Genderless pronoun makes stories more relatable in Chinese social media

What is it about?

One main function of story telling is to relate and connect with other people based on shared experience. But did you know that the language we use in our stories can make them less relatable? This paper examines the use of genderless pronoun ‘ta’ in Chinese instead of 他 ta ‘he’ and 她 ta ‘she’ and how erasing the gender of characters in a narrated event makes the situation more relatable for a broader audience, thus generating empathy.

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Why is it important?

The findings show that second and third person pronouns play an important role in the co-construction of stories based on individual lived experience and perspective, regardless of the medium in which that story is conveyed.