1887
  1. Home
  2. e-Journals
  3. Nota Bene
  4. Volume 2, Issue 2
  5. Article
Volume 2, Issue 2
  • ISSN 2950-189X
  • E-ISSN: 2950-1881
PDF
EPUB

Abstract

Abstract

Languages differ in terms of the strategies used to derive (non-binary) inclusive language. In many languages, pronouns present the primary target (e.g., English, Swedish). In other languages, for instance German, inclusive language also affects other parts of grammar, such as nouns. To date, research on German gender-inclusive language has primarily focussed on mental representations, speakers’ attitudes, or use in newspapers. This contribution investigates the use of inclusive language in the recent novel (2022). A qualitative and quantitative analysis of the novel reveals the use of different examples of inclusive language, involving, for instance, the gender star ( ‘students’), in addition to traditional forms. Inclusive language forms not only refer to specific non-binary individuals, but also to groups of unknown gender. As such, they seem to be an addition to the German gender system, rather than a replacement of existing forms.

© 2025 The Author(s)
Available under the CC BY 4.0 license.
Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1075/nb.00046.wes
2025-10-31
2025-12-04

  • From This Site

    /content/journals/10.1075/nb.00046.wes
    dcterms_title,dcterms_subject,pub_keyword
    -contentType:Journal -contentType:Contributor -contentType:Concept -contentType:Institution
    10
    5
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

/deliver/fulltext/nb.00046.wes.html?itemId=/content/journals/10.1075/nb.00046.wes&mimeType=html&fmt=ahah

