1

Gender Sensitivity: How Identity and Ideology Impact Grammatical Processing in Spanish-users

Anton Dolling1,2

1Department of Spanish and Portuguese Studies 2Department of Linguistics

2

ABSTRACT: Spanish uses a binary noun classification system that assigns the grammatical gender of nouns (i.e., feminine, masculine). Other grammatical elements such as articles and adjectives must agree in gender with the noun. For human referents, gender agreement is presumed to accord with the semantic (i.e. real-world) gender of the referent. However, binary gender systems cannot describe the gender identities of all people, such as transgender or non-binary individuals. Members of these communities share a broader, more fluid interpretation of gender and minimize the presumptions made about a person's gender. We examine whether this off-line awareness of the social construction of gender affects speakers' sensitivity to grammatical gender during on-line processing. Spanish-speakers of a variety of sexual and gender identities are compared by recording their eye movements while reading Spanish sentences in which grammatical gender either does or does not concord with animate and inanimate referents. We hypothesize that participants whose off-line perception of gender is more flexible through interaction with a variety of gender identities may show decreased sensitivity to incidents of

'unanticipated' or 'non-concording' grammatical gender when reading, compared to individuals who do not interact with people whose gender identity is outside of the binary.

KEY WORDS: eye movements, gender identity, grammatical gender, sexual identity, Spanish, transgender

3

Introduction

The Spanish language is like many others in that it organizes nouns into distinct classes which are then treated differently during morpho-syntactic agreement processes. With few exceptions, all nouns, whether animate or inanimate, are classified as feminine or masculine—but to what extent does this classification reach? The answer would be simpler if these classes were confined solely to the grammatical domain of language, but they, being used to classify human referents (among other things), are conflated with two social categories known as gender, from which the names

'feminine' and 'masculine' are derived. We must therefore make a distinction between grammatical gender, which is encoded in language, and semantic (social) gender—that is, a person's gender identity. For human referents, the grammatical gender (noun class) of the word must concord with the semantic gender (gender identity) of the human referent in order to form an acceptable utterance and so to categorize such a noun in one regard is to categorize it in the other. This contrasts with the classification of non-human nouns (especially inanimate ones) which have only a grammatical gender and do not have any semantic/social gender, except perhaps in certain, limited metaphorical senses (“She’s a beauty” when referring to a yacht).

A language (and society) whose resources for categorizing a person's gender consist only of a binary system does not suffice for people whose identities are, for example, neither woman nor man, or non-binary, gender fluid, agender, etc. (Lenning 2009; Zimman 2017). In comparison to English, which only marks gender agreement in limited contexts, Spanish speakers are put into a more difficult situation because the language requires that, in addition to nouns, articles and adjectives relating to a noun must bear concording gender markings (i.e., gender inflection or agreement). Except for the first person singular (yo, I) and second person singular (tú, you) pronouns, all subject pronouns and third person direct object pronouns are marked for gender as 4 well. In response to these linguistic limitations on gender expression, Spanish users (specifically those in the trans and queer communities) have spurred the use of innovative and inclusive language that is gender neutral.

One example of such language innovation is the increasingly prevalent use of the word

'Latinx', which has been the subject of discussion and controversy over recent years (de Onís 2017;

Monzó 2016; Patterson 2017; Ramirez & Blay 2017; Reichard 2015; Reyes 2016).

Conventionally, a Spanish-user of Latin American ethnicity might describe themself using the words latina or latino which are morphologically marked for feminine and masculine gender, respectively. The written forms latino/a and latin@ were employed to maintain inclusivity while avoiding cumbersome repetition of latin-, analogous to English's use of the form 's/he' versus 'he or she'. However, even latin@ is very limited, alluding only to the binary gender system (feminine and masculine) and thereby not meeting the needs of many of those in the queer community.

'Latinx' was then born both as an all-inclusive, gender-unspecific descriptor, and as an individual, non-binary identity (Padilla 2016). It is important to point out, however, that 'Latinx' is primarily used in majority English-speaking settings such as the US, a fact that is a source of some of its controversies in the broader Spanish-speaking world (Blogger 2018; de Onís 2017).

Gender-neutral pronouns have also been an area of innovation. The third person singular

(3SG) subject pronoun for human referents has the two conventional forms ella (she, feminine) and

él (he, masculine). In order to accurately describe their gender identity, non-binary and gender- non-conforming Spanish users have created novel pronouns that are gender-neutral. These are variations of the pre-existing pronouns with the gender marking morpheme removed or changed

(élle/éle) (Cactuscom 2015; Élle, July 23; Peñuelas 2015; Skvat 2012; Wikipedia 2018). It is not surprising that resistance to these linguistic changes has been high in the rest of the Spanish- 5 speaking community, considering that pronouns are typically a closed word class, meaning that it is resistant to the adoption of new forms (Azevedo, 2009); however, it would be erroneous to assume that this resistance is not also due in part to prejudice towards gender non-conforming people (e.g. Clark & Jackson 2018; Grant et al. 2012; Lombardi et al. 2001; McLemore 2014;

Stern 2011; Zimman 2017).

As stated above, in addition to nouns and pronouns, Spanish encodes gender on most adjectives in agreement with the nouns that they modify (e.g. libro rojo bookmasculine redmasculine v caja roja boxfeminine redfeminine). Studies have shown that Spanish users anticipate the grammatical gender of these words and use it to build sentence meaning (e.g. Wicha et al. 2004). In contrast,

English does not have an explicit grammatical gender system, but instead reserves marking gender almost exclusively for the third-person singular pronoun and possessives (e.g. Maria found her book v Phil found his book; Baron 1971). It is here that it has commonality with Spanish, leading to language change fueled by the need for non-binary and gender-neutral pronouns. For some time, the English 3SG pronoun has had three 'standard' forms that vary by gender: feminine and masculine for human referents (she, he), and neutral for non-human referents (it) (Baron 1971). More recently, the use of a gender-neutral 3SG pronoun for human referents has (re)emerged in the form of the singular they. This epicene pronoun was more widely used before prescriptivism (steered by androcentrism) attempted to quash it in the seventeenth century, instituting he as the standard epicene pronoun (Balhorn 2004; Bodine 1975; Laitinen 2008). Not until the women's movement in the 1970s was the epicene use of he more broadly regarded as being sexist language. Indeed, past studies suggests that they as an epicene pronoun is more inclusive than he, allowing readers to conceptualize referents of more genders than compared to he, which favors the 6 conceptualization of male referents and consequently slows sentence processing when coupled with female referents/antecedents (Gastil 1990; Khosroshahi 1989; Noll et al. 2018).

With the growing interest in singular they, studies examining the use of singular they and its derivatives (their, them, themself/themselves) as epicene pronouns have suggested that there are syntactically-associated gender features on nouns in English, despite the lack of morphology

(Ackerman n.d.; Ackerman et al. 2018; Bjorkman 2017; Doherty & Conklin 2017). Conceptual information influences the processing of syntactic relationships (Bock & Levelt 1994; Bock,

Loebell, & Morey 1992; Bock & Warren 1985; Vigliocco & Franck 2001), and so is thought to be the source of these gender features. Various studies cite reliance on stereotypical expectations of gender as the cause for sentence processing slowdowns, particularly in relation to occupations (e.g.

Carreiras et al. 1996; Duffy & Keir 2004; Kennison & Trofe 2003; Reali et al. 2015; Sturt 2002), and activities (e.g. Karniol et al. 2016). Doherty and Conklin (2017) found that participants relied on gender-expectancies of the antecedent to resolve they/them pronoun coreference to professions

(e.g. nurse, mechanic, cyclist). Increased gender-expectancy correlated with decreased acceptability of the gender-neutral pronoun, as well as with increased processing cost as measured by reading fixations in an eye-tracking study. Importantly, Doherty and Conklin (2017) assert that gender-expectancy is not encoded as a strict, all-or-nothing binary, but rather varies in strength depending on semantic probabilities. Studies that utilize the event-related potentials (ERP) technique tell a similar story: disagreement with the definitional gender of an antecedent noun (e.g. woman…he) elicits a larger positive wave (similar to the P600 effect and indicative of syntactic reanalysis) than does disagreement with the stereotypical gender of an antecedent noun (e.g. nurse…he) (Osterhout et al. 1997). This same (though milder) response to violations of 7 stereotypical gender expectation provides evidence of the presence of (limited) grammatical gender features in English.

The effects of grammatical gender features are also seen with proper names. Many names carry strong connotations of social gender because of their conventional assignment either to women or to men, and these connotations are strong enough to affect pronoun coreference resolution (Ackerman n.d.; Ackerman et al. 2018; Bjorkman 2017). In a study on the acceptability of the reflexive singular pronoun themself, Ackerman et al. (2018) found that the anaphora was less acceptable when preceded by names that had a strong association with a specific gender (e.g.

Emily, for a woman) compared to names that did not have such an association (e.g. Sam, a name common among both women and men).

