Gendered pronoun usage by Spanish and Russian EL2 speakers: Exploring epicene forms

In the last few years, there has been a focus on gender-inclusive language and particularly epicene pronouns. Epicene pronouns in English are third-person singular pronouns that refer to an indefinite or hypothetical human antecedent, whose gender is unknown or unspecified (Abudalbuh 2012; Everett 2011; Noll et al. 2018; Paterson 2011). The theoretical background lies in Queer Theory (Motschenbacher 2014) that problematizes the use of gender binarism in language (feminine and/or masculine forms). This paper presents an exploratory study on the usage of epicene pronouns in English as an additional language (EL2) by native speakers of Spanish and Russian. It focuses on the epicene pronoun choices and avoidance strategies used, as well as the speakers’ reasons for their use of epicene pronouns and/or avoidance strategies. Epicene pronouns are the focus as they provide one way for EL2 speakers to be introduced to gender-inclusive language. By looking at both usage and reasons, a better understanding of how language and gender interact in these speakers’ L2 can be uncovered. To address this focus, this study utilizes a novel methodology that combines elicitation techniques with a stimulated recall based interview. The elicitation techniques are used in two tasks, i) a writing task consisting of three prompt questions and ii) a speaking task consisting of fifteen questions to gather epicene pronoun usage/non-usage in these modes. This develops a context to mimic authentic language use that focuses on the linguistic feature investigated, which otherwise might be underrepresented, without needing an example model (Eisenbeiss 2010; Hughes 2010; Rose, McKinley and Baffow-Djan 2020). This is followed by a semi-structured interview using stimulated recall to gather the participants’ motives to use/non-use epicene pronouns. The data collection for the project will occur in March-April, with the initial findings presented at the Lavender Language conference. These findings will help contribute to the field of queer linguistics and SLA by providing information about how EL2 speakers from Spanish and Russian L1 address, who are often underrepresented in the literature (see Stormbom 2018; 2019; 2020