Capturing socially motivated linguistic change. How the use of gender-fair language afffects support for social initiatives in Austria and Poland.

Gender-fair language consists of the symmetric linguistic treatment of women and men instead of using masculine forms as generics. In this study, we examine how the use of gender-fair language affects readers' support for social initiatives in Poland and Austria. While gender-fair language is relatively novel in Poland, it is well established in Austria. This difference may lead to different perceptions of gender-fair usage in these speech communities. Two studies conducted in Poland investigate whether the evaluation of social initiatives (Study 1: quotas for women on election lists; Study 2: support for women students or students from countries troubled by war) is affected by how female proponents (lawyers, psychologists, sociologists, and academics) are referred to, with masculine forms (traditional) or with feminine forms (modern, gender-fair). Study 3 replicates Study 2 in Austria. Our results indicate that in Poland, gender-fair language has negative connotations and therefore, detrimental effects particularly when used in gender-related contexts. Conversely, in Austria, where gender-fair language has been implemented and used for some time, there are no such negative effects. This pattern of results may inform the discussion about formal policies regulating the use of gender-fair language.

A potential case of attitude change: The Spanish spoken in the city of Malaga and used on social network sites

The Spanish spoken in the city of Malaga, as Andalusian Spanish in general, was in the past often times considered an incorrect, low prestige variety of Spanish which was strongly associated with the poor, rural, backward South of Spain. This southern Spanish variety is easily recognised because of its innovative phonetic features that diverge from the national standard, even though in the past years in the case of some features a convergence to the standard could be observed. Despite its low prestige the local variety of Spanish is quite often used on social network sites, where it is considered as urban, fashion and cool. Thus, this paper aims at analysing whether the Spanish used in the city of Malaga is undergoing an attitude change. The study draws on naturally occurring speech, data extracted from Facebook and a series of questionnaires about the salience, attitude and perception of the local variety of Spanish. The influence of the social factors age and gender is analysed, since they are both known to play a crucial role in many instances of language change. The first is of special interest, as during the Franco dictatorship dialect use was not accepted in schools and in the media. Results show that, on the one hand, people from Malaga hold a more positive attitude towards non-standard features used on social network sites than in spoken language. On the other hand, young female users employ most non-standard features online and unsurprisingly have an extremely positive attitude towards this use. However, in spoken Spanish the use and attitude of some features is led by men and speakers educated during the Franco dictatorship, while other features, such as elision of intervocalic /d/, elision of final /ɾ/, /l/ and /d/ and ceceo, are predominantly employed by and younger speakers and women. These features are considered as salient in the local variety and work as local identity markers.