[Lingtyp] Pronouns, politeness, political correctness

Wed May 10 15:08:17 UTC 2023

On 5/10/23 16:28, PONSONNET Maia wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> 
> I don't have strong view on pronouns and try my best to not hurt people 
> when I communicate with them, including trying to match their preferred 
> pronouns if I can.
> 
> 
> However, Juergen's parallel raises the question of whether one has the 
> same "ownership" relationship to pronouns as they have to their personal 
> name.

an interesting aspect is that "ownership" of 2nd person pronouns is not 
contested. You can request that someone use the V-form (vous, Sie, 
Usted) when addressing you, and it is universally accepted that they 
have to comply.

The same is currently not true about 3rd person pronouns.

There might be some "hierarchy of rudeness" between using a dispreferred 
2nd person pronoun, a dispreferred 3rd person pronoun and a dispreferred 
(nick)name.

The 3rd person part of such a hierarchy probably needs to be split up. 
In my perception, it is ruder to say "Noam, she" than "any researcher 
who publishes his research", but I am not aware of any research backing 
this claim.

Best wishes
Sebastian

> 
> Ultimately, I believe this raises important and interesting questions 
> about our relationship to language in general?
> 
> 
> Cheers and kind regards to all,
> 
> Maïa (which is actually not the same as Maia, but I usually don't 
> protest, because these French decorations are really tricky to produce 
> on these empoverished qwerty keyboards)
> 
> 
> Maïa Ponsonnet
> 
> Chargée de Recherche HDR @ CNRS Dynamique Du Langage
> 
> 14, avenue Berthelot, 69007 Lyon, FRANCE  -- +33 4 72 72 65 46
> 
> Adjunct @ University of Western Australia
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> <https://journals.openedition.org/jso/>
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> /
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> 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *De :* Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> de la part de 
> Juergen Bohnemeyer <jb77 at buffalo.edu>
> *Envoyé :* mercredi 10 mai 2023 16:18
> *À :* Christian Lehmann; lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> *Objet :* [Lingtyp] Pronouns, politeness, political correctness
> 
> Dear Christian – I should preface this by saying that I don’t know what 
> caused your request for people to refrain from asking to be addressed 
> with their pronouns of choice. It’s very possible that I’m once again 
> missing some earlier parts of this thread. I tried to recover all parts 
> of it that had ended up in my spam folder, but it is entirely possible 
> that I missed something and as result am misunderstanding your request.
> 
> With that said:
> 
> You can choose to look upon this matter as an instance of political 
> correctness, but might I suggest that there is another aspect to it: 
> simple politeness.
> 
> Suppose somebody insists in calling/addressing you (as) /Chris/. You 
> find this obnoxious and ask them to stop. They ignore you and continue 
> calling you /Chris/.
> 
> Would you not agree that this behavior is simply rude? I definitely would.
> 
> Now the policy you are suggesting, if I understand correctly, would 
> amount to asking people to refrain from even publicly objecting to being 
> addressed in a rude manner. So anybody who feels offended by how they 
> are being addressed or referred to should just either “suck it up” or 
> leave this board?
> 
> Apparently, you believe that it is more constructive to not call out 
> rude behavior and (allow people to) quietly suffer it.
> 
> I on the other hand feel that it would be more constructive if everybody 
> tried to refrain from being rude. If people are apparently being rude 
> without realizing it, respectfully point it out to them. And if they 
> still insist in their rude behavior even after it has been pointed out 
> to them, call them out for it.
> 
> So it seems we have different views of how to best maintain politeness 
> in public forums.
> 
> Best – Juergen
> 
> Juergen Bohnemeyer (He/Him)
> Professor, Department of Linguistics
> University at Buffalo
> 
> Office: 642 Baldy Hall, UB North Campus
> Mailing address: 609 Baldy Hall, Buffalo, NY 14260
> Phone: (716) 645 0127
> Fax: (716) 645 3825
> Email: jb77 at buffalo.edu <mailto:jb77 at buffalo.edu>
> Web: http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jb77/ <http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jb77/>
> 
> Office hours Tu/Th 3:30-4:30pm in 642 Baldy or via Zoom (Meeting ID 585 
> 520 2411; Passcode Hoorheh)
> 
> There’s A Crack In Everything - That’s How The Light Gets In
> (Leonard Cohen)
> 
> -- 
> 
> *From: *Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> on behalf of 
> Christian Lehmann <christian.lehmann at uni-erfurt.de>
> *Date: *Wednesday, May 10, 2023 at 3:20 AM
> *To: *lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
> *Subject: *Re: [Lingtyp] what is designated by a complement clause
> 
> Am 10.05.23 um 09:01 schrieb Sebastian Nordhoff:
> 
>     On 5/10/23 08:22, Christian Lehmann wrote:
> 
>         In order to keep the constructive atmosphere in  which our
>         communication takes place and which is a presupposition for the
>         success of this list , I would request that everybody abstain
>         from insisting on political correctness.
> 
> 
> 
>     some people might have a communication preference to not be referred
>     to by "he".
>     You have a preference of not being reminded of these preferences of
>     theirs (unless I have misread your message).
> 
>     Since you request that other people adapt to your preferences,
> 
> No, this is not what I request. I request that nobody should insist that 
> others adapt to his preferences, in this and in similar respects.
> 
> Best wishes,
> Christian
> 
> -- 
> 
> Prof. em. Dr. Christian Lehmann
> Rudolfstr. 4
> 99092 Erfurt
> Deutschland
> 
> Tel.:
> 
> 	
> 
> +49/361/2113417
> 
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> https://www.christianlehmann.eu <https://www.christianlehmann.eu/>
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