The diachronic distribution of singular they, generic he, and he or she construction in English newspaper corpora.

• Thesis title in Czech: Diachronní distribuce jednotného "they", generického "they" a konstrukce "he or she" v anglických novinových korpusech.
• Thesis title in English: The diachronic distribution of singular they, generic he, and he or she construction in English newspaper corpora.
• Key words: jednotné „they“|zájmena|neznámý referent|gramatický rod|umělá inteligence|korpusová lingvistika
• English key words: singular they|pronouns|unknown referent|gender|artificial intelligence|corpus linguistics
• Academic year of topic announcement: 2021/2022
• Thesis type: Bachelor's thesis
• Thesis language: angličtina
• Department: Department of the English Language and ELT Methodology (21-UAJD)
• Supervisor: Mgr. Ondřej Tichý, Ph.D.
• Author: hidden - assigned and confirmed by the Study Dept.
• Date of registration: 28.12.2021
• Date of assignment: 28.12.2021
• Administrator's approval: not processed yet
• Confirmed by Study dept. on: 05.01.2022
• Date and time of defence: 31.01.2023 10:00
• Date of electronic submission: 13.01.2023
• Date of proceeded defence: 31.01.2023
• Submitted/finalized: committed by student and finalized
• Opponents: Mgr. Kryštof Beták

Guidelines

The primary focus of this BA thesis is the choice of the epicene pronoun in the contexts where the gender of a singular animate referent is unknown or unspecified. Specifically, the use of singular "they" is contrasted with the use of generic "he" and "he or she", "he/she" construction, as their distribution in the written language over the past 20 years is analysed using corpus linguistics.
In the theoretical part, both grammatical and sociolinguistics factors are considered in order to trace the history of prescription for epicene pronouns, focusing specifically on the development of the issue in recent years. The research part documents the choice of epicene pronoun on samples from two web corpora (SiBol: Corpus of English broadsheet newspapers for years 1993-2013 and Timestamped JSI web corpus for years 2014-2020), and analyses its development over the last 20 years. The hypothesis is that the singular "they" form grows in popularity while the use of generic "he" declines, and potential sociolinguistics reasons for that change are examined.

Práce bude sepsána v anglickém jazyce.

References

Baron, Dennis E. “The Epicene Pronoun: The Word That Failed.” American Speech, vol. 56, no. 2, 1981, pp. 83–97. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/455007.
Bodine, Ann. “Androcentrism in Prescriptive Grammar: Singular 'They', Sex-Indefinite 'He', and 'He or She'.” Language in Society, vol. 4, no. 2, 1975, pp. 129–146. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/4166805.
Burchfield, Robert. Fowler's Modern English Usage. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2004
Coates, Jennifer. Women, Men and Language. London: Longman. 2013 Newman, Michael. “Pronominal Disagreements: The Stubborn Problem of Singular Epicene Antecedents.” Language in Society, vol. 21, no. 3, 1992, pp. 447–475. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/4168370.
Paterson, Laura Louise. “The Use and Prescription of Epicene Pronouns: A Corpus-based Approach to Generic He and Singular They in British English”. 2019.
Quirk, Randolph et al. A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. London: Longman. 1985.
Zuber, Sharon, and Ann M. Reed. “The Politics of Grammar Handbooks: Generic He and Singular They.” College English, vol. 55, no. 5, 1993, pp. 515–530. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/378587.