Dear Prudence, ‘This motheri may not have accepted that theiri child is queer...’: The expanding scope of singular they in two contexts

The use of singular they for generic referents has an extensive history in English, as feminist linguists have long known (Bodine 1975). More recently, linguists have turned their attention to singular they among non-binary people (e.g. Zimman 2015). This talk adds to the emerging literature on singular they that suggests a connection between an increase in the types of contexts in which speakers use singular they and the rise of they/them/their(s) as pronouns for non-binary people (e.g. Conrod 2019). The analysis takes two parts. The first draws on a variety of interactional and mediatized data sources to present a typology of five types of singular they that are distinguished on the basis of 1) whether they refer to a generic or specific person, 2) whether the gender is known or specified by the speaker, and 3) whether gender is directly relevant to the content of the discourse. The progression through these types suggests a shift in the direction of using they for specific individuals whose binary gender is known and relevant to the discourse – clearing the way for the same form to be used for someone whose non-binary gender is known. The second part of the analysis is focused on transcripts from the podcast associated with Slate.com’s advice column, Dear Prudence, hosted by Daniel Mallory Ortberg. On this show, Ortberg and a co-host discuss letters requesting advice from writers who often fail to specify their own genders. The co-hosts employ several discursive strategies in these cases, including the use of singular they. Importantly, the show has a history of giving advice to trans and/or non-binary letter-writers, and Ortberg himself is trans. The ambiguity that exists in they, therefore, is both discursive and epistemological. Put differently, it is not only that a person’s “actual” gender may be unknown to the speaker, but that the speakers gender itself may be indeterminate, uncertain, or non-binary. This dataset thus underscores the flexibility afforded by singular they to harness language change to question dominant frameworks for understanding gender and identity