of the French language, which is why 'refeminization' is more accurate. Even though it sounds counter-intuitive, refeminization is part of a process to degenderize the French language, since studies from different languages have shown that the generic masculine is cognitively not neutral,<ref>Tibblin, J., Weijer, J. van de, Granfeldt, J., & Gygax, P. (2023). There are more women in joggeur·euses than in joggeurs : On the effects of gender-fair forms on perceived gender ratios in French role nouns. ''Journal of French Language Studies, 33'', 28‑51. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959269522000217.</ref><ref>Heise, E. (2003). Auch einfühlsame Studenten sind Männer: Das generische Maskulinum und die mentale Repräsentation von Personen [Even empathic students are men: The generic masculine and the mental representation of persons]. ''Verhaltenstherapie & Psychosoziale Praxis, 35''(2), 285–291.</ref> even though the French prescriptive grammar considers it as such.<ref name=":3">Alchimy (2017): « Le masculin l’emporte sur le féminin » : Bien plus qu’une règle de grammaire. ''Usbek&Rica'': "Selon Le Bon Usage de Maurice Grevisse, l'adjectif se met donc au 'genre indifférencié, c'est-à-dire au masculin'."</ref> By mentioning also the feminine form of a word, speakers visualize people of more genders than just one.

*'''Doublets:''' For example, « Nous prions les <u>étudiantes</u> et (les) <u>étudiants</u> de remettre leur copie à la personne responsable ». Some people don't enjoy the repetition,<ref name=":10">OMPI (2022): ''Guide de l’OMPI pour un langage inclusif en français''. Genève. Online at: https://www.wipo.int/export/sites/www/women-and-ip/fr/docs/guidelines-inclusive-language.pdf.</ref> others consider that the doublets don't encompass all genders,<ref name=":4">Ménard, Jean-Sébastien (2021): ''Pour un français neutre et une inclusion des personnes non binaires : une entrevue avec Florence Ashley''. Longueuil. Online at:https://www.cegepmontpetit.ca/static/uploaded/Files/Cegep/Centre%20de%20reference/Le%20francais%20saffiche/Une-entrevue-avec-Florence-Ashley.pdf (12.12.2023), p. 13, p. 6.</ref> others again are unsure which form to mention first, since the order conveys information about the value the speaker gives to each item.<ref>Pascal Gygax, Manon Boschard, Geoffrey Cornet, Magali Croci, Natasha Stegmann (2021): ''Les outils - la (re)féminisation. Langage inclusif''. Online at: https://tube.switch.ch/videos/0xwYktNzRp, 00:50.</ref>

*'''Shortened doublets''':<ref name=":4" /> The feminine suffix is attached to the masculine, rather than the whole word being repeated (as in classical doublets).<ref name=":10" />

*'''Epicene person descriptions:'''<ref name=":0" /> For example, « <u>Les élèves</u> apprennent leur leçon. »; « <u>L'enfant</u> regarde la télévision. »; « <u>Les juges</u> ont pris leur décision. ». Since singular articles mark gender ('la' and 'le'), this functions best with plural forms. It works with singular forms if the noun starts with a vowel, because the article automatically turns into 'l'...', which doesn't mark gender. A downside is that there aren't epicene occupational titles for all professions or functions.

 

*'''Grammatically fixed gender nouns and impersonal formulations:'''<ref name=":11" /> The table below shows gendered language on the left and neutral — i.e. grammatical gender that has nothing to do with biological sex or gender identity — language on the right.

*'''Proximity agreement:'''<ref>EPFL (2023): ''L’accord de proximité''. Online at:https://www.epfl.ch/about/equality/fr/langage-inclusif/guide/principes/accord/ (12.12.2023).</ref> Up to the 18th century, in adjectives and past participles, the masculine gender didn't necessarily prevail over the feminine in cases where the genders could theoretically be congruent: proximity agreement coexisted along with the masculine-over-feminine rule.<ref name=":2" /> For a long part of ancient French history, proximity agreement was even the most widespread way to make adjectives, past participles, etc. agree (cf. Anglade 1931:172).<ref>Anglade, Joseph (1931): ''Grammaire élémentaire de l'ancien français''. Paris: Armand Colin, 157-196. Online at: https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Grammaire_%C3%A9l%C3%A9mentaire_de_l%E2%80%99ancien_fran%C3%A7ais/Chapitre_6.</ref> Today, this agreement could allow for equality between grammatical genders instead of the masculine-over-feminine hierarchy that was suggested in the 17th and 18th century by the French grammarians Malherbe, Vaugelas, Bouhours and Beauzée:

