Recently, the gender asterisk has become more widespread in grammatical gender languages in order to represent all genders. Such gender-fair language is intended to help better address women and other genders and make their interests and achievements more visible. Critics often argue this would make the language less comprehensible and less aesthetically appealing. Two experiments examined the effects of the gender asterisk on text comprehensibility, aesthetic perception, and interest. N = 159 and N = 127 participants were randomly provided with (...) a text in either masculine-only form or alternatively in gender-fair language with the gender asterisk. The results of the first experiment showed no impairment of comprehensibility and aesthetic evaluation of the texts by the gender asterisk and no effect on interest in the game, while the second experiment showed significant impairments of comprehensibility, aesthetic evaluation, and interest in the game by the gender asterisk. The proportion of singular forms is discussed as a possible explanation for the different results. Experiment 1 predominantly used plural forms like die Spieler*innen and did not include forms such as der*die Spieler*in, whereas Experiment 2 included many such more complex singular forms. We argue that this issue might be crucial, and that it deserves full attention in future studies. (shrink)

[English] Overlooked Generic Masculine Forms – Consistency in Usage of Gender-Conscious Language in the "Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie" (German Journal of Philosophy) in 2020 The present article examines to what extent and how consistently gender-conscious language is used in academic papers. We analysed every paper published in 2020 in the journal “Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie” (transl.: German Journal for Philosophy) that contained overlooked usages of generic masculine forms in otherwise gender-conscious language. Our results showed that only 16 out of 35 (...) papers used gender-conscious language. Out of those 16, only 5 used gender-conscious language in more than 50% of possible usages. None of the articles consistently used gender-conscious language. This means that in each of those 16 papers that used gender-conscious language, at least one “overlooked generic masculine form” was detected. Our hypotheses that generic masculine forms are more often overlooked if they are either (i) not related to the thematic focus of the article, or (ii) technical terms, were confirmed. -/- [German] Der vorliegende Artikel untersucht, inwiefern und wenn ja wie konsequent in wissenschaftlichen Artikeln gegendert wird. Analysiert wurden alle 2020 erschienen Artikel in der Deutschen Zeitschrift für Philosophie, in denen übersehene generische Maskulina vorkommen. Unsere Ergebnisse zeigen, dass lediglich in 16 von 35 Artikeln gegendert wurde. Von diesen 16 Arbeiten gendern wiederum nur fünf in mehr als 50% der Fälle. In keinem der analysierten Artikel wird jede Personenbezeichnung, die potentiell gegendert werden könnte, auch tatsächlich gegendert. Das heißt, in jedem einzelnen dieser 16 Artikel gibt es mindestens ein “übersehenes generisches Maskulinum”. Unsere Hypothesen, dass generische Maskulina öfter “übersehen” werden, wenn sie entweder nicht im thematischen Fokus des Artikels stehen oder Fachbegriffe sind, konnten bestätigt werden. (shrink)