Although invisible, the syntactic gender features of human-referent nouns in English play a crucial role in the resolution of pronoun coreference. The present investigation uses these features to assess Spanish users' sensitivity to morphological gender marking. Since the grammatical gender marked on adjectives must concur with that of the noun, participants' processing of predicative adjectives should reveal their gender-expectations for the preceding noun. If we consider only nouns that have a human referent, the grammatical gender of the adjective would concord with that of the noun, which, in turn, would coincide with the social gender of the human referent. Therefore, testing Spanish users' syntactic resolution of adjectives gives us insight into their presumptions about the gender of the human referent, which becomes particularly interesting when comparing social groups that differ in sexual and gender identity.

One's social identity, whether shaped by socioeconomic status, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or gender, has been seen to correlate with linguistic practices and features. The effect of one's gender and sexual identities on language use is widely studied—but perhaps it would be 8 more accurate to say, as the following studies do, that the effect of one's language use on one's gender- and sexual-identity performance is widely studied. Language as a means to construct identity has been observed in cases of gender (e.g. Butler 1990; Cameron 1997; Hall 2009; Holmes

& Schnurr 2006), sexuality (e.g. Abe 2004; Butler 1990; Hall & O’Donovan 1996; Remlinger

1997), and race (e.g. Bucholtz 1995; Melo & Lopes 2013;). Extra-linguistic features do not simply mandate linguistic practices; rather, individuals use language as a resource for constructing and performing their identities (e.g. Besnier 2003; Cameron 2005; Eckert & McConnell-Ginet 1992b;

Goffman 1976; Noels 1997; Rampton 2000), and these linguistic strategies consequently diffuse throughout a social network whose foundation is in a community of practice (e.g. Eckert &

McConnell-Ginet 1992a; Eckert & Wenger 2005). While a community of practice is defined by its members who interact for the purpose of achieving a common goal, it is often identified, or referred to, by the social trait common among its members (e.g. sexuality), and as a result, the linguistic features found there are often erroneously extended onto all and any individuals who have the social trait even if they are not part of the social network. This essentialist perspective would imply that extra-linguistic features do mandate linguistic practices. However, groups that may appear linguistically and socially uniform to an outsider are in fact diverse in both regards

(Bucholtz & Hall 2004; Zimman 2019).

While many of the linguistic features in a community of practice are unconsciously and implicitly used, members of the transgender community are typically more conscientious of the implications of their (and others') language use in the visibility, representation, and performance of gender identity, and thus purposefully reform their language in order to align it with their ideologies (Butler 1990; Cameron 2003; Zimman 2017; Zimman 2019). Past studies that have examined the impact of both social and linguistic ideologies on language production and 9 processing have yielded mixed results. In Khosroshahi's (1989) investigation of the effect of people's feminist ideologies on their language processing, women (but not men) who used reformed language (defined in this context as the use of they or he or she rather than he for a generic epicene pronoun) in their term papers were found to be more likely to conceptualize a female referent when presented with gender-indefinite/generic pronouns, compared to women who did not use reformed language. Herring et al.'s (1992) examination of discourse in an online chat room used by self-professed feminists found that the ideologies held by the male members were not reflected in their perception of, nor their attitudes toward, the contributions of their female peers. This example looks at the language user's behavior as an indirect examination of their perception of language use, in contrast to the on-line language processing task designed by

Khosroshahi (1989). Assuming that trans people and the members in their communities of practice do utilize the language reformation that they advocate (Zimman 2017; Zimman 2019), we will suppose that these ideologies and language practices can have an impact on grammatical processing, similar to the effect seen in Khosroshahi (1989), and that this impact is more likely to be seen in the people who comprise the trans community.

The Present Study

Despite lacking semantic gender, non-human and inanimate nouns in Spanish are still marked for gender with the same morphology that marks human referents. This ubiquity of obligatory gender-marking suggests that language reform may be more difficult to achieve than in

English, even if Spanish users are only reforming the language used to gender people. It also suggests that if Spanish speakers' language reformation impacts grammatical processing, this 10 impact will not be limited to cases that correlate to semantic gender but will extend onto gender that is purely grammatical.

The present study considers both of these questions: (1) whether the language ideologies and reformative practices of those who understand social gender to be fluid impact on-line processing of grammatical gender; and (2) whether this impact is limited only to instances in which grammatical gender corresponds to social gender, or extends to grammatical gender that has no semantic reference.

In order to investigate these issues, we performed an eye-tracking while reading task in which we manipulated the gender stereotypicality of proper names and professions and included gender-agreeing or -disagreeing adjectives to test the flexibility of the participants' grammatical processing. We held the following two hypotheses: (1) that participants who used language reformed for gender neutrality and inclusivity would show a decreased sensitivity to conventional noun-adjective gender disagreements and conventional name-profession gender unexpectancies compared to participants who did not use reformed language; and (2) that any effect on sensitivity to gender would be more pronounced on animate/human referent nouns (in this case, names) compared to inanimate nouns.

In addition to these formal hypotheses, we also predicted that sensitivity to gender will correlate with some respect to social identity. As stated above, social identity does not mandate linguistic practices, but it can often be constrained by the communities of practice in which a person participates, and these are linked to language use. Therefore, while there are many trans people who do not advocate for language reformation, and there are many cisgender1 people who

1cisgender, in contrast to transgender, describes a person whose current gender identity coincides with the gender identity that they were assigned at birth.

11 do, in today’s society language reformation is a more prominent topic of discussion within the trans community, and so we expect to find more of an effect in this group (see Zimman 2019, p.

153). We also identify a third group: sexual minorities who are not transgender. The trans community is the T in LGBTQ+, and while there is not nearly as much dialogue and unity among these sexual and gender minority communities as one would expect (DeLine 2014; Graves 2018;

Lloyd & Finn 2017; Stern 2011; TIFF Originals 2017), LGBQ+-identified people are more likely to be exposed to the ideologies and issues relevant to the trans community (compared to cisgender or heterosexual people) because of the frequency with which these minorities are grouped together in institutional contexts and discourse. Furthermore, even without participating in the discussions of the trans community, sexual minorities often hold ideologies about gender roles that diverge from heteronormative conventions, and these are reflected in their language use. One example is gay men’s popular use of feminine pronouns (e.g. she, girl) when referring to one another, a practice that largely originated in Drag culture (which itself has had a prominent role in the history of the trans identity; Riedel 2018) (Barrett 1999; Kulick 2019; Remlinger 1997; Zimman 2017).

In Spanish there exists a similar process of effeminization used by gay men, in which nouns with

(gay) male referents are encoded with feminine morphology (Sanz Sánchez 2009). These language practices may desensitize such speakers to anomalies in gender agreement. And so, we hypothesize that along the continuum of reformed language use and gender sensitivity, heterosexual and/or cisgender individuals will cluster at one end, transgender individuals will cluster at the other, and sexual minorities will cluster somewhere in between.

Method

Overview 12

Participants' eye movements were measured using a Duo portable eye-tracking camera (SR

Research) placed on a laptop directly in front of them. Participants positioned their heads on a desk-mounted chinrest in order to minimize head movement while they read sentences printed on the laptop screen. At the beginning of the experimental session, participants provided voluntary informed consent. Next, participants performed a 9-point calibration test to increase eye-tracker accuracy. Participants were instructed to read through each sentence naturally and quickly, and to press a button on a game pad controller to indicate completion. A yes/no comprehension question followed each sentence in which participants used the same game pad controller to respond—left button to indicate yes and right button to indicate no. Each session began with a short practice session. During the trials, the principal investigator initiated each stimulus sentence for eye movement drift correction. After the eye-tracking experiment, the participants were given a short break before being asked to complete the language proficiency, background, identity, and name identification questionnaires. Participants completed two multiple-choice standardized grammar tests commonly used in Spanish-English psycholinguistic research (e.g. Valdés Kroff, Guzzardo

Tamargo, & Dussias 2018), i.e., the MELICET and DELE questionnaires, to measure their proficiency in English and Spanish, respectively. They also completed the LEAP-Q language background questionnaire (Marian, Blumenfeld, & Kaushanskaya 2007). Then they were given a questionnaire presented on Qualtrics that listed all the names used in the stimuli of this experiment and were asked to rate the names based on which gender they associate with each. This was done in order to validate the gender-categories that were assigned to each name based on the conventional gender assigned to the name. Finally, the participants completed a second Qualtrics questionnaire in which they were asked to describe their sexual and gender identities, as well as their level of interaction with members of the LGBTQ+ community. 13

Recruitment

The participants were recruited by posting flyers in public areas on the university campus and in other establishments in town. These off-campus locations were chosen for their likelihood to attract Spanish-speakers as clientele and/or for being safe spaces for members of the LGBTQ+ community. The flyers advertised the experiment and provided the contact information of the principal investigators. After being contacted, the investigators scheduled appointments with the participants to perform the study and complete the questionnaires. Upon completion of the study, the participants had the option to receive compensation in the form of either credit for a university course or ten dollars. The study procedure and recruitment were approved by the University of

Florida’s Institutional Review Board.

