Gender-fair nouns in academic German. From early feminist proposals for gender-fair language to their implementation in scientific abstracts.

In this contribution, we investigate the mechanisms which the German language uses to refer to persons, in particular the forms of gender-sensitive text production found in current academic German. We analyse the abstracts of two conferences held in September 2017 to shed light on the actual use of written language and scrutinize the manner in which the linguistic means available to refer to persons are currently employed. The abstracts are taken from two conferences with Austrian, German, and Swiss participants. One of the conferences could be expected to have an explicit interest in gender-fair language, the other not. Our contribution is structured as follows: After briefly summarising the salient facts of feminist language politics in Germany since the end of the 1970s we characterise the increasing number of written guidelines for gender-fair language resulting from these policies from 1980 onwards. These guidelines are important instruments for the dissemination of both the linguistic analyses and the political stipulations of feminist movements. After this we provide an overview of the most relevant linguistic means to refer to persons in the German language to create a backdrop for our text analyses. Individual suggestions are then discussed on how to refer to persons in a gender-fair manner, particularly with regard to their applicability to scientific texts. Following this, we present the results of some relevant studies on gender-fair language and cognition. The final analysis of references to persons, as found in recent conference abstracts, are used to return to the question of if, at all (or if so: how), gender-fair language can be used adequately in scientific texts. Not only do we find that gender-fair language has changed diachronically over the last forty years, but we can also show how speakers' attitudes and motivations can influence the synchronic use of gender-fair language. By using examples found in the abstracts analysed we can demonstrate that gender-fair language creates clear and unambiguous references while avoiding gender stereotypes. Accordingly, we conclude that gender-fair language is not - as has been repeatedly claimed during the past decades - polemic and cumbersome, but instead lends itself as a precise tool for scientific text production, when it is used to refer in an exact and unambiguous manner to its referential objects.