The Choice of English Singular Epicene Pronoun by Chinese Learners: A Mixed Study

Pronoun selection reflects the speaker’s gender attitude, which is a sensitive social issue these days.Previous studies disagree on whether Chinese EFL Learners have learned the gender-neutral epicene pronoun singular THEY.Through mutual verification of behavioral experiments and spoken corpus analysis, we find that only a minority of Chinese college students use gender-neutral singular pronouns, and the majority still show gender bias.Their choices are influenced by two known factors: social gender and antecedent restriction, reflecting learners’ weak awareness of gender equality, insufficient input of correct forms, and inadequate cognitive skills in processing second language pronouns.Increasing the input of singular THEY in teaching can encourage Chinese EFL learners to use generic pronouns without gender bias in spoken English and fully reflect gender equality and social progress.