Participants

Data from 25 participants was successfully gathered. Participants were around college-age, most in their early twenties. All participants reported having received some level of higher education, averaging over ten years in the amount of formal education received. They varied a fair amount in their Spanish proficiency test (DELE) scores, and even more so in their English proficiency test

(MELICET) scores. Although there were several cases of multilingualism, nearly all participants listed Spanish and English as their first two languages in order of dominance, and all but one participant reported acquiring Spanish before or at the same time as acquiring English. Participants reported acquiring Spanish within the first five years of life, and such was the case for English for most participants; some participants did not began acquiring English until after about the age of twelve. Most reported average to high command of the Spanish language, with an overall lower 14 proficiency in reading; and most reported an even higher command of the English language.

Dominance in English rather than Spanish was found in the majority of participants. About half of the participants reported having immigrated to the US, some within the last twenty years but some as recently as within the last ten. Regardless of immigration status, participants reported a wide variety of (multiple) cultural identities including American, “Arabic”, Chilean, Colombian, Costa

Rican, Cuban, European, Hispanic, Italian, Mexican, Peruvian, Puerto Rican, Venezuelan, and

Syrian. Some participants had minor vision problems for which they used corrective lenses, and one participant reported having dyslexia.

Materials: Questionnaires

While the DELE, MELICET, and LEAP-Q questionnaires were preexisting and validated measures, the two surveys administered on Qualtrics were designed for the present study.

The Name survey asked participants to rate names based on which gender they associated with the name. This was done in order to validate the categorization of the names as being either conventionally feminine or masculine, or being used for either of these genders (ambiguous). The measure also revealed any biases that a participant(s) may have had toward a name, presumably due to past exposure to a person with that name. All the names that were used in the study were included in the questionnaire, although a participant only saw some of these names in their experimental session.

The Identity survey assessed the participants' sexual and gender identities, as well as their level of interaction with members of the LGBTQ+ community. Many other studies have made use of questionnaires to measure these social factors, but there was no singular measure that both was consistently used and had diverse enough options to serve in this study. For assessing sexual 15 orientation, most studies employed self-identification questions whose options were derived from the polar dichotomy of homosexuality and heterosexuality, having at maximum only three categories ("homosexual", "bisexual", "heterosexual") (Jorm et al. 2002), or supplementing these only with an option such as 'uncertain/don't know' (Ellis et al. 2005), and "none of the above"

(Bontempo & D'augelli 2002). Others expanded further on these three categories, making quantitative distinctions reminiscent of the Kinsey Scale or the Klein Sexual Orientation Grid

(Drabble et al. 2005; Thompson & Morgan 2008). In some cases, questions about the sexual experiences of the participants were used in addition to the self-identification question, asking about the gender of sexual partners, past, present, or fanciful. These questions made no reference to genders outside of the binary, mentioning either only "females and males" or only "opposite sex" and "same sex" (Bontempo & D'augelli 2002; Ellis et al. 2005). Questions assessing gender identity were nearly as limited, usually being based exclusively on the gender binary (Marshall

2016). Even in Reisner et al.'s (2014) study measuring transgender identity, the categories provided to participants for describing their gender identity were defined using the female-male binary

(except for the "Other (Specify)" option, which was misconstrued for sexual orientation identity by the majority of the participants who responded to it). Although the present study was less concerned with the specific sexual or gender identity of each participant—as its aim was to compare the linguistic practices among each of the transgender, LGBTQ+, and cisgender/heterosexual communities—in order to invite and validate participants of all identities and avoid misclassifying someone, a more comprehensive list of categories was used. Participants could select one or multiple categories for both their sexual and gender identities, and they were asked to indicate which pronouns they used (both in Spanish and in English). A text-box was included in all of these questions so that a participant could add any identity not found in the 16 provided list. The Identity survey then asked for the number of people the participant personally knew who were members of the LGBTQ+ community, and how many specifically trans people the person personally knew. The general amounts of time the participant spent with people from each of these communities were also elicited. Finally, the survey asked participants to report their own level of support for the people in each of these communities.

McCabe et. al (2012) compared the effect that a three- versus five-category question had on response collection and found that sexual-identity minorities can be misclassified by researchers when the question offers five categories that are later collapsed into three upon analysis. They also noted that sexual identity may not be accurately assessed using survey questions that treat it as static. Although the present study does reorganize multiple categories into just three primary groups, the categories that participants select are their own self-identification, and therefore are believed to more accurately reflect their social identity, attitudes, practices, rather than attempt to define, or otherwise delineate the boundary between, one identity versus another.

Furthermore, participants were also analyzed as one group purely according to their level of interaction with members of the LGBTQ+ and transgender communities, regardless of their identities.

Materials: Stimuli

The stimuli consisted of Spanish sentences that contained either a human referent as the noun, or a non-human referent as the noun (see section Tables).

Human referents were all designated by a name that can be categorized as conventionally feminine (e.g. Emily), conventionally masculine (e.g. George), or ambiguous because it is commonly given to both women and men (Sam). Each of these sentences included a profession 17 which the named person was implied to have, and an adjective that described the named person.

The professions were categorized as having either conventionally feminine or masculine connotations (e.g. secretary, wrestler), or not having a connotation (i.e. being neutral) (e.g. beachgoer). The adjectives were marked grammatically for either feminine or masculine gender, per conventional Spanish grammar constraints. These sentences thus had three principal variables: the social gender associated with the name, the social gender associated with the profession, and the grammatical gender morphologically encoded on the adjective. Consequently, the sentences could (by expectations of conventional gender roles) agree or disagree in terms of the gender of the profession and that of the named person; and agree or disagree in terms of the gender of the named person and the grammatical gender encoded in the descriptive adjective. For names that are ambiguous, the profession may be used by the participant as the main justification for semantic gender assignment, and therefore may agree or disagree with the grammatical gender of the adjective.

The majority of the names used in the stimuli were American/English names because, unlike most Hispanic/Spanish names, they are not marked morphologically for gender. Names that were either feminine or masculine were selected based on their popularity/frequency in order to ensure that participants were likely to recognize the names and their gender connotations. The gender-neutral names were similarly selected for frequency, although because of their overall lower frequency, some gender-neutral names were more obscure. Many of the names were borrowed from the norming dataset kindly provided by Lauren Ackerman and used in Ackerman's forthcoming eye-tracking study. The names were also rated for their gender connotation by the participants in this study after completion of the eye-tracking experimental trial. 18

Non-human referents were mostly inanimate, but there were four sentences that included animals as the target noun. However, these animals were ones whose linguistic form in Spanish is singular and not subject to variation based on the actual sex of the animal. The sentences containing these non-human referents had only the referent and the descriptive adjective (no profession), each of which had the grammatical gender of either feminine or masculine. In these sentences, the grammatical gender of the adjective could either agree or disagree with the gender of the noun.

For all the sentences, specific articles encoded with gender (la, el, una, un) pertaining to the target nouns were removed so that there was no morphological indication of the target noun's gender except for the noun itself and the predicate adjective. The obligatory use of such articles is more prevalent in Spanish than in English, however, and so the sentences instead included quantifiers or possessive determiners that were not marked for gender (mi/s, cada, tal/es). The stimuli were counterbalanced across six different "lists" or versions of the experiment, each of which contained the same sentences but varied only with respect to the manipulated variables. An equivalent number of filler sentences was included, as well as a small number of practice sentences at the beginning of the experiment. Each sentence was immediately followed by a simple comprehension question in order to ensure that the participants were reading the sentences accurately.

Results

Eye-tracking study

In this experiment we used a regression model to measure the influence that our predictor variables had on the predicted variables. This design was two-layered, however, insomuch that there existed a factorial design for the eye-tracking experiment that included only experimenter variables, and 19 this eye-tracking experiment fell within a larger regression model that included the additional variables of social identity and linguistic practice. Because of the quantity of variables and the complexity of the design, meaningful results could not be gleaned from the small pool of data obtained from the twenty-five participants in the eye-tracking study. However, some trends are seen that suggest the utility of certain variables in future studies.

The results discussed here include analysis of all the participants as one group in the eye- tracking-while-reading study. Deeper analysis would have proceeded to superimpose the categories of social identity onto this data in order to search for an effect, but this step was not taken due to the lack of significant results in the subordinate-layer regression model of the eye- tracking study. In the eye-tracking data, four locations in the stimuli were identified: the critical word (CW) (an adjective), the word preceding the critical word (CW-1), the word following the critical word (CW+1), and the word following this CW+1 (CW+2). In this section, we only discuss data for the critical word. In each location, the three measures used were gaze duration, regression path duration (RPD), and total duration. Gaze duration is defined as the sum of all fixations (in milliseconds) on a single-word interest area beginning with the very first fixation until the first time the participant’s gaze leaves this area. RPD means the sum of fixations on the target area that occurred after the participant initially moved away from the area. And total duration is the total amount of time spent fixated on the target area (Guzzardo Tamargo et al. 2016). A higher RTs value corresponded to a longer duration, and indicated a slowdown in language processing, which was interpreted as sensitivity to some anomaly in the stimuli—in this case, discontinuity in grammatical or semantic gender.

