Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Relationship Between Candidate Sex And Pronoun Usage In A Louisiana Governor's Race, Mary Lynne Gasaway Hill

English Literature & Language Faculty Publications

This study explores the usage of pronouns in two political debates by ten candidates (seven male, three female) in the 1995 Louisiana governor's race. The purpose of the study was to examine whether patterns associated with male and female pronoun usage held in an environment where males and females had the same communicative needs. Proforms were examined to determine if they were functioning inclusively (speaker including the addressee), a pattern associated with female usage, or exclusively (speaker excluding the addressee), a pattern associated with male usage. The results of statistical testing found that the relationship between the male candidates and …