Para todes: gender-neutrality in the Portuguese language

Portuguese, as a Romance language, has two linguistic genders: masculine and feminine. Although linguistic gender is separate from the social concept of gender, the two accord when one is talking about a person; feminine forms of address, nouns, and adjectives for a woman, and masculine forms for a...

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Main Author: Auxland, Morrigan
Format: Thesis (University of Nottingham only)
Language:English
Published: 2020
Subjects:
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/60330/
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author Auxland, Morrigan
author_facet Auxland, Morrigan
author_sort Auxland, Morrigan
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description Portuguese, as a Romance language, has two linguistic genders: masculine and feminine. Although linguistic gender is separate from the social concept of gender, the two accord when one is talking about a person; feminine forms of address, nouns, and adjectives for a woman, and masculine forms for a man. This raises issues when one considers the rising number of people who identify outside of the gender binary, as well as an idea that is becoming increasingly prevalent – that an individual’s gender cannot, and should not, be assumed when it is unknown. There are, therefore, movements that seek to adapt the language, led by gender-nonconforming, nonbinary and transgender individuals; to introduce a third, grammatically-neutral gender, to better suit the needs of the language’s speakers. This thesis seeks to profile and examine the proposed changes to the Portuguese language, with reference to a number of case studies involving the use of the most common proposed practices and the resulting public and academic responses to each. Keywords: Gender, grammar, gender nonconforming, Portuguese
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format Thesis (University of Nottingham only)
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institution University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus
institution_category Local University
language English
last_indexed 2025-11-14T20:40:37Z
publishDate 2020
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spelling nottingham-603302025-02-28T14:52:20Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/60330/ Para todes: gender-neutrality in the Portuguese language Auxland, Morrigan Portuguese, as a Romance language, has two linguistic genders: masculine and feminine. Although linguistic gender is separate from the social concept of gender, the two accord when one is talking about a person; feminine forms of address, nouns, and adjectives for a woman, and masculine forms for a man. This raises issues when one considers the rising number of people who identify outside of the gender binary, as well as an idea that is becoming increasingly prevalent – that an individual’s gender cannot, and should not, be assumed when it is unknown. There are, therefore, movements that seek to adapt the language, led by gender-nonconforming, nonbinary and transgender individuals; to introduce a third, grammatically-neutral gender, to better suit the needs of the language’s speakers. This thesis seeks to profile and examine the proposed changes to the Portuguese language, with reference to a number of case studies involving the use of the most common proposed practices and the resulting public and academic responses to each. Keywords: Gender, grammar, gender nonconforming, Portuguese 2020-07-24 Thesis (University of Nottingham only) NonPeerReviewed application/pdf en arr https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/60330/1/MRes%20Thesis%20-%20Morrigan%20Auxland%20%28With%20Corrections%29.pdf Auxland, Morrigan (2020) Para todes: gender-neutrality in the Portuguese language. MA(Res) thesis, University of Nottingham. gender grammar gender nonconforming Portuguese
spellingShingle gender
grammar
gender nonconforming
Portuguese
Auxland, Morrigan
Para todes: gender-neutrality in the Portuguese language
title Para todes: gender-neutrality in the Portuguese language
title_full Para todes: gender-neutrality in the Portuguese language
title_fullStr Para todes: gender-neutrality in the Portuguese language
title_full_unstemmed Para todes: gender-neutrality in the Portuguese language
title_short Para todes: gender-neutrality in the Portuguese language
title_sort para todes: gender-neutrality in the portuguese language
topic gender
grammar
gender nonconforming
Portuguese
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/60330/