Beginning with only the data concerning human referents (i.e. personal names), we first looked at the relationship between the gender of the names (in Figures 1-4, noun_gender) and the 20 gender associated with the profession (in Figures 1-3, name_prof_conotation). A name could be marked (by convention) with either feminine gender (e.g. Sarah), masculine gender (e.g. Tom), or ambiguous gender (e.g. Sam); the professions could similarly have connotations that were either feminine (e.g. nurse), masculine (e.g. mechanic), or neutral (e.g. cyclist). Across all measures, there was a bias for masculine-connotated professions, indicated by faster processing. For gaze duration (Figure 1), processing was most slowed when the profession connotation was not neutral and also did not concord with the gender of the name. Gaze duration decreased when masculine and feminine names were coupled with professions that shared the same gender connotation. Gaze durations for ambiguous names were unaffected by the gender of the profession. Regression path duration (Figure 2) shows a longer processing time for feminine-connotated professions across all name types, compared to masculine-connotated professions, which had shorter processing times.

Neutral professions generally created RPDs that fell between those of the feminine and masculine professions. The total duration measure (Figure 3) displays the same effect on processing seen in the RPD measure. None of these differences were statistically significant.

The second set of sentences in the eye-tracking study contained non-human nouns which were grammatically marked as either feminine or masculine, and coupled with an adjective that was also grammatically marked as either feminine or masculine; thus, in contrast to the names, the gender of the adjective simply either agreed or disagreed with the gender of the noun (see Figure

4). Across all measures there was an asymmetry in the effect of agreement with regard to the gender of the noun: for feminine nouns, processing was faster when the adjective gender disagreed with the noun gender (i.e. the adjective was marked for the masculine); for masculine nouns, processing was faster when the adjective gender agreed with the noun gender (i.e. the adjective was marked for the masculine). The processing time was overall longest for masculine nouns that 21 were mismatched with feminine adjectives, and shortest for masculine nouns that were matched with masculine adjectives. These results suggest that there is a bias to accept masculine-marked adjectives more readily than feminine-marked adjectives. None of these differences were statistically significant.

Sexual and Gender Identity Questionnaire

After completing the eye-tracking study and the DELE, MELICET, and LEAP-Q questionnaires, the participants were asked to complete two final questionnaires on Qualtrics. They first completed the Name questionnaire, in which they gave ratings to all the names that were used in the study.

Finally, they completed the Identity questionnaire.

The Identity questionnaire asked participants to report their own identities as well as their level of interaction with and support of people who were in the LGBTQ+ and/or transgender communities. Of the twenty-five participants, one identified as asexual; five as bisexual; two as homosexual; three as pansexual, one of whom also described themself as “queer”, and another one of whom as also bisexual; and fifteen as heterosexual. Of these same twenty-five participants, one identified as agender; one as non-binary; three as cisgender man; seventeen as cisgender woman; one as “straight” (a sexual identity); and two participants selected “prefer not to reply.”

The first set of analyses examines the relationship between the participants’ identities and their level of interaction with social groups. In these analyses, the participants’ sexual identity was coded as either minority or majority, minority including everything except heterosexuality.

Similarly, for gender identity participants were categorized as either minority or majority, minority including everything except a cisgender identity. Participants who identified as a sexual minority on average knew more people who were also LGBTQ+ identified (nineteen), compared to 22 participants who identified as the sexual majority (eleven). The same was true for the average number of trans people that the participants knew (six versus fewer than two). Furthermore, in each participant group, the average number of trans people known was much smaller than the number of LGBTQ+ identified people known (see Figure 5). The same trends were seen when analyzing the participants’ frequency of interaction with these groups (Figure 6). In the relationship between the participants’ gender identity and the number of LGBTQ+ people known

(Figure 7), again those who identified as a minority knew on average more people from this group

(seventeen) than compared to those who were cisgender (who knew fifteen). People knew on average more LGBTQ+ people than specifically trans people. In contrast to the trend seen with the sexual identity, the gender identity majority knew on average just slightly more trans people (more than three). Identifying as a gender minority only slightly increased the average frequency of interaction with LGBTQ+ people, compared to identifying as a gender majority; but it more significantly increased the average frequency of interaction with trans people (Figure 8). None of the trends were analyzed for statistical significance.

These preliminary results offer support for the supposition that being of a certain sexual or gender identity increases the likelihood that a person interacts more regularly with like-identified individuals, thus forming communities in which linguistic practices may be shared.

Next, we looked to see whether the participants’ attitudes of support for each of the communities were impacted by the number of people known and the frequency of interaction. Few clear trends can be seen in the data because of the small sample size. The few responses that contrast sharply with those surrounding them oppose a correlation between, for example, the number of trans people known and the level of support for trans people (Figure 10; see also Figures

9, 11, & 12). However, the level of self-reported support for both LGBTQ+ identified people and 23 trans people generally was higher when interaction with these people was higher (Figures 11 and

12). Although the majority of participants reported interacting with trans people only once a year or never, most of these participants still reported high levels of support. And it was only participants who interacted with trans people as infrequently as once a year or never that reported low levels of support. Participants overall had more frequent interaction with LGBTQ+ people than with trans people. None of the trends were analyzed for statistical significance.

At the very least, the results suggest that individuals are less likely to support members of the LGBTQ+ and transgender communities if they do not have much experience interacting with them. There is also evidence that people still support trans people even if they not personally know or interact with someone who is trans. The degree to which a person is truly supportive of the trans community can only be determined by the community’s members, but these findings give hope that the participants (by being supportive of trans individuals) will be receptive to reforming their language if/when they join a community of practice in which gender-inclusive language is shared.

Discussion

Because of the small amount of data gathered, only preliminary analysis of the eye-tracking data and the questionnaire data was possible. Furthermore, information from the questionnaire data was not incorporated into a larger statistical model (as was the initial intent of this study) for the purpose of looking for evidence of an effect on the processing of grammatical gender by sexual and gender identity. Nevertheless, the data collected tentatively supports some aspects of the experimental hypotheses and agrees with previous findings and theories on the use of language within social communities. 24

Responses from the Identity survey appear to provide evidence that people who identify as a sexual or gender minority are more inclined both to interact with and support people who identify similarly, compared to people who do not identify as such. Coupled with the theory of language diffusion through communities of practice, this socialization pattern lays the groundwork for the supposition that transgender people (and, to a lesser extent, LGBTQ+-identified people) are more likely to utilize language reformed for gender inclusivity. By the same token, however, the distribution of language practices within the human population is implied to be mutable, not confined to a community, and require only linguistic interaction to spread. Despite the concentration of gender-inclusive linguistic practices within the trans community at present, more universal dissemination of such language may be the seen in the future. The implication of such a hypothesis is very great indeed, if eye-tracking data can substantiate the influence that language practices have on implicit grammatical processes. Let us suppose that this is the case—that transgender Spanish-users, and anyone else who uses language reformed for gender neutrality, experience decreased sensitivity to violations of grammatical gender. Such a phenomenon would illuminate the intimate relationship between language and social systems and ideologies, demonstrating the effect that one can have on the other. Furthermore, if a change in social (gender) ideology and linguistic performance can restructure a fundamental aspect of language, then the reverse may also be true. At the end of a long stretch of history, what was once the Spanish language may have a completely distinct (or absent) grammatical gender system, and what was once today’s society may have forgotten the gender distinctions made among people. For historical linguistic research, these findings may help elucidate the origin or evolution of grammatical gender, as well as other social conventions. At any rate, at the present time, such an influence on 25 implicit linguistic processes would further evidence the utility and validity of language reformation as a tool for achieving social gender inclusivity, and, indeed, any other social objective.

Limitations

This study was a first attempt at uncovering any effect that social identity may have on grammatical processes in Spanish. Only limited conclusions can be drawn from the data due to the shortcomings of the experiment’s execution and design, but fortunately these aspects can be revised in future work in order to obtain more accurate data. The problems encountered during the investigation are reported in this section, along with the possible means to remedy them.

To begin, the eye-tracking experiment was weakened by the complexity of the variable scheme. Examining three genders of human nouns across two genders of adjectives, as well as across three types of professions, produced many different condition sets that required examination; and to add even more to the data, non-human nouns with two genders across two genders of adjectives were also examined. More data than could be reasonably collected in the allotted time with the allotted resources would be necessary to sufficiently evidence any effects in all these conditions. Future studies would do well to focus on examining just some of the variables

(e.g. only human nouns, or only non-human nouns). Narrowing the scope of the study may also provide better quality data from each individual trial because the duration of the eye-tracking trial may be reduced and thus be less taxing for the participant.

The stimuli for the eye-tracking experiment can also be improved by standardizing the sentences in terms of total length, syntactic complexity, location of the target word, and order of the appearance of the manipulated variables in the sentence. Due to the difficulty of avoiding the use of articles in Spanish, the experimental sentences designed for this study varied considerably 26 in length and the location of the target word and tended to employ complex and sometimes awkward syntax. Additionally, although the stimuli were counterbalanced for the gender of nouns and adjectives, there was not an even distribution of professions of varying gender connotations; namely, most professions were simply without a gender connotation. By narrowing the scope of the eye-tracking experiment, more attention can be given to each of these factors in order to minimize the effects of non-target conditions such as syntactic complexity.

