Epicenes and Social Movements

Abstract

Chapter 1 focused on contextualising the epicene debate in terms of the whole pronoun paradigm, semantic values, and the syntactic agreement between pronouns and antecedents. However, also apparent were the links between language-external factors and pronoun development, giving the impression that the use of singular they and generic he is not merely an issue of grammatical agreement. This chapter focuses on con-textualising the language-internal issues presented in Chapter 1 within wider social issues. The chapter is structured chronologically, beginning with an analysis of the origins of traditional grammatical prescriptivism (defined below) in the eighteenth century, before moving on to more modern prescriptions, focusing specifically on non-sexist language reforms born out of second-wave feminism.