The comparative study about the gender identity representation in English, Japanese, and Korean

Prof. Jeongmi Um, Japan, ID LLCE2018-368;    Abstract: Our speech acts (discourse practice) should be regarded as processes which build  gender identity　independently, though the restrictions and influences of various gender views and gender ideology specified as the nature of male or female nature in certain society and culture. Based on such a viewpoint of constructionism in a speech act, a comparative analysis is made from the viewpoint of a language culture theory about the present usage of generic use of the 3rd person personal pronoun as one of the processes of the gender identity construction in English, Japanese and Korean. As a result, it has turned out that the generic use itself appears in English, Japanese, and Korean even if there are some individual differences.

　In the case of English, when the sex of the noun of the antecedent which receives a correspondence was unfixed the generic male form of 3rd person personal pronoun “he” was generically used as a meaning including a woman, but by language reform in the present, the use of “he” has been decreasing. In the case of Japanese, although generic use does not appear in singular form of 3rd person personal pronoun, male form of the 3rd person personal pronoun "karera" of the plural form is generically used as a meaning to contain a woman. In Korean, though the sex of the noun which receives a correspondence has clarified, male form of the 3rd person personal pronoun "Ku" is generically used as a meaning including a woman. These differences in the usage of person pronoun show the separate way of gender representation in 3 languages and cultures.