The capacity of the DELE test to determine Spanish proficiency is questionable because of its bias to peninsular Spanish. It is also only a multiple-choice reading test, and evaluates knowledge pertaining to a certain level of education. It certainly does not measure a participant’s implicit sensitivity to grammatical gender, a feature that is present in native Spanish speakers and of primary interest for this study. Whether the results from the DELE are even pertinent to the inclusion of a participant’s data in the present study is debatable. The same can be said for the

MELICET English proficiency test. Participants did not encounter English in the eye-tracking study, but the surveys that they completed on Qualtrics were in English. The MELICET test was included in order to ensure that the participants had a sufficient command of English to accurately complete the Name and Identity surveys. However, the language in these surveys were not of a particularly high level (like what the MELICET tested); the surveys merely contained vocabulary pertaining to sexual and gender identity that, for some, may be unfamiliar even in their native language. In order to ensure that the participants are best able to understand the questions about an issue as personal as gender or sexual identity, future studies may decide to present the questionnaires in Spanish.

The Identity survey presented on Qualtrics was created for the present study. As discussed in the section Materials: Questionnaires (above), this survey gathered information about the 27 participants’ gender and sexual identities, and their level of interaction with members of the

LGBTQ+ and transgender communities. The questions eliciting self-identification attempted to include a variety of identities in the options, in addition to a fill-in/describe option. Nevertheless, the questions may have been opaque and difficult to answer for participants who were not already familiar with these social issues and topics. For example, one possible option for gender identity was cisgender woman, the term cisgender meaning that the gender identity (in this case, woman) that a person currently has coincides with the gender identity that they were assigned at birth. Most people who are cisgender are not familiar with the term (see Zimman 2019, p. 158), and so participants who were cisgender may not have indicated this in their questionnaires. A fair number of participants chose “Add option not listed” but did not proceed to fill in or describe their identity.

It is unclear in these instances whether the participant had an unlisted identity that was not easy or possible to describe, or if the participant did not recognize their identity in the list and because they did not know how to name or describe it. Because of the varying levels of knowledge that participants can be expected to have on these topics, a simpler question design could have been used (for example, a question such as Do you identify as transgender?). More direct and explicit questions would also have been better for measuring the participants’ ideologies on gender and use of reformed language. These traits were more important to the present investigation than were the participants’ specific identities (see the last two paragraphs of the Introduction), yet the questionnaire did not include any questions asking about language use.

The number of participants places a strong limitation on the study as well. Only twenty- five were recruited, and the majority of them were of the same age and enrolled in some college- level education. While the uniformity of these characteristics may initially seem advantageous for isolating an effect, linguistic practices and social ideologies vary less among such a homogenous 28 group as college students. At the same time, however, these participants were attending a university where the language of instruction is English, in a predominantly English-speaking city and country; and in fact, many of them scored average or low on the Spanish proficiency test

(DELE). The participants could therefore be considered relatively homogenous in their English education, but quite heterogenous in their Spanish education, which is not surprising because many of them received at least part of their education in English in the US, although Spanish is also their native language. The DELE proficiency test is certainly not a perfect measure of a person’s command of Spanish, in part because it is only a written test. Nevertheless, the eye-tracking study depended on the participants’ ability to read, and so low DELE scores or lack of formal education in Spanish may skew data. Linguistic variation was found in the dialects of Spanish spoken by the participants, but this was also undesirable. A few participants mentioned that the dialect-specific words disrupted their flow of reading, and this becomes salient in an eye-tracking study. These factors of dialectal variation and questionable reading proficiency are part of the linguistic landscape that exists in a predominantly English-speaking setting like a US university. Ideally, future studies may be carried out in predominantly Spanish-speaking cities or countries in which the participants can be expected to regularly use Spanish not only in speech but also in reading.

Additionally, the pool of participants was not very diverse in gender and sexuality identity

(see the section Sexual and Gender Identity Questionnaire, under Results). While the diversity of sexual identities is low but acceptable, there is almost no variation in the gender identities of the participants. Excluding those who preferred not to reply or misunderstood the question, only two participants reported a gender identity that was not cisgender. As discussed in the introduction of this paper, trans individuals are most likely to use innovative, reformed language pertaining to gender expression, and so to have them so disproportionately underrepresented in this experiment 29 prevents meaningful comparative analysis of community language use, and severely limits the perspective of this study. For this reason, the results of the Identity questionnaire were not linked to the participants’ eye-tracking results for analysis. However, we analyzed the results of the questionnaire and found some trends that would merit the inclusion of these measures in future work.

Recruitment of participants was also a challenge that, in hindsight, can easily be improved.

Rather than using flyers to advertise for the study, electronic distribution of advertisements over the internet is more effective and cost efficient.

Conclusion

There is evidence that practices for gender-inclusive language reformation are more prevalent within the transgender community because of their relevance to the social identities of its members.

The diffusion of these practices is largely dependent on the structure of social networks and is confined mostly within the LGBTQ+ community. However, with increasing interaction among in- and out-group members, these linguistic practices can be expected to spread into more mainstream discourse, accompanied by positive attitudes toward the marginalized community from which they originated. Whether using this reformed language impacts a Spanish-user’s implicit grammatical processing is a question for future investigation, but such an effect would only bolster the process of social reformation already brought underway by the adoption of social ideologies that value gender inclusivity.

30

Acknowledgements

Thank you to Jorge Valdés Kroff, whom this project would not have been possible. Thank you to

Lauren Ackerman, Rusty Barrett, Diana Boxer, and Lal Zimman for their contributions, advice, and support.

Literature cited

Abe, H. (2004). Lesbian bar talk in Shinjuku, Tokyo. In J. Coates & P. Pichler (Eds.), Language

and Gender: A Reader (2011, 2nd ed., pp. 375-383). Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.

Ackerman, L. (n.d.). Syntactic and cognitive issues in investigating gender coreference.

Newcastle University.

Ackerman, L., Riches, N., & Wallenberg, J. (2018). Coreference dependency formation is

modulated by experience with variation of human gender. Power point presentation;

Newcastle University.

Azevedo, M. (2009). Introducción a la lingüística española (3rd ed.). Upper Saddle River,

NJ: Prentice Hall.

Balhorn, M. (2004). The rise of epicene they. Journal of English Linguistics, 32(2), 79-104.

Retrieved March 16, 2019, from

https://login.lp.hscl.ufl.edu/login?URL=http://search.proquest.com/accountid=10920?url

=https://search.proquest.com/docview/85587473?accountid=10920

Baron, N. S. (1971). A reanalysis of English grammatical gender. Lingua 27, 113-140. Retrieved

March 16, 2019, from

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0024384171900829?via%3Dihub 31

Barrett, R. (1999). Indexing polyphonous identity in the speech of African American drag

queens. In J. Coates & P. Pichler (Eds.), Language and Gender: A Reader (2011, 2nd ed.,

pp. 413-4429). Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.

Besnier, N. (2003). Crossing gender, mixing languages: The linguistics construction of

transgenderism in Tonga. In J. Holmes & M. Meyerhoff (Eds.), The Handbook of

Language and Gender (pp. 279-301). Oxford: Blackwell. Retrieved April 6, 2019, from

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ann_Weatherall/publication/37627538_Ge

nder_and_identity_Representation_and_social_action/links/0c960534e876fc39a800

0000/Gender-and-identity-Representation-and-social-action.pdf#page=295

Bjorkman, B. M. (2017). Singular they and the syntactic representation of gender in English.

Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics, 2(1), 80. http://doi.org/10.5334/gjgl.374

Blogger, G. (2018, May 1). The Cross-Lingual Interse(x)tionality of 'Latinx'. The Chronicle of

Higher Education. Retrieved March 2019 from

www.chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/2018/05/01/the-cross-lingual-intersextionality-of-

latinx/.

Bock, K., & Levelt, W. (1994). Language production. Grammatical encoding. In M. A.

Gernsbacher (Ed.), Handbook of Psycholinguistics (pp. 945-984). San Diego, CA:

Academic Press. Retrieved April 3, 2019, from

https://pure.mpg.de/rest/items/item_61347/component/file_262298/content

Bock, K., Loebell, H., & Morey, R. (1992). From conceptual roles to structural relations:

Bridging the syntactic cleft. Psychological Review, 99(1), 150-171. doi:10.1037/0033-

295X.99.1.150 32

Bock, J. K., & Warren, R. K. (1985). Conceptual accessibility and syntactic structure in sentence

formation. Cognition, 21, 47-67. Retrieved April 3, 2019, from

https://doi.org/10.1016/0010-0277(85)90023-X

Bodine, A. (1975). Androcentrism in prescriptive grammar: Singular "they," sex-indefinite "he,"

and "he or she". Language in Society, 4(2), 129-146. Retrieved March 16, 2019, from

https://login.lp.hscl.ufl.edu/login?URL=http://search.proquest.com/accountid=10920?url

=https://search.proquest.com/docview/85492298?accountid=10920

Bontempo, D. E., & D'augelli, A. R. (2002). Effects of at-school victimization and sexual

orientation on lesbian, gay, or bisexual youths’ health risk behavior. Journal of

Adolescent Health, 30(5), 364-374. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1054-139X(01)00415-3

Bucholtz, M. (1995). From mulatta to mestiza: Passing and the linguistic reshaping of ethnic

identity. In K. Hall & M. Bucholtz (Eds.), Gender Articulated: Language and the

Socially Constructed Self (pp. 351-373). New York, NY: Routledge. Available at

https://login.lp.hscl.ufl.edu/login?URL=http://search.proquest.com/accountid=10920?url

=https://search.proquest.com/docview/58309673?accountid=10920

Bucholtz, M., & Hall, K. (2004). Theorizing identity in language and sexuality research.

