Studies of Gender as Seen Through Pronominal Expressions

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Gender studies have been conducted from various aspects since the latter part of the 1960s. In Japan, however, gender has not been extensively studied in comparison with western countries. The present study is an attempt to explore gender and pronominal expressions mainly from a sociolinguistic perspective.Feminist linguists often cite a chapter entitled "The Woman" in Jespersen (1922) as a typical work that is biased against women. I have, however, argued that contemporary criticisms of Jespersen as anti-feminist are unfounded, demonstrating that Jespersen's analysis of women's language is purely descriptive from a linguistic standpoint and is far from being anti-feminist. I have shown that "The Woman" represents a pioneering work in the history of gender studies for having successfully drawn attention to the unique characteristics of women's language.I have also attempted to discuss gender-neutral pronouns, called "epicene pronouns" in English. Once "he" was commonly used as a gender-neutral singular pronoun, but it is no longer so because of the criticism of feminists. I have shown various substitutes for "he" as a pronominal replacement for indefinite pronouns, such as everyone, and gender-neutral nouns, such as a speaker or a hearer, and have demonstrated that English is still in the transitional period for finding an appropriate gender-neutral third singular pronoun. Finally I have argued about the usage of man and chairman in detail.