Recht verständlich und “gender-fair”: Wie sollen Personen in amtlichen Texten bezeichnet werden? Ein Vergleich verschiedener Rezipientengruppen zur Akzeptanz geschlechtergerechter Rechtssprache
Abstract
The present study investigates the acceptance of diverse person denotations in legal language. Several groups of recipients were tested with an original official text: 1. law professionals (N = 49), 2. people of age 60+ years (N = 46) and 3. people without academic educational degrees (N = 53). In an online study participants were presented with a cloze task. They were asked to fill in the gaps by selecting person denotations from a list of alternatives provided in pull down menues. These alternatives were generic masculine forms (e. g. der Wähler, i. e. the voter), gender neutral forms (e. g. die Wahlberechtigten, i. e. persons entitled to vote) and forms that comprised both masculine and feminine (e. g. der Wähler bzw. die Wählerin, i. e. the male or female voter). Afterwards, participants rated the text they had created for comprehensibility and gender-fairness. Results suggest a wide acceptance of gender-neutral role nouns across all samples. These forms also meet the criteria of comprehensibility and gender-fairness for official language. Options for creative, that is flexible and context dependent use of diverse denotations are discussed based on the present findings.
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In Steiger and Irmen (2011), within the legal professional sample, female participants were more accepting of gender-exclusive language (the generic masculine) than their male colleagues.
“However, within the legal professional sample, female participants were more accepting of gender-exclusive language (i.e., the generic masculine) than their male colleagues.”
From What affects people’s use of and attitudes toward gender-inclusive language? A literature review (2025) · cites this paper as Steiger and Irmen, 2011
In Steiger and Irmen (2011), male and female participants in the trainee and 60+ samples did not differ in their attitudes toward gender-inclusive wording.
“The male and female participants in the trainee and 60 + samples did not differ in their attitudes.”
From What affects people’s use of and attitudes toward gender-inclusive language? A literature review (2025) · cites this paper as Steiger and Irmen, 2011
Steiger and Irmen (2011) found no differences in mean attitude scores toward gender-inclusive language between a group of legal professionals with a university degree and a group of individuals in vocational training without tertiary education.
“The results showed no differences in the mean attitude scores between the groups.”
From What affects people’s use of and attitudes toward gender-inclusive language? A literature review (2025) · cites this paper as Steiger and Irmen (2011)
Compared to participants in vocational training without higher education, those with a university background used the generic masculine more frequently and less frequently opted for neutral or inclusive forms.
“In fact, their findings indicated the opposite: compared to participants in vocational training without higher education, those with a university background used the generic masculine more frequently and less frequently opted for neutral or inclusive forms.”
From What affects people’s use of and attitudes toward gender-inclusive language? A literature review (2025) · cites this paper as Steiger and Irmen (2011)
Steiger and Irmen (2011) found no evidence supporting a relation between educational level and gender-inclusive language use.
“Similarly, the study by Steiger and Irmen (2011) found no evidence supporting a relation between educational level and gender-inclusive language use.”
From What affects people’s use of and attitudes toward gender-inclusive language? A literature review (2025) · cites this paper as Steiger and Irmen (2011)
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What affects people’s use of and attitudes toward gender-inclusive language? A literature review
Lange, E., & von Stockhausen, L. (2025) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1657753 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
- Authors
- Steiger, V., & Irmen, L.
- Venue
- Linguistische Berichte (LB)
- Publisher
- Felix Meiner Verlag GmbH
- Published
- 2011-08-01
- Volume
- 2011
- Issue
- 227
- Pages
- 44-69
- ISSN
- 0024-3930 (ISSN-L)
- 2366-0775
- OpenAlex
- W2571249163
- Cited by
- 5
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2025: 2 · 2021: 1 · 2020: 1 · 2018: 1
- FWCI
- 0.00
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- de
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Linguistische Berichte (LB) (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Gender Studies › Gender Studies in Language
- Social Sciences › Law › Legal Language and Interpretation
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Language and Linguistics › Linguistic research and analysis
- Keywords
- gender equity, government documents, role nouns, lawyers, older adults, cloze task, German legal language
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