Language in Society, 33(4), 469-515. doi:10.10170/S004740450044021

Butler, J. (1990). Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity. New York, NY:

Routledge. Retrieved March 20, 2019, from

https://selforganizedseminar.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/butler-gender_trouble.pdf

Cactuscom. (2015, August 31). El caso del pronombre "Elle" [web blog post]. Retrieved March

17, 2019, from https://www.cactuscomunicacion.es/blog/2015/08/31/el-caso-del-

pronombre-elle/ 33

Cameron, D. (1997). Performing gender identity: Young men's talk and the construction of

heterosexual masculinity. In J. Coates & P. Pichler (Eds.), Language and Gender: A

Reader (2nd Edition) (pp. 250-262). Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.

Cameron, D. (2005). Language, gender, and sexuality: Current issues and new directions.

Applied Linguistics, 26(4), 482. doi:10.1093/applin/ami027

Cameron, D. (2003). Gender and language ideologies. In J. Coates & P. Pichler (Eds.), Language

and Gender: A Reader (2011, 2nd ed., pp. 583-599). Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.

Carreiras, M., Garnham, A., Oakhill, J., & Cain, K. (1996). The use of stereotypical gender

information in constructing a mental model: Evidence from English and Spanish.

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 49A(3), 639-663. Retrieved from

https://login.lp.hscl.ufl.edu/login?URL=http://search.proquest.com/accountid=10920?url

=https://search.proquest.com/docview/85637111?accountid=10920

Clark, J., & Jackson, C. (2018). Global attitudes toward transgender people. Ipsos. Retrieved

April 3, 2019, from https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/news-polls/global-attitudes-toward-

transgender-people?fbclid=IwAR2zVacttJOf_-

TkrF9oCdQ8x2yupSSjNl_1yDcocvVbPJ2_9HEqLmyCcuU

DeLine, E. (2014, October). Transphobia and racism within the LGBT community. Peace

Newsletter, 839, 9. Retrieved April 7, 2019, from

http://www.peacecouncil.net/pnl/november-december-2014-839 de Onís, C. M. (2017) What's in an "x"?: An Exchange about the Politics of "Latinx". Chiricú

Journal: Latina/o Literatures, Arts, and Cultures, 1(2), 78-91. Retrieved July 19, 2018.

Doherty, A., & Conklin, K. (2017). How gender- expectancy affects the processing of

“them”. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 70(4), 718-735. 34

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17470218.2016.1154582

Drabble, L., Midanik, L. T., & Trocki, K. (2005). Reports of alcohol consumption and alcohol-

related problems among homosexual, bisexual and heterosexual respondents: Results

from the 2000 national alcohol survey. Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 66, 111-120.

Duffy, S. A., & Keir, J. A. (2004). Violating stereotypes: Eye movements and comprehension

processes when text conflicts with world knowledge. Memory & Cognition, 32(4), 551-

559. Retrieved March 16, 2019, from

https://login.lp.hscl.ufl.edu/login?URL=http://search.proquest.com/accountid=10920?url

=https://search.proquest.com/docview/85602681?accountid=10920

Eckert, P., & McConnell-Ginet, S. (1992a). Communities of practice: Where language, gender

and power all live. In J. Coates & P. Pichler (Eds.), Language and Gender: A Reader

(2011, 2nd ed., pp. 573-582). Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.

Eckert, P., & McConnell-Ginet, S. (1992b). Think practically and look locally: Language and

gender as community-based practice. Annual Review of Anthropology, 21, 461-490.

Retrieved from

https://login.lp.hscl.ufl.edu/login?URL=http://search.proquest.com.lp.hscl.ufl.edu/accoun

tid=10920?url=https://search-proquest-

com.lp.hscl.ufl.edu/docview/58231936?accountid=10920

Eckert, P., & Wenger, E. (2005). Communities of practice in sociolinguistics. Journal of

Sociolinguistics, 9(4), 582-589. Retrieved from

https://login.lp.hscl.ufl.edu/login?URL=http://search.proquest.com.lp.hscl.ufl.edu/accoun

tid=10920?url=https://search-proquest-

com.lp.hscl.ufl.edu/docview/85641263?accountid=10920 35

Élle (o éle) como pronombres neutros [web blog post]. (July 23). Retrieved March 17, 2019,

from

file:///Users/AntonDolling/Desktop/Identity_Language/Ge%CC%81nero%20queer%20y

%20no%20binario.html

Ellis, L., Robb, B., & Burke, D. (2005). Sexual orientation in United States and Canadian college

students. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 34(5), 569-581. doi:10.1007/s10508-005-6283-8

Gastil, J. (1990). Generic pronouns and sexist language: The oxymoronic character of masculine

generics. Sex Roles: A Journal of Research, 23(11-12), 629-643. Retrieved from

https://login.lp.hscl.ufl.edu/login?URL=http://search.proquest.com/accountid=10920?url

=https://search.proquest.com/docview/58254206?accountid=10920

Goffman, E. (1976). Gender display. In Gender Advertisements (pp. 1-2). London: Palgrave.

Retrieved April 6, 2019, from https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-16079-2_1

Grant, J. M., Mottet, L. A., Tanis, J., Harrison, J., & Keisling, M. (2012). Injustice at every turn:

A report of the national transgender discrimination survey. Washington, DC: National

Center for Transgender Equality and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. Retrieved

March 21, 2019, from https://issuu.com/lgbtagingcenter/docs/ntds_report

Graves, L. (2018, August 9). A look at transphobia within the LGBTQ community [article

from weblog]. Outpower, Victory Institute. Available April 7, 2019, from

https://victoryinstitute.org/a-look-at-transphobia-within-the-lgbtq-community/

Guzzardo Tamargo, R. E., Valdés Kroff, J. R., & Dussias, P. E. (2016). Examining the

relationship between comprehension and production processes in code-switched

language. Journal of Memory and Language, 89, 138-161. Retrieved April 22, 2019, from

doi:http://dx.doi.org.lp.hscl.ufl.edu/10.1016/j.jml.2015.12.002 36

Hall, K. (2009). Boy's talk: Hindi, moustaches, and masculinity in New Delhi. In J. Coates & P.

Pichler (Eds.), Language and Gender: A Reader (2011, 2nd ed., pp. 384-400). Malden,

MA: Wiley-Blackwell.

Hall, K., & O’Donovan, V. (1996). Shifting gender positions among Hindi-speaking hijras. In V.

Bergvall, J. Bing, & A. Freed (Eds.): Rethinking Language and Gender Research: Theory

and Practice (pp. 228–56). London: Longman. Retrieved April 6, 2019, from

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Kira_Hall2/publication/270105521_Shifting Gender

Positions_among_Hindi-speaking_Hijras/links/5c69c5d2299bf1e3a5af0265/Shifting

-Gender-Positions-among-Hindi-speaking-Hijras.pdf

Herring, S. C., Johnson, D. A., & DiBenedetto, T. (1992). Participation in electronic discourse in

a "feminist" field. In J. Coates & P. Pichler (Eds.), Language and Gender: A Reader

(2011, 2nd ed., pp. 171-182). Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.

Holmes, J., & Schnurr, S. (2006). "Doing femininity" at work: More than just relational practice.

In J. Coates & P. Pichler (Eds.), Language and Gender: A Reader (2011, 2nd ed., pp.

315-331). Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.

Jorm, A., Korten, A., Rodgers, B., Jacomb, P., & Christensen, H. (2002). Sexual orientation and

mental health: Results from a community survey of young and middle-aged adults.

British Journal of Psychiatry, 180, 423-427.

