An Investigation into the Effects of Typeface on Gendering Words and Non-words in Turkish

Abstract Previous studies have revealed that the typography of typefaces influences people's perception when reading written texts. Individuals have associated taste, emotions, personality characteristics, and gender traits with the visual aesthetics of typefaces. It is thought that the grammatical structure and semantic features of the language, and even the culture, may be effective in these associations. On the other hand, the most obvious and fastest categorization that people make in the outside world is gender attribution. This study investigates the effect of Turkish typefaces on gender associations by measuring feminine, masculine, neutral words, and illegal nonwords in previously perceived feminine and masculine typefaces. There are 58 participants, 29 female and 29 male, in the study. According to the findings of the study, feminine references to feminine words were found to be more than masculine words. Neutral words were perceived as more masculine in both typefaces. No significant gender attribution was found in non-words. Our suggestion is that the effect of typefaces on gender attributions should continue to be explored using a wider variety of typefaces and stimuli.