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The male bias can be attenuated in reading : on the resolution of anaphoric expressions following gender-fair forms

Tibblin, Julia LU ; Granfelt, Jonas LU orcid ; van de Weijer, Joost LU orcid and Gygax, Pascal (2023) In Glossa Psycholinguistics 2(1). p.1-33
Abstract
Despite the increased use of different types of gender-fair forms in French, studies investigating their interpretation in context remain few. To fill this gap, we conducted a pre-registered study using a timed sentence evaluation task to examine speakers' possibilities to establish an anaphoric relationship between a gendered anaphoric expression (women or men) and non-stereotyped role nouns as antecedents. The antecedents were presented in their masculine form or in one out of three different gender-fair forms (complete double forms: les voisines et voisins, contracted double forms: les voisin·es, or gender-neutral forms: les locataires). In line with previous findings, the masculine form led to a male bias in the participants’ mental... (More)
Despite the increased use of different types of gender-fair forms in French, studies investigating their interpretation in context remain few. To fill this gap, we conducted a pre-registered study using a timed sentence evaluation task to examine speakers' possibilities to establish an anaphoric relationship between a gendered anaphoric expression (women or men) and non-stereotyped role nouns as antecedents. The antecedents were presented in their masculine form or in one out of three different gender-fair forms (complete double forms: les voisines et voisins, contracted double forms: les voisin·es, or gender-neutral forms: les locataires). In line with previous findings, the masculine form led to a male bias in the participants’ mental representations of gender. All three examined gender-fair forms resolved this bias, but comparisons of the different forms to each other revealed differences between them. The findings show that complete double forms lead to equally balanced mental representations of gender while contracted double forms slightly favour representation of women. Finally, gender-neutral forms result in a small male bias, although significantly smaller than the one produced by the masculine form. The results are discussed in relation to the mental models theory and provide new and important insights on how gender-fair forms in French are interpreted. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
; ; and
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
keywords
French, gender-fair language, masculine generics, mental representations, male bias
in
Glossa Psycholinguistics
volume
2
issue
1
pages
33 pages
publisher
eScholarship University of California
ISSN
2767-0279
DOI
10.5070/G60111267
project
Gender-fair language in French: Influence on representation of women and on readability
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
a0a5ec16-1731-45cc-b56a-7e470361265e
alternative location
https://escholarship.org/content/qt19d947nw/supp/qt19d947nw.pdf
date added to LUP
2023-05-26 11:01:21
date last changed
2023-08-14 11:18:09
@article{a0a5ec16-1731-45cc-b56a-7e470361265e,
  abstract     = {{Despite the increased use of different types of gender-fair forms in French, studies investigating their interpretation in context remain few. To fill this gap, we conducted a pre-registered study using a timed sentence evaluation task to examine speakers' possibilities to establish an anaphoric relationship between a gendered anaphoric expression (women or men) and non-stereotyped role nouns as antecedents. The antecedents were presented in their masculine form or in one out of three different gender-fair forms (complete double forms: les voisines et voisins, contracted double forms: les voisin·es, or gender-neutral forms: les locataires). In line with previous findings, the masculine form led to a male bias in the participants’ mental representations of gender. All three examined gender-fair forms resolved this bias, but comparisons of the different forms to each other revealed differences between them. The findings show that complete double forms lead to equally balanced mental representations of gender while contracted double forms slightly favour representation of women. Finally, gender-neutral forms result in a small male bias, although significantly smaller than the one produced by the masculine form. The results are discussed in relation to the mental models theory and provide new and important insights on how gender-fair forms in French are interpreted.}},
  author       = {{Tibblin, Julia and Granfelt, Jonas and van de Weijer, Joost and Gygax, Pascal}},
  issn         = {{2767-0279}},
  keywords     = {{French; gender-fair language; masculine generics; mental representations; male bias}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  month        = {{07}},
  number       = {{1}},
  pages        = {{1--33}},
  publisher    = {{eScholarship University of California}},
  series       = {{Glossa Psycholinguistics}},
  title        = {{The male bias can be attenuated in reading : on the resolution of anaphoric expressions following gender-fair forms}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.5070/G60111267}},
  doi          = {{10.5070/G60111267}},
  volume       = {{2}},
  year         = {{2023}},
}