The future of the queen: how to pronounce “König✶innen” ‘gender-neutrally’ in German
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Christine Mooshammer
Abstract
Several glyphs have been proposed for improving gender-inclusiveness in written forms of German, as for example in Mitarbeiter:innen, as an alternative to the masculine generics Mitarbeiter (“colleagues”). The aim of this study is to investigate the pronunciation variants of orthographically marked gender-neutral forms in read speech. A recent recommendation is the insertion of a short pause and/or a glottal stop before the suffixes -/ɪn/ or -/ɪnən/. We compare four groups of native speakers of German varying in age (younger/older) and gender (female/ male). Younger and older females and younger males marked between 72% and 76% of the tokens phonetically or syntactically, whereas older males marked only 30%. The most frequent phonetic markers are glottalisations and glottal stops, followed by combinations of these and pauses, but a wide range of other variants was also found. There were no evident temporal or qualitative distinctions in the younger female and male groups’ realisation. However, the older female group prolonged their pause duration, and both the older female and male groups lengthened the preceding consonant. In summary, it appears that the younger generation has already accepted the pause and glottal markers as phonetic markers for the gender-neutral suffix, while the older generation demonstrates gender differences and more variation in their realisation strategies.
Abstract
Several glyphs have been proposed for improving gender-inclusiveness in written forms of German, as for example in Mitarbeiter:innen, as an alternative to the masculine generics Mitarbeiter (“colleagues”). The aim of this study is to investigate the pronunciation variants of orthographically marked gender-neutral forms in read speech. A recent recommendation is the insertion of a short pause and/or a glottal stop before the suffixes -/ɪn/ or -/ɪnən/. We compare four groups of native speakers of German varying in age (younger/older) and gender (female/ male). Younger and older females and younger males marked between 72% and 76% of the tokens phonetically or syntactically, whereas older males marked only 30%. The most frequent phonetic markers are glottalisations and glottal stops, followed by combinations of these and pauses, but a wide range of other variants was also found. There were no evident temporal or qualitative distinctions in the younger female and male groups’ realisation. However, the older female group prolonged their pause duration, and both the older female and male groups lengthened the preceding consonant. In summary, it appears that the younger generation has already accepted the pause and glottal markers as phonetic markers for the gender-neutral suffix, while the older generation demonstrates gender differences and more variation in their realisation strategies.
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Contents V
- On the nature of speech dynamics: approaches to studying synchronic variation and diachronic change 1
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Part 1: Empirical perspectives on diachronic change
- Fifty years of monophthong and diphthong shifts in Mainstream Australian English 17
- Coarticulation guides sound change: an acoustic-phonetic study of real-time change in word-initial /l/ over four decades of Glaswegian 49
- The impact of automated phonetic alignment and formant tracking workflows on sound change measurement 89
- One place, two speech communities: differing responses to sound change in Mainstream and Aboriginal Australian English in a small rural town 117
- Prosodic change in 100 years: the fall of the rise-fall in an Albanian variety 145
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Part 2: Factors conditioning synchronic variation
- Control of larynx height in vowel production revisited: a real-time MRI study 175
- Sheila’s roses (are in the paddick): reduced vowels in Australian English 207
- The future of the queen: how to pronounce “König✶innen” ‘gender-neutrally’ in German 245
- Synchronic variation and diachronic change: mora-counting and syllable-counting dialects in Japanese 273
- Reconstructing the timeline of a consonantal change in a German dialect: evidence from agent-based modeling 307
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Part 3: Theoretical approaches at the interface between synchronic variation and diachronic change
- On (mis)aligned innovative perception and production norms 343
- Phonological patterns and dependency relations may arise from aerodynamic factors 369
- Actuation without production bias 395
- Understanding the role of broadcast media in sound change 425
- Connecting prosody and duality of patterning in diachrony, typology, phylogeny, and ontogeny 453
- Index 483
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Contents V
- On the nature of speech dynamics: approaches to studying synchronic variation and diachronic change 1
-
Part 1: Empirical perspectives on diachronic change
- Fifty years of monophthong and diphthong shifts in Mainstream Australian English 17
- Coarticulation guides sound change: an acoustic-phonetic study of real-time change in word-initial /l/ over four decades of Glaswegian 49
- The impact of automated phonetic alignment and formant tracking workflows on sound change measurement 89
- One place, two speech communities: differing responses to sound change in Mainstream and Aboriginal Australian English in a small rural town 117
- Prosodic change in 100 years: the fall of the rise-fall in an Albanian variety 145
-
Part 2: Factors conditioning synchronic variation
- Control of larynx height in vowel production revisited: a real-time MRI study 175
- Sheila’s roses (are in the paddick): reduced vowels in Australian English 207
- The future of the queen: how to pronounce “König✶innen” ‘gender-neutrally’ in German 245
- Synchronic variation and diachronic change: mora-counting and syllable-counting dialects in Japanese 273
- Reconstructing the timeline of a consonantal change in a German dialect: evidence from agent-based modeling 307
-
Part 3: Theoretical approaches at the interface between synchronic variation and diachronic change
- On (mis)aligned innovative perception and production norms 343
- Phonological patterns and dependency relations may arise from aerodynamic factors 369
- Actuation without production bias 395
- Understanding the role of broadcast media in sound change 425
- Connecting prosody and duality of patterning in diachrony, typology, phylogeny, and ontogeny 453
- Index 483
