Is ‘he’ still here?:Exploring the contemporary use of masculine subject pronouns for women in Dutch dialects

Various non-standard language varieties in the Netherlands traditionally allow for the use of masculine personal subject pronouns (i.e. regionally distinct variants of hij 'he') in reference to women. While this practice is well-documented within Dutch dialectology, especially during the twentieth century, it is unclear to what extent this feature still exists nowadays. Moreover, the use of masculine subject forms for female reference has not previously been described for Limburgian dialects. This paper offers a start to filling these gaps, by providing insight into the contemporary use of 'he... Mehr ...

Verfasser: Piepers, Joske
Swanenberg, Jos
Backus, Albert
Dokumenttyp: Artikel
Erscheinungsdatum: 2023
Reihe/Periodikum: Piepers , J , Swanenberg , J & Backus , A 2023 , ' Is ‘he’ still here? Exploring the contemporary use of masculine subject pronouns for women in Dutch dialects ' , Linguistics in the Netherlands , vol. 40 , no. 1 , pp. 194-209 . https://doi.org/10.1075/avt.00087.pie
Schlagwörter: Dutch dialects / Twitter / Female reference / Interview / Masculine subject pronoun
Sprache: Englisch
Permalink: https://search.fid-benelux.de/Record/base-27060804
Datenquelle: BASE; Originalkatalog
Powered By: BASE
Link(s) : https://research.tilburguniversity.edu/en/publications/dcce9864-107f-4b62-8ce0-323f52b6c141

Various non-standard language varieties in the Netherlands traditionally allow for the use of masculine personal subject pronouns (i.e. regionally distinct variants of hij 'he') in reference to women. While this practice is well-documented within Dutch dialectology, especially during the twentieth century, it is unclear to what extent this feature still exists nowadays. Moreover, the use of masculine subject forms for female reference has not previously been described for Limburgian dialects. This paper offers a start to filling these gaps, by providing insight into the contemporary use of 'he' for women in Dutch dialects, with a specific focus on occurrences in Dutch Limburg. We report on a Twitter query and three interviews, showing (i) that the use of 'he' for women still exists in various Dutch dialects, and (ii) how native speakers of a Limburgian dialect use and perceive this feature of their dialect.