Societies that need to deal with diversity also need to deal with the ways in which their members use texts, conventions for different text types and, consequently, with the production of texts itself. As societies change and become more diverse, texts will have to reflect this change eventually. Yet, how exactly does this social diversity affect our minds? How does the awareness of diversity influence our texts and their production? In this article, I will examine – primarily on the basis of general observations in the press and the media – the current developments in changes in German society. I will discuss social diversity and illustrate the different ways in which these factors influence speakers of German when they produce texts. By using examples from three categories of texts – oral texts, forms of address, job advertisements – I will show changes in text types and their conventions. The result of this study will be that a mix of different denominations or labels can increase the number of people reached, that language can perform substantially more functions and be substantially less discriminatory than is usually assumed, and that at the end of the day, generic masculine forms almost always address male persons exclusively. We will see that text types and their conventions are subject to change, and that this change is still evolving. Where this evolution of text types and their conventions will lead, remains to be seen.
W artykule podjęto, opierając się na nowych danych językowych, próbę odpowiedzi na pytanie, czy generyczne nazwy męskie faktycznie mają charakter w pełni inkluzywny i odnoszą się w równym stopniu do kobiet i mężczyzn. Autorka dowodzi, że tak nie jest – na podstawie studium niebadanego wcześniej w języku polskim zjawiska przesunięcia znaczeniowego od nazw ogólnych do ich męskich egzemplifikacji (np. podatnik > Kowalski), a także na podstawie wyników oryginalnego badania ankietowego z udziałem młodzieży studenckiej, dotyczącego konotacji z kobietami i mężczyznami generycznego maskulinum określającego osoby zajmujące się polityką, sportem, sztuką i nauką (np. naukowiec) w porównaniu z formami obu rodzajów (np. naukowiec/naukowczyni), podanymi w różnej kolejności i uwzględniającymi płeć ankietowanych. Na płaszczyźnie teoretycznej wyniki obu badań interpretowane są w świetle kognitywnej teorii prototypów, według której typowym reprezentantem form generycznych jest mężczyzna, zgodnie ze schematem myślowo-kulturowym: ‘człowiek = mężczyzna’.
EN
Based on new language data, the present paper attempts to answer the question of whether masculine generics are indeed fully inclusive and refer to the same extent to women and men. The author argues that this is not the case as proved in an examination of the hitherto uninvestigated phenomenon in Polish of the so-called slippage from the generic item to its masculine exemplifications (e.g. podatnik ‘taxpayer’ > Kowalski ‘male surname’). It is also shown through the results of an original questionnaire study with university student participants. The study inquired about the students’ male and female connotations with masculine generics denoting people involved in politics, sports, art and science (e.g. naukowiec ‘scholar, masc.’) in comparison to phrases with two genders (e.g. naukowiec ‘scholar’/ naukowczyni ‘female scholar’). The forms of the nouns were provided in two orders and the responses studied in relation to participants’ gender. The results are interpreted in terms of the cognitive prototype theory, according to which the prototypical human is male, as expressed by the androcentric rule ‘people = male’.
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