Accounting for Epicene Choice

Abstract

One of the key aims of this book, as set out in the introduction, was to bring epicene research up to date. Chapters 1 and 3 highlighted that previous work on epicene pronouns could not necessarily account for modern usage, as existing studies were rather old. It was hypothesised that the investigation of current usage would indicate that singular they is the epicene of choice in post-2000 written British English. Furthermore, it was also suggested that modern grammar texts would continue the trend evident in the literature and reject generic he in favour of prescribing epicene avoidance tactics. This in turn could provide positive evidence for the claim that modern grammar prescriptions would be influenced by language-external factors, such as feminism-based language reform. In order to address these hypotheses I used corpora to compare language use with language prescriptions, documenting current usage using the BE06 subcorpora and investigating whether the condemnation of singular they found in older grammars still held post-2000 in modern texts.