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From: mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor)
Newsgroups: net.nlang,net.women
Subject: Gender-specific responses to s/he
Message-ID: <1315@dciem.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 31-Dec-84 13:33:39 EST
Article-I.D.: dciem.1315
Posted: Mon Dec 31 13:33:39 1984
Date-Received: Mon, 31-Dec-84 14:49:04 EST
Distribution: net
Organization: D.C.I.E.M., Toronto, Canada
Lines: 31

I apologise for re-opening a long-dormant discussion, but the following
abstract appears in a recent issue of J. Psycholinguistic Research:

Generic Versus Specific Inclusion of Women in Language: Effects on Recall

Mary Crawford and Linda English

J. Psycholinguistic Research, 1984, 13, 373

Considerable evidence suggests that although "generic" terms (he, his,
man, men) may be intended to refer to both women and men, they are often
interpreted literally and thus function to exclude women.  Two experiments
tested the hypothesis that readers' sensitivity to and literal
interpretation of gender references in prose can affect performance in
a memory task.  College student subjects read essays that were identical
except for the use of "generic" terms versus those that deliberately
include women (he/she, his/her, people).  In experiment 1, the Generic
essay form led to better recall of the essay's factual content by male
subjects, while the Specific form produced better recall by females.
A similar pattern was found for female subjects in experiment 2.  In both
experiments, effects were stronger for good learners.  Results suggest
that Generic and Specific styles are more relevant to men and women,
respectively, and that the observed differences in recall may be mediated
by differences in interpretation and interest based on perceived relevance.

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-- 

Martin Taylor
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