A Comprehensive State-of-the-Art Review of Gender-Neutral and Inclusive Language in English and Spanish: Historical Evolution, Sociolinguistic Perspectives, and Cultural Perceptions
Yuliana Vásquez-González – Universidad de Panamá - ORCID
Raúl Ruiz Cecilia – University of Granada - ORCID
Abstract
This article presents a comprehensive review of the historical evolution and contemporary sociolinguistic perspectives on gender-neutral and inclusive language in English and Spanish. 32 articles are primarily synthesized from Scopus, ScienceDirect, Redalyc, SciELO, and other sources. Boolean operators (AND and OR) are used to combine search equations with keyword combinations: “gender-neutral language” and “English/Spanish”. The study does not present time restrictions to capture all relevant contributions. Significant findings reveal that the evolution of gender-neutral language in English is closely linked to social movements, specifically the use of the singular “they” as a third-person pronoun for indefinite referents. Spanish, on the other hand, faces greater challenges of structural change, adopting non-standard neologisms such as the suffixes “@” or “x” and non-binary morphemes like the “e” in “todes.” These strategies encounter constant resistance from institutions such as the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) and prescriptive grammarians, who classify them as illegitimate. It concludes that cultural and ideological factors influence attitudes toward the use of gender-neutral language and that language reflects social changes. The study identifies an important research gap in religious, conservative contexts such as Panama, where global English as a Foreign language trends converge with traditional linguistic norms.
Keyword: Gender-neutral Language
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