When they become one: awareness of and alternatives to gender binary language in English

Abstract

This research is based on a project about the use of gender nonbinary and inclusive language in English that I conducted at the University of Granada in Spain. The main objective of this study was to demonstrate that students who are exposed to inclusive language are more likely to show awareness of and to find alternatives to the gender binary system in the English language. This particular use of the language is not often contemplated in the English-language classroom (in this case, EFL – English as a Foreign Language), and is rarely discussed in terms of gender nonbinary identities. The implementation of inclusive and gender nonbinary language in education is important if we do not want to discriminate against women and other people who do not fall into the gender binary system (that is, female or male). My study was mainly inspired by queer theory (Nelson, 2009) and transformative pedagogy (Bedford, 2009). The data were gathered using an anonymous online survey (Google Form) containing twenty questions, which required short answers related to the third person singular, such as she, he, they or other alternatives; including jobs terminology, such as ‘actor’ or ‘firefighters’, and the usage of certain androcentric expressions, such as ‘mankind’ or ‘man-made’. The corpus under analysis for this paper was organised into three groups: A) 20 students: 10 undergraduates and 10 studying for an MA, who were exposed to this type of language in my lessons (they received input); B) 20 students with similar characteristics but without having received specific input on inclusive and nonbinary language; and C) 20 native speakers of English. Overall, the results supported my main objective. However, more research is needed to further corroborate my findings