Pronoun Wars or a Battle for Inclusion? The Use of Epicene Pronouns and Neopronouns in a Large Corpus of Contemporary English

This paper examines the role of English epicene (or “genderless”) pronouns in challenging binary gender norms, distinguishing between gender neutral forms (i.e. singular “they” and gender symmetric “he”/ “she”) and gender diverse pronouns (e.g. “ze”, “xe”, “ey”), whose use is more recent and limited in scope. Both pronoun types have sparked controversy, especially due to their association with non-binary identities. The study investigates whether and which epicene pronouns are widely attested in contemporary English, as evidenced in a large electronic language corpus (English Web 2021, or enTenTen2021). Results suggest that while the overall use of epicene pronouns is on the rise, gender-diverse forms are still relatively rare and discourse-specific, i.e., more typical of LGBTQ+ discourses.