The Difficulty of Avoiding Gender-Biased Language in Highly Inflected Languages: A Comparison of Greek and Arabic.

This study attempts to identify what mechanisms might be used to reduce gender bias in two highly inflected languages, Greek and Arabic. Twenty native speakers of Greek and Arabic attending Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., were surveyed for the experiment. The students were: (1) asked to read a standard job announcement in their native language, in which all of the nouns and pronouns referring to people were masculine, as normally would be the case; (2) asked to whom the passage was addressed (men, women, or both); (3) provided with background materials on gender bias in language; and (5) asked to complete a new job announcement using gender-neutral language. Ten students felt the original announcement was addressed to both genders, seven to men only, and three to men only or men and women. The students advocated using both the masculine and feminine form of the word with slash marks, using both endings with slash marks, substituting genderless forms, or making no changes. Five appendixes contain the job announcement, an explanation of gender-biased language, the announcement to be completed with gender-neutral elements, student attitudes concerning the original announcement, and mechanisms for reducing gender bias in Greek and Arabic. (MDM)