Abstract
The pronoun “they” can be either plural or singular, perhaps referring to an individual who identifies as nonbinary. How do listeners identify whether “they” has a singular or plural sense? We test the role of explicitly discussing pronouns (e.g., “Alex uses they/them pronouns”). In three experiments, participants read short stories, like “Alex went running with Liz. They fell down.” Answers to “Who fell down” indicated whether participants interpreted they as Alex or Alex-and-Liz. We found more singular responses in discourse contexts that make Alex more available: when Alex was either the only person in the context or mentioned first. Critically, the singular interpretation was stronger when participants heard explicit instructions that Alex uses they/them pronouns, even though participants in all conditions had ample opportunity to learn this fact through observation. Results show that the social trend to talk about pronouns has a direct impact on how language is understood.
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Acknowledgements
We are grateful to Darith Klibanow for drawing the pictures of the characters in our survey. This project was partially funded by a Stephenson-Lindquist grant from the Dept. of Psychology at UNC Chapel Hill, and partially funded by NSF grants 1651000 and 1917840 to J. Arnold.
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This research was conducted under the approval of the Office of Human Research Ethics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
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Jennifer E. Arnold is a member of the Editorial Board for the journal Psychonomic Bulletin and Review.
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This project was partially funded by a Stephenson-Lindquist grant from the Dept. of Psychology at UNC Chapel Hill, and partially funded by NSF grants 1651000 and 1917840 to J. Arnold.
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None of the experiments reported in this article were formally preregistered. The data are available on a permanent third-party archive: https://osf.io/fr9az/?view_only
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Arnold, J.E., Mayo, H.C. & Dong, L. My pronouns are they/them: Talking about pronouns changes how pronouns are understood. Psychon Bull Rev 28, 1688–1697 (2021). https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-021-01905-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-021-01905-0