Taking 'TA' beyond the binary: In search of multimodal gender-inclusive pronouns in Chinese

Abstract

Few people are aware that Chinese has only had a gender-distinguished third-person pronoun system for a century (Huang 2009). Even now, the gender distinction of third-person pronouns is apparent only in written form: 他 ‘he’, 她 ‘she’ and 它 ‘it’ are all pronounced tā in Mandarin. In recent years, a number of gender-neutral or gender-inclusive pronouns, such as ‘TA’ and「⿰无也」, have been proposed. Yet little is known about the prevalence and perception of these pronouns. In this paper, I examine how third-person pronoun use is changing in contemporary China and place these developments in historical perspective. Drawing on survey data and Chinese sources, I sketch the history of the Chinese pronoun system, follow waves of debate about gendered characters, and explore how pronouns are currently used by queer Chinese speakers. I argue that the emergence of gender-neutral/ gender-inclusive pronouns, particularly ‘TA’, shows growing recognition of the utility of gender-neutral references, and accordingly, an effort to extend this beyond spoken Mandarin to other modes of communication. This is consistent with the narrative of Chinese pronoun use over the last century, with pronoun expression continuing to be shaped by similar multimodal and multilingual factors that influenced the introduction of 她. Show more