{"title":"The use of gender-fair language in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland: A contrastive, corpus-based study","authors":"Sabrina Link","doi":"10.1016/j.lingua.2024.103787","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Gender-fair language (GFL) is currently a widely debated topic in the German-speaking context, yet research on the subject is rather scarce with limited comparative data for the three largest German-speaking countries, Germany, Switzerland, and Austria. The present study seeks to address this research gap with a corpus-based analysis of the use of different forms of GFL over the last two decades in these three countries. Given that the language used by journalists reaches a vast target audience, the corpus for this study consists of some of the most widely circulated and politically diverse daily newspapers in the three countries. The results of the study not only show differences in the frequency of GFL in the three countries, with Austria using GFL most frequently, but also indicate a diverging usage trend from 2021 onwards and variations in the strategies of GFL used. Furthermore, the political orientation of the selected newspapers is not predictive of the frequency of GFL and the strategies used.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":47955,"journal":{"name":"Lingua","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.1000,"publicationDate":"2024-07-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Lingua","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0024384124001165","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Gender-fair language (GFL) is currently a widely debated topic in the German-speaking context, yet research on the subject is rather scarce with limited comparative data for the three largest German-speaking countries, Germany, Switzerland, and Austria. The present study seeks to address this research gap with a corpus-based analysis of the use of different forms of GFL over the last two decades in these three countries. Given that the language used by journalists reaches a vast target audience, the corpus for this study consists of some of the most widely circulated and politically diverse daily newspapers in the three countries. The results of the study not only show differences in the frequency of GFL in the three countries, with Austria using GFL most frequently, but also indicate a diverging usage trend from 2021 onwards and variations in the strategies of GFL used. Furthermore, the political orientation of the selected newspapers is not predictive of the frequency of GFL and the strategies used.
期刊介绍:
Lingua publishes papers of any length, if justified, as well as review articles surveying developments in the various fields of linguistics, and occasional discussions. A considerable number of pages in each issue are devoted to critical book reviews. Lingua also publishes Lingua Franca articles consisting of provocative exchanges expressing strong opinions on central topics in linguistics; The Decade In articles which are educational articles offering the nonspecialist linguist an overview of a given area of study; and Taking up the Gauntlet special issues composed of a set number of papers examining one set of data and exploring whose theory offers the most insight with a minimal set of assumptions and a maximum of arguments.