What Is Singular They and How Do We Use It? The Psycholinguistics of Singular They

Singular they is valuable to psycholinguistic research because it has a long-standing usage in English that is currently undergoing changes, both in how often it is used and in what conditions. As a result, singular they is an informative testing ground for the cognitive mechanisms behind language change, which include both top-down intentional change and implicit learning and adaptation. Singular they is also an unusually socially salient function word that provides opportunities to examine how automatic psycholinguistic processes intersect with sociolinguistic issues like gender-fair language, linguistic prescriptivism, and the emerging use of they as a personal pronoun. Developments in the use of singular they are linked to broader shifts in concepts of gender. We suggest that there are two main varieties of singular they that currently differ in acceptability and processing characteristics. Psycholinguistic research shows that singular they is viewed as more acceptable and used more easily within a supportive context that helps to make the pronoun pragmatically appropriate.