Gender bias in Chinese EFL writing: A corpus-based study of epicene pronouns

With the global shift towards gender-inclusive language, there has been a renewed interest in the use of epicene pronouns by learners of English. This study examined the use of three epicene pronouns—generic he, he or she, and singular they—among Chinese learners of English as a foreign language (EFL), focusing on variations across antecedent types and semantic contexts. Drawing on a 9.4-million-word learner corpus comprising 52,854 English essays written by Chinese university students in the 2010s, we extracted 914 instances of epicene pronouns referring to the non-gendered noun person. All instances were manually coded for antecedent type (definite, indefinite, and quantificational noun phrases) and semantic context (positive, neutral, and negative). Results showed that generic he was used the most frequently, followed by singular they and then he or she, with notable variations across the two variables analyzed. Specifically, singular they was more commonly used with quantificational antecedents (e.g., every person), whereas generic he predominated with indefinite noun phrases (e.g., a person). Moreover, singular they appeared more often in positive than negative contexts, while generic he showed the reverse pattern. Overall, these findings provide updated insights into how Chinese EFL learners use epicene pronouns, emphasizing how their linguistic and sociocultural backgrounds can influence how they use them. Pedagogical implications are discussed, centering on how to promote inclusive language practices in EFL instruction.