**« Le genre masculin, étant le plus noble, doit prédominer toutes les fois que le masculin et le féminin se trouvent ensemble. » (Claude Favre de Vaugelas, ''Remarques sur la langue français''e, 1647).<ref name=":1" />

**« Lorsque les deux genres se rencontrent, il faut que le plus noble l’emporte. » (Bouhours 1675).<ref name=":3" />

**« Le genre masculin est réputé plus noble que le féminin à cause de la supériorité du mâle sur la femelle. » (Beauzée 1767).<ref name=":3" />

* '''Subject pronouns:''' French only marks gender on the third person singular (cf. 'elle' and 'il'). Up to the 12th century, French knew the neutral subject pronoun 'el'/'al'.<ref>Marchello-Nizia Christiane. Le neutre et l'impersonnel. In: ''Linx'', n°21, 1989. Genre et langage. Actes du colloque tenu à Paris X-Nanterre les 14-15-16 décembre 1988, sous la direction de Eliane Koskas et Danielle Leeman. 173-179. DOI : https://doi.org/10.3406/linx.1989.1139. Online at: www.persee.fr/doc/linx_0246-8743_1989_num_21_1_1139.</ref> Today, 'el' cannot be recuperated from ancient French as it would be pronounced the same as 'elle', the current feminin subject pronoun. In Laurentian French (Canada), 'al' sounds like 'elle' in spoken language.<ref name=":5">Florence Ashley (2019): Les personnes non-binaires en français : une perspective concernée et militante. In: ''H-France Salon'' 11(14), p. 6.</ref> It could, however, be an interesting candidate for the rest of the francophone community.<ref>Alpheratz (2018): Genre neutre.TABLEAUX RÉCAPITULATIFS de mots de genre neutre (extraits). Online at: https://www.alpheratz.fr/linguistique/genre-neutre/.</ref> Nevertheless, today, according to the ''Guide de rédaction inclusive'' (2021:14) from the Laval University,<ref name=":11">Université Laval (2021): Guide de rédaction inclusive. Online at: https://www.ulaval.ca/sites/default/files/EDI/Guide_redaction_inclusive_DC_UL.pdf.</ref> the ''Guide de grammaire neutre et inclusive'' (2021:5) from Divergenres,<ref name=":0" /> the ''Petit dico de français neutre/inclusif'' (2018) from La vie en Queer,<ref name=":6">La vie en Queer (2018): Petit dico de français neutre/inclusif. Online at: https://lavieenqueer.wordpress.com/2018/07/26/petit-dico-de-francais-neutre-inclusif/.</ref>  and Wiki Trans (2019),<ref name=":7">Wiki Trans (2019): Comment parler d'une personne non binaire ? Online at: https://wikitrans.co/2019/12/25/comment-parler-dune-personne-non-binaire/.</ref> the most widespread subject (neo)pronoun is 'iel'. It was added 2021 to the grand dictionary Le Robert.<ref>Radio Télévision Suisse (2021): L'entrée du pronom "iel" dans Le Robert provoque des remous. Online at: https://www.rts.ch/info/monde/12651159-lentree-du-pronom-iel-dans-le-robert-provoque-des-remous.html.</ref> Next to 'iel', Laurentian French also uses 'ille'.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":5" /> In metropolitan France, the 'al' pronoun proposed by the linguist Alpheratz in their book ''Grammaire du français inclusif'' (2018) has gained some recognition. The following table presents the main gender neutral subject pronouns found in the French-speaking world.

* '''Clitic and tonic pronouns:''' French distinguishes between clitic and tonic pronouns. A clitic is a word that attaches in a syntactically rigid way to another word to form a prosodic unit with it, lacking prosodic as well as distributional autonomy.<ref name=":8">Michel Launey, Dominique Levet (2017): ''La catégorie de la personne''. Maison des Sciences des l'Homme Paris Nord. Online at: https://web.ac-reims.fr/casnav/enfants_nouv_arrives/aide_a_la_scolarisation/LGIDF/LGIDF.LA%20PERSONNE.02.03.17.pdf.</ref> Currently, there is no prevailing gender neutral clitic direct object personal pronoun; the most common ones are detailed below.

* '''Nouns and adjectives:''' The predominant neutral form, between the analytic and synthetic gender-neutral approach, is denoted in italics in the table. Words such as 'professionnel' and 'professionnelle', which are orally epicene and, thus, indistinguishable in speech, are not included; the use of their shortened doublet form enables inclusivity and gender neutrality in written language.