Instances of bias: the gendered semantics of generic masculines in German revealed by instance vectors
Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: While research using behavioural methods has repeatedly shown that generic masculines in German come with a male bias, computational methods only entered this area of research very recently. The present paper shows that some assumptions made by these recent computational studies – treating genericity as an inflectional function and computing a vector for generic usage strongly correlated with the grammatical masculine – are not without issue, and offers the use of semantic instance vectors as a possible solution to these issues. Beyond this methodological improvement, the present paper finds that generic masculines are indeed semantically more similar to specific masculines than to specific feminines – results that are in line with findings by the recent computational studies and the majority of previous behavioural studies.
Author: Dominic Schmitz
Institution: Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf
Language: English
Topic: Gender Studies in Language
Subfield: Gender Studies
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Gender equality
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid:
Award: G2084847577
OpenAlex ID: W4401341988