Morphosyntactic stereotypes of speakers with different genders and sexual orientations: an experimental investigation

Abstract

Previous research has identified differences in language use between speakers representing different genders and sexual orientations, as well as stereotypical beliefs about the existence of such differences. The present paper investigates such stereotypical beliefs among speakers of two varieties of Spanish and explores whether linguistic stereotypes of gender and sexual orientation are stronger in a society with more conservative gender roles. We conducted an experiment where 252 speakers of European and Mexican Spanish were shown pairs of texts and sentences depicting the same event but differing in the use of morphosyntactic resources, creating stereotypically “masculine” and “feminine” variants of the same text or sentence. The informants were asked which of the variants was more likely uttered by a woman (rather than a man), a lesbian woman (rather than a straight woman), or a gay man (rather than a straight man). Some of the morphosyntactic features were strongly associated with speaker gender (e.g., use of first- and second-person singular) and others with lesbian (e.g., use of impersonal structures) or gay speakers (e.g., direct reported speech). Contrary to expectations, the responses did not differ according to informants’ age, gender, or nationality. While the present study did not reveal any differences between the two societies, more cross-linguistic and cultural research is needed to elucidate the effect of society on morphosyntactic variation and stereotypes thereof.