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Gender neutral language in French: Difference between revisions
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→Endings from Latin '-or' and '-rix'
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The analytic gender-neutral forms derived from words that originate from Latin '-or' and '-rix' are already being used,<ref name=":14">Viennot, Eliane (2023): Pour un langage non sexiste ! Acteurice, visiteureuse... Des néologismes de plus en plus employés. Online at: https://www.elianeviennot.fr/Langue-mots.html.</ref> although they have not been officially recognized by any French dictionary yet. Some podcasts where you can hear them are ''Les Couilles sur la table'', ''Parler comme jamais'' and ''Papatriarcat''. | The analytic gender-neutral forms derived from words that originate from Latin '-or' and '-rix' are already being used,<ref name=":14">Viennot, Eliane (2023): Pour un langage non sexiste ! Acteurice, visiteureuse... Des néologismes de plus en plus employés. Online at: https://www.elianeviennot.fr/Langue-mots.html.</ref> although they have not been officially recognized by any French dictionary yet. Some podcasts where you can hear them are ''Les Couilles sur la table'', ''Parler comme jamais'' and ''Papatriarcat''. | ||
Synthetic gender-neutral forms have the advantage of preserving the original syllable number of the word, making them less cumbersome than analytic forms. Moreover, the '-aire' suffix does already exist in contemporary French, forming epicene nouns like 'un·e destinataire', 'un·e secrétaire', 'un·e volontaire', 'un·e bibliothécaire', etc. However, several psycholinguistic studies conducted in French<ref>Brauer, M., and Landry, M. (2008): Un ministre peut-il tomber enceinte? L'impact du générique masculin sur les représentations mentales. In: ''L'Année Psychol''. 108, 243-272. DOI: 10.4074/S0003503308002030.</ref><ref>Xiao, H., Strickland, B., and Peperkamp, S. (2023): How fair is gender-fair language? Insights from gender ratio estimations in French. In: ''J. Lang. Soc. Psychol''. 42, 82-106. DOI: 10.1177/0261927X221084643.</ref> and in German<ref>Stahlberg, D., Sczesny, S., and Braun, F. (2001): Name your favorite musician: effects of masculine generics and of their alternatives in German. In: ''J. Lang. Soc. Psychol''. 20, 464-469. DOI: 10.1177/0261927X01020004004.</ref> have found that "gender-unmarked forms are not fully effective in neutralizing the masculine bias"<ref name=":15">Spinelli, Elsa/Chevrot, Jean-Pierre/Varnet, Léo (2023): Neutral is not fair enough: testing the efficiency of different language gender-fair strategies. In: ''Front. Psychol.'' 14. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1256779.</ref> and that "contracted double forms [such as acteur·ice] are more effective in promoting gender balance compared to gender-unmarked forms."<ref name=":15" /> Regarding this issue specifically, analytic gender-neutral forms could then be a more effective solution than synthetic ones. | Synthetic gender-neutral forms have the advantage of preserving the original syllable number of the word, making them less cumbersome than analytic forms. Moreover, the '-aire' suffix does already exist in contemporary French, forming epicene nouns like 'un·e destinataire', 'un·e secrétaire', 'un·e volontaire', 'un·e bibliothécaire', etc. However, several psycholinguistic studies conducted in French<ref>Brauer, M., and Landry, M. (2008): Un ministre peut-il tomber enceinte? L'impact du générique masculin sur les représentations mentales. In: ''L'Année Psychol''. 108, 243-272. DOI: 10.4074/S0003503308002030.</ref><ref>Xiao, H., Strickland, B., and Peperkamp, S. (2023): How fair is gender-fair language? Insights from gender ratio estimations in French. In: ''J. Lang. Soc. Psychol''. 42, 82-106. DOI: 10.1177/0261927X221084643.</ref> and in German<ref>Stahlberg, D., Sczesny, S., and Braun, F. (2001): Name your favorite musician: effects of masculine generics and of their alternatives in German. In: ''J. Lang. Soc. Psychol''. 20, 464-469. DOI: 10.1177/0261927X01020004004.</ref> have found that "gender-unmarked forms are not fully effective in neutralizing the masculine bias"<ref name=":15">Spinelli, Elsa/Chevrot, Jean-Pierre/Varnet, Léo (2023): Neutral is not fair enough: testing the efficiency of different language gender-fair strategies. In: ''Front. Psychol.'' 14. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1256779.</ref> and that "contracted double forms [such as acteur·ice] are more effective in promoting gender balance compared to gender-unmarked forms."<ref name=":15" /> Regarding this issue, specifically, analytic gender-neutral forms could then be a more effective solution than synthetic ones. | ||
==== Endings with '-x' in the masculine ==== | ==== Endings with '-x' in the masculine ==== | ||