Generic pronouns in english : rules vs. ideologies

Inc. ref.

Every act of speech that refers to the action of another human being, without stating the proper name or a full reference for the agent, requires pronouns. If the gender of the agent is concealed in any way, the applied pronouns should be generic and all-inclusive including male, female and neutral participants in the action. Pronouns, as words which specify the noun, have to be detailed enough to give a sufficient reference to the agent of the action, but they must also be general enough as to leave room for some interpretation. Ideally, a generic pronoun does not hold a gendered connotation in itself. It should be the unmarked pronoun, equalitarian in its meaning and all-inclusive in its connotation. Gender in most languages is expressed mainy through inflectional affixes on nouns, changes of articles and agreement of other parts of speech. In gendered languages such as German aand French, gender categories for nouns - femenine, masculine and neuter- are only loosely connected to the real world, unless, of course, the reference is in fact human or animal. The arbitratiness may cause some frustration in the language learner, but translating grammatical genderas masculine=male, femenine=female and neuter=sexless should logically be avoided.