Semester

Spring

Date of Graduation

2001

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Type

MA

College

Eberly College of Arts and Sciences

Department

World Languages, Literatures and Linguistics

Committee Chair

Johan Seynnaeve.

Committee Co-Chair

Deborah Janson

Committee Member

Michael Reider

Abstract

The English language is a genderless language in which nouns receive grammatical gender through natural gender assignment. The generic pronoun encoded in English is the pronoun he, which next to its secondary meaning of the generic also has the primary meaning of the third person masculine singular. Following the moderate version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, English speaking societies may therefore be considered androcentric societies, since the unmarked use of the generic he makes everyone in this society male until explicitly proven otherwise. In this thesis I explore the history of the generic pronoun in English and offer suggestions for a change in language awareness which, in the ideal case, could result in a language change in the favor of women in society.

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