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+--- Thread: Gender-neutral text perceived as less comprehensible than gendered text in Polish (/thread-12505.html)
Gender-neutral text perceived as less comprehensible than gendered text in Polish - C C - Jul 6, 2022
https://www.psypost.org/2022/07/gender-neutral-text-perceived-as-less-comprehensible-than-gendered-text-in-polish-study-finds-63456
INTRO: Some languages are more heavily gendered than others and this can cause issues for non-binary people who speak this language who may prefer to use genderless language. New research published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior found that gender-neutral text in Polish, a heavily gendered language, was less comprehensible than gendered text. Further, people described with gender-neutral language were rated less favorably than people described as men or women.
People with a non-binary gender identity describe themselves as having no gender, feeling both masculine and feminine, or feeling somewhere in the middle between male and female. Because of this, non-binary people often prefer a gender-neutral pronoun (e.g., they) be used to address them. However, some languages like Polish are heavily gendered, and gender can be seen in nouns, adjectives, and adverbs – not just pronouns like in English.
Non-binary Polish people have adapted the language to use a passive voice to circumvent using a gendered word. For example, one cannot claim to be a psychologist in Polish (e.g., “I am a psychologist”) without using either the masculine or feminine form of the word psychologist. Thus, a non-binary person might say in Polish that they are a person in the psychologist profession, which is a more passive way of conveying this information.
Researchers were interested then in how this difference in language might affect how other perceive non-binary people... (MORE - details)