ABSTRACT
Among the many different ways in which English varies, the gender of the speaker is one of the features in which there is currently a vast amount of interest and one which makes itself felt in many ways. Not the least of these is the widespread concern of many people that English not be used in the sense of sexism, which ‘may be defined as words or actions that arbitrarily assign roles or characteristics to people on the basis of sex’ (NCTE Guidelines 1977: 182) rather than assessing people individually.