Karniol, R., Artzi, S., & Ludmer, M. (2016). Children's production of subject-verb agreement in

Hebrew when gender and context are ambiguous. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research,

45(6), 1515-1532. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10936-016-9419-1

Kennison, S. M., & Trofe, J. L. (2003). Comprehending pronouns: A role for word-specific

gender stereotype information. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 32(3), 355-78. 37

http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/A:1023599719948

Khosroshahi, F. (1989). Penguins don't care, but women do: A social identity analysis of a

Whorfian problem. Language in Society, 18(4), 505-525. Retrieved from

https://login.lp.hscl.ufl.edu/login?URL=http://search.proquest.com/accountid=10920?url

=https://search.proquest.com/docview/85505428?accountid=10920

Kulick, D. (2019). Foreword. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 2019(256), 1-

3. Retrieved April 7, 2019, from https://doi.org/10.1515/ijsl-2018-2009

Laitinen, M. (2008). Sociolinguistic patterns in grammaticalization: He, they, and those in

human indefinite reference. Language Variation and Change, 20(1), 155-185.

doi:10.1017/S0954394508000045

Lenning, E. (2009). Moving beyond the binary: Exploring the dimensions of gender presentation

and orientation. International Journal of Social Inquiry, 2(2), 39-54. Retrieved March 20,

2019, from

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/237606925_Moving_Beyond_the_Binary_Expl

oring_the_Dimensions_of_Gender_Presentation_and_Orientation

Lloyd, C. E. M., & Finn, M. D. (2017). Authenticity, validation and sexualisation on Grindr: An

analysis of trans women’s accounts. Psychology and Sexuality, 8(1-2), 158-169.

doi:10.1080/19419899.2017.1316769

Lombardi, E. L., Wilchins, R. A., Priesing, D., & Malouf, D. (2001). Gender violence. Journal of

Homosexuality, 42(1), 89-101. doi:10.1300/ J082v42n01_05

Marian, V., Blumenfeld, H., & Kaushanskaya, M. (2007). Language Experience and Proficiency

Questionnaire. Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research, 50, 940-967.

Marshall, C., & Buchanan, E. (2016). Familiarity and understanding of LGBTQ+ hate speech. 38

LOGOS: A Journal of Undergraduate Research, 9, 30-43. ISSN 2153-1579.

McLemore, K. A. (2014). Experiences with misgendering: Identity misclassification of

transgender spectrum individuals. Self and Identity.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15298868.2014.950691

McCabe, S. E., Hughes, T. L., Bostwick, W., Morales, M., & Boyd, C. J. (2012). Measurement

of sexual identity in surveys: Implications for substance abuse research. Archives of

Sexual Behavior, 41(3), 649-657. doi:10.1007/s10508-011-9768-7

Melo, G. C. V. d., & Lopes, L. P. d. M. (2013). Black women's identity discursive performances

in a community for black people in Orkut. Revista De Documentacao De Estudos Em

Linguistica Teorica e Aplicada (D.E.L.T.A.), 29(2), 237-265. Retrieved from

https://login.lp.hscl.ufl.edu/login?URL=http://search.proquest.com/accountid=10920?url

=https://search.proquest.com/docview/1629324285?accountid=10920

Monzó, L. D. (2016). "They don't know anything!" Latinx immigrant students appropriating the

oppressor's voice. Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 47(2), 148-166.

doi:10.1111/aeq.12146

Noels, K. A. (1997). Crossing: Language and ethnicity among adolescents [Review of B.

Rampton, Crossing: Language and Ethnicity Among Adolescents]. Journal of Language

and Social Psychology, 16(3), 351-354. Retrieved April 6, 2019, from

https://login.lp.hscl.ufl.edu/login?URL=http://search.proquest.com/accountid=10920?url

=https://search.proquest.com/docview/195922470?accountid=10920

Noll, J., Lowry, M., & Bryant, J. (2018). Changes over time in the comprehension of he and they

as epicene pronouns. Journal Psycholinguist Research, 14(5), 1057-1068.

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-018-9577-4 39

Osterhout, L., Bersick, M., & McLaughlin, J. (1997). Brain potentials reflect violations of gender

stereotypes. Memory & Cognition, 25(3), 273-285. Retrieved from

https://login.lp.hscl.ufl.edu/login?URL=http://search.proquest.com/accountid=10920?url

=https://search.proquest.com/docview/85647809?accountid=10920

Padilla, Y. (2016, April 18). What does 'Latinx' mean? A look at the term that's challenging

gender norms. Retrieved March 17, 2019, from

https://www.complex.com/life/2016/04/latinx/

Patterson, H. (2017). A Sociolinguistic Survey of "Latinx." Honors Thesis. 14.

https://digitalcommons.northgeorgia.edu/honors_theses/14

Peñuelas, A. (2015, August 27). No, #ElleEnLaRAE no va por nosotros. Retrieved March 17,

2019, from https://www.elle.com/es/living/ocio-cultura/news/a698814/elle-en-la-rae/

Ramirez, T. L., & Blay, Z. (2017, October 17). "Why People Are Using the Term 'Latinx'."

Retrieved March 17, 2019, from https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/why-people-are-

using-the-term-latinx_us_57753328e4b0cc0fa136a159

Rampton, B. (2000). Crossing. Journal of Linguistics Anthropology, 9(1-2), 54-56. London:

King’s College. Retrieved April 6, 2019, from

https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1525/jlin.1999.9.1-2.54

Reali, C., Esaulova, Y., & Von Stockhausen, L. (2015). Isolating stereotypical gender in a

grammatical gender language: Evidence from eye movements. Applied Psycholinguistics,

36(4), 977-1006. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0142716414000010

Reichard, R. (2015, August 29). "Why We Say Latinx: Trans & Gender Non-Conforming People

Explain." Retrieved March 17, 2019, from http://www.latina.com/lifestyle/our-

issues/why-we-say-latinx-trans-gender-non-conforming-people-explain#main-content 40

Reisner, S., Biello, K., Rosenberger, J., Austin, S., Haneuse, S., Perez-Brumer, A., Novak, D., &

Mimiaga, M. (2014). Using a two-step method to measure transgender identity in Latin

America/the Caribbean, Portugal, and Spain. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 43, 1503-

1514. doi:10.1007/s10508-014-0314-2

Remlinger, K. (1997). Keeping it straight: The negotiations of meanings in the constitution of

gender and sexuality. Women and Language, 20(1), 47. Retrieved March 2019 from

https://login.lp.hscl.ufl.edu/login?URL=http://search.proquest.com/accountid=10920?url

=https://search.proquest.com/docview/198877385?accountid=10920

Reyes, R. A. (2016, September 29). "Are you Latinx? As Usage Grows, Word Draws Approval,

Criticism." Retrieved March 17, 2017, from https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/are-

you-latinx-usage-grows-word-draws-approval-criticism-n651396

Riedel, S. (2018, March 10). A brief history of how drag queens turned against the trans

community. Them.. Available April 7, 2019, from https://www.them.us/story/how-

drag-queens-turned-against-the-trans-community

Sanz Sánchez, I. (2009). Lexical creativity in gay jargon on the Mexico-US border. Hispania,

92(1), 142-154. Retrieved April 7, 2019, from

https://login.lp.hscl.ufl.edu/login?URL=http://search.proquest.com/accountid=10920?url

=https://search.proquest.com/docview/744447224?accountid=10920

Skvat, L. (2012, June 26). ¿Ele o elle? [web blog post]. Retrieved March 17, 2019, from

http://lilleskvat.blogspot.com/2012/06/ele-o-elle.html

Stern, J. (2011). This is what pride looks like: Miss Major and the violence, poverty, and

incarceration of low- income transgender women. The Scholar and Feminist Online,

10.1-10.2. Retrieved April 7, 2019, from http://sfonline.barnard.edu/a-new-queer- 41

agenda/this-is-what-pride-looks-like-miss-major-and-the-violence-poverty-and-

incarceration-of-low-income-transgender-women/0/?print=true

Sturt, P. (2002). The time-course of the application of binding constraints in reference

resolution. Journal of Memory and Language, 48(3), 542-562. Retrieved from

https://login.lp.hscl.ufl.edu/login?URL=http://search.proquest.com/accountid=10920?url

=https://search.proquest.com/docview/85584869?accountid=10920

Thompson, E. M., & Morgan, E. M. (2008). "Mostly straight" young women: Variations in

sexual behavior and identity development. Developmental Psychology, 44(1), 15-21.

doi:10.1037/0012-1649.44.1.15

TIFF Originals. (2017, Sep 17). Laverne Cox on transphobia in the LGBT community | Bent lens

| In conversation [Video file]. Accessed April 7, 2019, from

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huDiU8R0KhY

Valdés Kroff, J. R., Guzzardo Tamargo, R. E., & Dussias, P. E. (2018). Experimental

contributions of eye-tracking to the understanding of comprehension processes while

hearing and reading code-switches. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, 8, 98-133.

