Transcriber: Yadira Yarlette Chinga Huamani Reviewer: Anna Sobota
Hello, everyone.
So my talk today,
along with everyone else’s here, is about the future.
It’s the thread that connects all the topics this evening together.
But something which you may not have paid much attention to
is that all of these talks are also linked by the fact
they’re being delivered through language.
Yes, it sounds kind of obvious because I'm giving a speech.
I need some way to communicate with my audience.
But, it’s true.
Language is integral to our society.
We use it almost constantly.
And as a result,
changes in our society are often reflected in changes in our speech.
And one linguistic development,
which has been very talked about over the past few years
is gender-neutral language.
But what is gender in language anyways?
Well, in more gendered languages, such as Spanish,
it can be seen in the way
that nouns and adjectives have to agree with each other in terms of gender.
So in the phrase: “la niña alta”,
all three of these words end with an “A”
which in Spanish typically denotes a feminine word.
Now, in English
we don’t really have this gendered agreement of nouns and adjectives,
but you can still see gender in the singular pronouns, “he” and “she”.
So, back to gender-neutral language.
Well, that's any language that avoids bias towards a particular sex or gender.
And the English equivalent of this can be seen in singular “they”.
Now, the singular form of “they” isn’t a new concept.
Far from it, The Oxford English Dictionary
traces the first recorded use of singular “they” all the way back to 1375.
And since spoken forms often appear in speech long before they’re written down,
it's very likely that this form appeared even earlier.
And throughout history, it’s been used by prolific writers
such as Chaucer, Shakespeare and Austen.
Furthermore, “you” is used as both a singular and a plural pronoun.
No one complains about it being ambiguous or confusing,
two common arguments against the use of singular “they”.
Singular “you” only really became common in the 1600s
more than 200 years after the earliest recorded use of singular “they”.
Now, Spanish doesn’t have such a pronoun.
Many of its words don’t really have gender neutral alternatives.
So instead they're all suggestions on how to implement this.
And one such change would be to replace the O and A with an E
whenever a gender-neutral form needed to be used.
This could also come with the addition of two new pronouns:
“elle” for singular “they” and “elles” for plural “they”.
Now, the Royal Spanish Academy,
whose job it is to ensure the stability of the language,
haven't accepted any of these proposed changes,
not just the possibility of an E form.
Instead they have said
that the masculine plural is inclusive and includes non-men.
(Laugher)
Now, this is true grammatically but it doesn't really address the reality,
which is that Spanish is a very gendered language.
And by refusing to accept the possibility of gender-neutral forms,
they’re leading to the further exclusion of people
who don’t identify within gender binary
as well as reinforcing the male view that the language has.
We’re very lucky in English to have something like singular “they”
that’s already in common use
because a lot of languages don’t have that option.
And for the most part it’s very hard to convince people
to speak in a way that they think feels unnatural or new to them,
especially if neologisms are involved.
But could it be done?
Well, Swedish, much like English and Spanish,
has a “he” pronoun “han” and a “she” pronoun “hon”.
But it doesn’t have a gender-neutral form.
But the term which is believed to been created in the sixties arrived, “hen”.
Now it only really reached the public in 2012
when a children’s book was published
that only use this new pronoun to refer to its characters.
But was it a really effective implementation
or did it just get cast aside?
Well, in 2011, one year before the release of this book,
there were 13 000 uses of “han” and “hon” to match one use of “hen”.
But in 2018, this had dropped to 133 to 1.
What makes this even more impressive
is that new pronouns are added into languages very rarely.
Now, of course, the implementation of the pronoun isn’t perfect.
It's more likely to be used by younger generations and in urban areas.
But it proves a very important point
that people can and do change their language
when it is useful for them.
And having a pronoun like singular “they” is useful
because you can use this in so many situations.
You have likely used it today multiple times and haven’t even noticed.
You can use it to refer to someone when you don’t know their gender
or when the person you’re talking about doesn’t identify as male or female.
But what’s the point?
I’m sure there are some of you sitting here thinking,
why should I go to this effort to change my language?
What are the benefits?
Well, an experiment also conducted in Sweden in 2019 did a survey to find out
what the effects of gender-neutral pronouns were on speakers’ views
towards gender equality and tolerance towards the LGBTQ+ community.
They theorized that due to the prevalence of patriarchal attitudes,
masculine pronouns would continue to put the emphasis on men
and would lead to a bias
which would shape speakers’ views in a male-centred direction.
This would also make them more likely to endorse traditional gender roles,
as these are rooted in a patriarchal world view
and would increase the chances that anti-LGBTQ prejudice would occur
as this is based on perceived gender role violations.
However, they found the opposite to be true
when gender-neutral pronouns were used.
So, just through the addition of these very small words,
there is a quantifiable mental shift of people’s attitudes
towards equality and tolerance.
And personally,
I think that that's what something that's well worth the effort.
So, can we make all of our language completely gender neutral?
No.
Well, not really.
As I just said,
there have been successful implementations of gender-neutral language
into languages like Swedish.
Languages like Spanish are very likely
to see an increase in the amounts of gender-neutral language used
in the coming years.
But a language like Swedish has around 10 million speakers,
all concentrated in Sweden and some parts of Finland.
A language like Spanish has over 500 million
scattered across the globe in more than 20 countries.
Now, this poses a problem.
It’s much easier to implement language change
when it’s spoken by a select group and in a select place.
So while making a language like Swedish completely gender-neutral
might be feasible,
one like Spanish definitely isn't.
And honestly, it would be a waste of resources.
Complete gender neutrality in a language
isn’t necessarily what we should be aiming for.
Rather, we should be aiming for inclusive language
while we have the option to speak gender-neutrally.
Because when we have that option,
we can make our society a safer and more inclusive place.
Ultimately, language is a tool,
one that will change to adapt to its speakers needs,
because that’s why language changes - utility.
It's the reason why we have words like texting,
which definitely didn't exist in Shakespeare's time
because they didn’t need to use them.
We, however, do.
Language change isn't something being forced in by the youth.
It’s a natural and integral part of all languages.
All of them.
Now, small conscious changes can help to make our society
a more inclusive place to live in.
And while making your language more inclusive
isn’t going to solve sexism, transphobia, homophobia
and all of the countless other issues that are linked to social gender,
it can certainly help to create a space where we can talk about these issues,
help resolve them and hopefully puts us on a path towards a future
where these issues no longer exist.
A future I really hope is one we can live in.
Thank you.
(Applause)