Free translations of genderless reference forms

Mike Morgan mwmbombay at GMAIL.COM
Tue Mar 8 08:15:58 UTC 2011


Well, I have seen a few attempts at finding a solution (meaning of course
there is no generally-agreed upon solution)... one being using "he" in all
examples in even chapters and "she" in odd ones...


mwm



On Mon, Mar 7, 2011 at 9:21 PM, Thomas E. Payne <tpayne at uoregon.edu> wrote:

> Hello. Those of us who write in English often run into the problem that
> English forces one to make a gender distinction in reference forms (e.g.,
> pronouns) where the languages we work with make no such distinction. I'm
> wondering whether there is a "standard" way of dealing with this by now.
> Does anyone know?
>
> I'm talking about a huge number of references, e.g., the free translations
> of example sentences in a reference grammar. It can get very tedious to
> have
> to constantly use forms like 'she/he', 'him/her'. The free translations no
> longer sound "free" at all.
>
> Thanks for any thoughts.
>
> Tom
>



-- 
mwm || U C > || mike || мика  || माईक || マイク || மாஇக (aka Dr Michael W
Morgan)
===========================================================
Senior Consultant
BA Programme in Applied Sign Linguistics
IGNOU-UCLan New Delhi, India
===========================================================
"I have become my own version of an optimist. If I can't make it through one
door, I'll go through another door - or I'll make a door. Something terrific
will
come no matter how dark the present." (R. Tagore)
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lingtyp/attachments/20110308/3bea6902/attachment.htm>


More information about the Lingtyp mailing list