Gender specification of Polish nouns naming people: language system and public debate arguments

Abstract

Changes in language practices take place against a backdrop of social pressures for greater gender equality. The topic of the current paper concerns the grammatical and social complexities of a language reform for gender fair representation in the Polish context. The “socially-motivated” language reform, which aims to enhance social equality, is underpinned but also challenged by the language systemon the one hand and by public debate on the other. Therefore, grammatical constraints afforded by the language system need to be investigated in the context of the social attitudes to gender relations in Poland as well as attitudes to the proposed linguistic innovations. It is our aim here to reflect upon the current social debate about the process of ongoing language change, more specifically to consider the relevant linguistic and social arguments. These arguments used are discussed, as revealed in a close analysis of a range of texts of varying genre, social reach and significance, written as a reaction to usage dilemmas often faced by the speakers. The texts were collected between January 2014 and November 2019. The paper concludes with suggestions of the best policy to deal with a highly controversial socio-linguistic issue.

The Use of Gender-Marked and Gender-Neutral Forms: The Importance of Linguistic Corpora in Increasing the Linguistic Awareness of L2 Learners of English

“…Many native speakers of Polish regard masculine occupational nouns as "gender neutral". They protest against the formation and use of novel feminine names of jobs and positions in Polish, such as ministra 'female minister', dziekana 'female dean' or kierowczyni 'female driver' (see Bloch-Trojnar, 2015;and Kiełkiewicz-Janowiak, 2019 for more discussion). It should be added that similar resistance to the introduction of new feminine job titles has been observed in, among others, the Italian language (Sabatini, 1985;Marcato & Thüne, 2002) and Spanish (Nissen, 2022).Therefore, it seems important to raise the awareness of political correctness among learners of English in Poland, as well as in other European countries.…”

Political agents or economic conditions: On factors of feminitives normalization in Western and Post-Soviet countries

“…Вместе с тем дискурс о феминитивах не является исключительно западноевропейским: публичные споры о них характерны и для незападного мира, в частности стран постсоветского пространства (Воронина, 2013;Нещименко, 2003;Mickiewicz, 2019). Это позволяет поставить вопрос, чем обусловлены споры о феминитивах и их дальнейшая нормализация.…”

Feminine Personal Nouns in the Polish Language. Derivational and Lexicographical Issues

“…e.g. : Łaziński 2006, Kiełkiewicz-Janowiak 2019, Szpyra-Kozłowska 2019a as well as the ability to examine them in detail. As one of the researchers has noticed:…”

“…Feminine personal nouns, their stylistic value, normative assessment, andmore broadly -ways of expressing information about the feminine gender in the Polish language have been debated on for over 120 years. The earliest discussions on the topic are known, for instance, from linguistic periodicals from the beginning of the 20th century: Język Polski [The Polish Language] and Poradnik Językowy [A Language Guide], and the most recent analyses have been presented by Karamańska and Młynarczyk (2019), Kiełkiewicz-Janowiak (2019), Szpyra-Kozłowska (2019a, b). During the last twenty years, quite a few linguistic monographies have been devoted to the complex issue of feminine personal nouns in Polish, including: Małgorzata Karwatowska, Jolanta Szpyra-Kozłowska: Lingwistyka płci.…”