Vigliocco, G., & Franck, J. (2001). When sex affects syntax: Contextual influences in sentence

production. Journal of Memory and Language, 45(3), 368-390. Retrieved from

https://login.lp.hscl.ufl.edu/login?URL=http://search.proquest.com/accountid=10920?url

=https://search.proquest.com/docview/85541381?accountid=10920

Wicha, N. Y. Y., Moreno, E. M., & Kutas, M. (2004). Anticipating words and their gender: An

event-related brain potential study of semantic integration, gender expectancy, and

gender agreement in Spanish sentence reading. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 16(7),

1272-1288. Retrieved from 42

https://login.lp.hscl.ufl.edu/login?URL=http://search.proquest.com/accountid=10920?url

=https://search.proquest.com/docview/223070294?accountid=10920

Wikipedia. (2018, December 24). Élle. Retrieved March 17, 2019, from

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89lle

Zimman, L. (2017). Transgender language reform: some challenges and strategies for promoting

trans-affirming, gender-inclusive language. Journal of Language and Discrimination,

1(1), 84-105. Retrieved March 20, 2019, from

http://lalzimman.com/papers/Zimman2017TransgenderLanguageReform.pdf

Zimman, L. (2019). Trans self-identification and the language of neoliberal selfhood: Agency,

power, and the limits of monologic discourse. International Journal of the Sociology of

Language, 2019(256), 147-175. https://doi.org/10.1515/ijsl-2018-2016

43

Figures Eye-tracking data

Figure 1: Gaze duration for human nouns Figure 2: Regression path duration for human nouns

Figure 3: Total duration for human noun Figure 4: Gaze, regression path, and total durations for non-human nouns

44

Questionnaire data

Figure 5 Figure 6

Figure 7 Figure 8

45

Figure 9: Effect of the number of LGBTQ+ people known on the level of support for them

Figure 10: Effect of the number of trans people known on the level of support for them

46

Figure 11: Effect of the frequency of interaction with LGBTQ+ people on the level of support for them

Figure 12: Effect of the frequency of interaction with trans people on the level of support for them

47

Tables

1. Stimulus Paradigm

Noun animacy Noun gender Adjective marking Profession association none feminine feminine ambiguous masculine none masculine feminine masculine none Animate/ feminine feminine human referent feminine masculine (proper name) none masculine feminine masculine none feminine feminine masculine masculine none masculine feminine masculine feminine feminine Inanimate/ masculine none non-human masculine feminine masculine

48

Appendix

Questionnaires

1. Identity Survey:

Survey Flow

Standard: Block 8 (1 Question) Standard: Linguistic Background (4 Questions) Standard: Use Spanish (1 Question) Standard: Sexuality Question (1 Question)

Branch: New Branch If If Please choose the option(s) that best describes your own sexual identity. (You may select more th... Add option not listed: Is Not Empty

Block: Describe answer (1) (1 Question)

Standard: Gender Question (1 Question)

Branch: New Branch If If Please choose the option(s) that best describes your own gender identity. (You may select more th... Add option not listed: Is Not Empty

Standard: Describe answer (2) (1 Question)

Block: Pronouns Question (2 Questions) Standard: LGBTQ+ Community (4 Questions) Page Break

Start of Block: Block 8

Q26 File number:

______

End of Block: Block 8

Start of Block: Linguistic Background

49

Q14 Approximately how many years have you lived in the United States?

______

Q23 Do you consider yourself to be one or more of the following? (You may select more than one response.)

▢ Hispanic (1)

▢ Latina/Latino/Latinx (2)

▢ Neither (4)

Q19 How much time do you typically use each of your languages currently? (Your answers should add up to 100 in the "Total" box.)

% of the time (1)

English (1)

Spanish (2)

Other languages (3)

Total

50

Q24 How would you rate your level of proficiency in these two languages? Not at all Low Moderate High Fluent (5) proficient (1) proficiency (2) proficiency (3) proficiency (4)

English (1) o o o o o

Spanish (2) o o o o o

End of Block: Linguistic Background

Start of Block: Use Spanish

Q13 Some questions allow for a write-in response. Please feel free to respond in Spanish if you prefer.

o Okay (1)

End of Block: Use Spanish

Start of Block: Sexuality Question 51

Q7 Please choose the option(s) that best describes your own sexual identity. (You may select more than one response.)

▢ Asexual (ace) (1)

▢ Bisexual (bi) (2)

▢ Heterosexual (straight) (3)

▢ Homosexual (gay) (4)

▢ Pansexual (pan) (5)

▢ Add option not listed: (6) ______

▢ Prefer not to reply (7)

End of Block: Sexuality Question

Start of Block: Describe answer (1)

Q12 Please briefly describe your answer to help in the researchers' understanding.

______

______

End of Block: Describe answer (1)

Start of Block: Gender Question

52

Q10 Please choose the option(s) that best describes your own gender identity. (You may select more than one response.)

▢ Agender (1)

▢ Cisgender man (2)

▢ Cisgender woman (7)

▢ Gender fluid (3)

▢ Genderqueer (4)

▢ Non-binary (6)

▢ Transgender man (5)

▢ Transgender woman (8)

▢ Add option not listed: (9) ______

▢ Prefer not to reply (10)

End of Block: Gender Question

Start of Block: Describe answer (2)

Q18 Please briefly describe your answer to help in the researchers' understanding.

______

______

End of Block: Describe answer (2)

53

Start of Block: Pronouns Question

Q4 Please provide your pronouns in English. (i.e. what other people say when they refer to you. Some examples: "she", "they").

______

Q22 Please provide your pronouns in Spanish. (i.e. what other people say when they refer to you. Some examples: "él", "ella", "élle").

______

End of Block: Pronouns Question

Start of Block: LGBTQ+ Community

Q15 How many people within the LGBTQ+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer) community do you personally know? 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50

people ()

Q17 How many people specifically within the transgender community do you personally know? 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50

people ()

54

Q21 How often do you spend time interacting with other people who are... Once a year Once a month Once a week Never (1) Every day (5) (2) (3) (4) members of the LGBTQ+

community (1) o o o o o

transgender (2) o o o o o

Q20 How supportive do you consider yourself to be for the following communities? Very Unsupportive Very unsupportive Neutral (7) Supportive (5) (4) supportive (6) (2)

LGBTQ+ community (1) o o o o o

transgender community (2) o o o o o

End of Block: LGBTQ+ Community

2. Name Survey: 55

Q1 Please indicate which gender you are likely to associate with each of the following names. 56

Either Mostly Exclusively Exclusively Mostly feminine or Don't know masculine masculine feminine (1) feminine (2) masculine (6) (4) (5) (3)

Adam (1) o o o o o o

Alex (2) o o o o o o

Alice (3) o o o o o o

Alicia (4) o o o o o o

Andrew (5) o o o o o o

Aubrey (6) o o o o o o

Austin (7) o o o o o o

Avery (8) o o o o o o

Bailey (9) o o o o o o

Blaire (10) o o o o o o

Blake (11) o o o o o o

Cameron (12) o o o o o o

Carmen (13) o o o o o o

Carter (14) o o o o o o 57

Catherine (15) o o o o o o

Cecilia (16) o o o o o o

Charlie (17) o o o o o o

Charlotte (18) o o o o o o

David (19) o o o o o o

Devon (20) o o o o o o

Diane (21) o o o o o o

Donald (22) o o o o o o

Drew (23) o o o o o o

Dylan (24) o o o o o o

Eden (25) o o o o o o

Emily (26) o o o o o o

Emma (27) o o o o o o

Eric (28) o o o o o o

Ethan (29) o o o o o o 58

Gail (30) o o o o o o

59

Q4 Please indicate which gender you are likely to associate with each of the following names. 60

Either Mostly Exclusively Exclusively Mostly feminine or Don't know masculine masculine feminine (1) feminine (2) masculine (6) (4) (5) (3)

Gary (1) o o o o o o

Gregory (2) o o o o o o

Hannah (3) o o o o o o

Harry (4) o o o o o o

Hayden (5) o o o o o o

Isabelle (6) o o o o o o

Jack (7) o o o o o o

Jacob (8) o o o o o o

Jared (9) o o o o o o

Jasmine (10) o o o o o o

Jason (11) o o o o o o

Jill (12) o o o o o o

Joe (13) o o o o o o

Jordan (14) o o o o o o 61

Julia (15) o o o o o o

Justin (16) o o o o o o

Kasey (17) o o o o o o

Kendall (18) o o o o o o

Kiran (19) o o o o o o

Kyle (20) o o o o o o

Lauren (21) o o o o o o

Leah (22) o o o o o o

Levi (23) o o o o o o

Lily (24) o o o o o o

Lucy (25) o o o o o o

Maggie (26) o o o o o o

Malcolm (27) o o o o o o

Mary (28) o o o o o o

Matthew (29) o o o o o o 62

Melody (30) o o o o o o

63

Q5 Please indicate which gender you are likely to associate with each of the following names. 64

Either Mostly Exclusively Exclusively Mostly feminine or Don't know masculine masculine feminine (1) feminine (2) masculine (6) (4) (5) (3)

Nathan (1) o o o o o o

Nicholas (2) o o o o o o

Olivia (3) o o o o o o

Paige (4) o o o o o o

Pat (5) o o o o o o

Phillip (6) o o o o o o

Phoebe (7) o o o o o o

Quinn (8) o o o o o o

Rachel (9) o o o o o o

Reagan (10) o o o o o o

Rebecca (11) o o o o o o

Reese (12) o o o o o o

Richard (13) o o o o o o

Ridley (14) o o o o o o 65

Riley (15) o o o o o o

Robert (16) o o o o o o

Robin (17) o o o o o o

Rowan (18) o o o o o o

Ryan (19) o o o o o o

Sam (20) o o o o o o

Sarah (21) o o o o o o

Sawyer (22) o o o o o o

Skeeter (23) o o o o o o

Skylar (24) o o o o o o

Stewart (25) o o o o o o

Taylor (26) o o o o o o

Tommy (27) o o o o o o

Vivian (28) o o o o o o

William (29) o o o o o o 66

Zachary (30) o o o o o o

End of Block: Default Question Block