Zum prekären Status sprachlicher Verbindlichkeit: Gendern im Deutschen

Gendered debates? The use of gender-sensitive language in German televised debates, 1997–2022

“…In addition, another variant of pronouncing personal nouns with a glottal stop between the morphological stem and the feminine suffix '-in' has emerged during recent years (for example, '/vɛːlɐʔɪnən/', 'Wähler-innen'). The glottal stop has further fuelled the already-heated debate on GSL; many people sense that their success in social situations is being influenced by their own communicative behaviour regarding gendered expressions (Schneider, 2021).…”

“…The discussion about the use of gender-sensitive language (GSL), that is, using terms that are inclusive of multiple genders rather than using words that name one gender (usually the male), has developed primarily in countries where languages are spoken in which gendered nouns and pronouns play a central role (for example, the Romanian and Scandinavian languages, or German) and leads to heated discussions on whether GSL should be used in the communication of public administrations or in journalism. While a male bias in language had already been a topic among feminists since the 1970s, GSL became a broadly discussed issue when the German Federal Constitutional Court ruled in 2017 that public authorities must offer a third category besides 'male' and 'female' in official documents (Schneider, 2021). In the last five to six years, we have also had a number of publicly received and politically controversial statements by linguists in German-speaking mass media (both pro and contra); for instance, a polemic signature campaign was carried out by the conservative language association Verein Deutsche Sprache, in which gendersensitive language was labelled across the board as 'Gender-Unfug' ('gender nonsense') that should be abolished.…”