References

  1. Adler, Astrid & Karolina Hansen
    2020 Studenten, StudentInnen, Studierende? Aktuelle Verwendungspräferenzen bei Personenbezeichnungen. Muttersprache1301. 47–63.
     [Google Scholar]
  2. Anthony, Laurence
    2024 AntConc (Version 4.3.1) [Computer Software]. Tokyo: Waseda University. URL: https://www.laurenceanthony.net/software. (November, 2024.)
     [Google Scholar]
  3. Bradley, Evan. D.
    2020 The influence of linguistic and social attitudes on grammaticality judgements of singular ‘they’. Language Sciences781. 101272. 10.1016/j.langsci.2020.101272
     https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langsci.2020.101272 [Google Scholar]
  4. Braun, Friederike & Geoffrey Haig
    2010 When are German ‘girls’ feminine? How the semantics of age influences the grammar of gender agreement. InMarkus Bieswanger, Heiko Motschenbacher & Susanne Mühleisen (eds.), Language in its socio-cultural context: New explorations in gendered, global and media uses, 69–85. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.
     [Google Scholar]
  5. Busley, Simone & Damaris Nübling
    2021 Referring to women using feminine and neuter gender: Sociopragmatic gender assignment in German dialects. Nordisk Tidskrift för Socioonomastik11. 33–59. 10.59589/noso.12021.14722
     https://doi.org/10.59589/noso.12021.14722 [Google Scholar]
  6. Friedrich, Marcus C. G., Veronika Drößler, Nicole Oberlehberg & Elke Heise
    2021 The influence of the gender asterisk (“Gendersternchen”) on comprehensibility and interest. Frontiers in Psychology121. 760062. 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.760062
     https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.760062 [Google Scholar]
  7. Gustafsson-Sendén, Marie, Emma A. Bäck & Anna Lindqvist
    2015 Introducing a gender-neutral pronoun in a natural gender language: the influence of time on attitudes and behavior. Frontiers in Psychology61. 1–12. 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00893
     https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00893 [Google Scholar]
  8. Hergenhan, Jutta
    2020 Langage non sexiste et antiféminisme en Allemagne. Cahiers du Genre69 (2). 85–107.
     [Google Scholar]
  9. Hord, Levi C. R.
    2016 Bucking the linguistic binary: Gender neutral language in English, Swedish, French, and German. Western Papers in Linguistics / Cahiers Linguistiques de Western3 (1). Article 4.
     [Google Scholar]
  10. de l’Horizon, Kim
    2022 Blutbuch. Cologne: DuMont Buchverlag.
     [Google Scholar]
  11. Jiang, Xiaohu
    2023 Creating a blutbuche and barebacking archive: An analysis of Kim de l’Horizon’s Blutbuch (2022). Journal of European Studies53 (3). 297–309. 10.1177/00472441231188781
     https://doi.org/10.1177/00472441231188781 [Google Scholar]
  12. Kolek, Vít
    2019 Discourse of non-heteronormative labelling in German-language press: The case of Gendersternchen. Slovenščina 2.07 (2). 118–140. 10.4312/slo2.0.2019.2.118‑140
     https://doi.org/10.4312/slo2.0.2019.2.118-140 [Google Scholar]
  13. Köpcke, Klaus-Michael & David Zubin
    1996 Prinzipien für die Genuszuweisung im Deutschen. InEwald Lang & Gisela Zifonun (eds.), Deutsch-typologisch, 473–491. Berlin/New York: De Gruyter. 10.1515/9783110622522‑021
     https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110622522-021 [Google Scholar]
  14. Körner, Anita, Bleen Abraham, Ralf Rummer & Fritz Strack
    2022 Gender representations elicited by the gender star form. Journal of Language and Social Psychology41 (5). 553–571. 10.1177/0261927X221080181
     https://doi.org/10.1177/0261927X221080181 [Google Scholar]
  15. Kotthoff, Helga
    2020 Gender-Sternchen, Binnen-I oder generisches Maskulinum, … (Akademische) Textstile der Personreferenz als Registrierungen?Linguistik Online103 (3). 10.13092/lo.103.7181
     https://doi.org/10.13092/lo.103.7181 [Google Scholar]
  16. Kurz, Pia & Hannah de Mulder
    2023 A star is born? The German gender star and its effects on mental representation. Psychology of Language and Communication27 (1). 384–404.
     [Google Scholar]
  17. Le Tallec-Lloret, Gabrielle
    2020 Identité exclusive vs langue inclusive : l’émergence d’un genre neutre en français contemporain. French Studies in Southern Africa501. 83–100.
     [Google Scholar]
  18. Link, Sabrina
    2024 The use of gender-fair language in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland: A contrastive, corpus-based study. Lingua3081. 103787. 10.1016/j.lingua.2024.103787
     https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2024.103787 [Google Scholar]
  19. Salvo, Sophie
    2024 Knowing gender in Kim de l’Horizon’s Blutbuch. German Quarterly971. 354–369. 10.1111/gequ.12451
     https://doi.org/10.1111/gequ.12451 [Google Scholar]
  20. Scott, Alan K.
    2006 Das Suffix –In: Eine Ergänzung zum deutschen Wortbildungssystem. Zeitschrift für Dialektologie und Linguistik21. 161–175.
     [Google Scholar]
  21. Slavik, Korbinian, Johanna Cronenberg & Christoph Draxler
    2018 A study on the pronunciation of gender-neutral nouns in German. InMalte Belz, Christine Mooshammer, Susanne Fuchs, Stefanie Jannedy, Oksana Rasskazova & Marzena Zygis (eds.), Proceedings of the conference on phonetics & phonology in German-speaking countries, 185–188. Berlin: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.
     [Google Scholar]
  22. Stahlberg, Dagmar & Sabine Sczesny
    2001 Effekte des generischen Maskulinums und alternativer Sprachformen auf den gedanklichen Einbezug von Frauen. Psychologische Rundschau52 (3). 131–140. 10.1026//0033‑3042.52.3.131
     https://doi.org/10.1026//0033-3042.52.3.131 [Google Scholar]
  23. Steiger, Vera & Lisa Irmen
    2011 Recht verständlich und „gender-fair“: Wie sollen Personen in amtlichen Texten bezeichnet werden? Ein Vergleich zwischen verschiedener Rezipientengruppen zur Akzeptanz geschlechtergerechter Rechtssprache. Linguistische Berichte2271. 297–322. 10.46771/2366077500227_2
     https://doi.org/10.46771/2366077500227_2 [Google Scholar]
  24. Verein für Geschlechtsneutrales Deutsch e.V
    Verein für Geschlechtsneutrales Deutsch e.V 2022 Ergebnisse der zweiten öffentlichen Umfrage zu geschlechtsneutralem Deutsch (Oktober 2022). https://geschlechtsneutral.net/zweite-offentliche-umfrage/. (3 March, 2024.)
  25. de Vogelaer, Gunther, Johanna Fanta, Greg Poarch, Sarah Schimke & Lukas Urbanek
    2020 Syntactic or semantic gender agreement in Dutch, German and German learner Dutch: a speeded grammaticality judgement task. InGunther de Vogelaer, Dietha Koster & Thorsten Leuschner (eds.), German and Dutch in contrast, 271–298. Berlin/Boston: Walter de Gruyter. 10.1515/9783110668476‑010
     https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110668476-010 [Google Scholar]
  26. Waldendorf, Anica
    2024 Words of change: The increase of gender-inclusive language in German media. European Sociological Review401. 357–374. 10.1093/esr/jcad044
     https://doi.org/10.1093/esr/jcad044 [Google Scholar]
  27. Wimmer, Martha
    2023 Die Angst, ausgelöscht zu werden. Von dem Unsichtbarmachen non-binärer Geschlechtsidentitäten in Kim de l’Horizons Blutbuch. Transfer. Reception Studies81. 97–110. 10.16926/trs.2023.08.07
     https://doi.org/10.16926/trs.2023.08.07 [Google Scholar]
  28. Zacharsky, Lisa & Evelyn C. Ferstl
    2023 Gendered representations of person referents activated by the nonbinary gender star in German: A word-picture matching task. Discourse Processes60 (4–5). 294–319. 10.1080/0163853X.2023.2199531
     https://doi.org/10.1080/0163853X.2023.2199531 [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1075/nb.00046.wes
Loading
Non-binary language use in a German novel
Nota Bene 2, 508 (2025); https://doi.org/10.1075/nb.00046.wes
/content/journals/10.1075/nb.00046.wes
/content/journals/10.1075/nb.00046.wes
Loading

Data & Media loading...

  • Article Type: Research Article
Keyword(s): gender; German; inclusive language; literary texts

Most Cited

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was successful
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error