English Experts

[Renck]

Salve!

Tenho encontrado com alguma frequência em textos originais em inglês o uso do pronome pessoal "she" para fazer referência a um sujeito de gênero indeterminado.

Segue um exemplo, retirado de um importante livro da área de Economia da Informação, publicado pela renomada editora britânica Blackwell Publishers: "A basic problem that the decision-maker faces is that she does not know how much people value the good; their preferences are private information". Destaco que não há menção alguma a respeito do sexo do "decision-maker", mas é antes a figura genérica de um "tomador de decisões". Eu pensaria antes em usar o pronome indefinido "it", mas eu aceitaria sem questionar uma regra que determinasse o uso do pronome masculino "he". Mas por que o pronome feminino?

Sou aluno de mestrado e tenho encontrato isso em publicações de revistas renomadas e livros de autores anglófonos, todos lidos no original, e dada a frequência não me parece tratar-se de erro. Por isso, gostaria de saber se há uma regra a este respeito, ou se é simplesmente uma opção de estilo permitida pela gramática inglesa.

Desde já, agradeço o auxílio.

[donay mendonça]

Olá Renck,

Hoje em dia a língua inglesa passa por constantes modismos e leves acréscimos,que podem até ser chamados de mudanças.De acordo com minhas consultas não há ainda nada dizendo que "she" pode ser usado para se fazer referência a um sujeito de gênero indeterminado,ainda consta "he","he or she" e "they".Mas como tudo anda mudando da noite para o dia,pode ser que venha a ser possível.


Bons estudos!

[Henry Cunha]

I think Donay has it just about right. The issue is one of trying to avoid a perceived gender bias. For some time now the traditional use of "he" has been criticized on the basis that it carries a hidden message: in this case, for example, and in general, that all decision makers are males. So a growing number of writers (and copy editors at the publishers) have begun to distribute the "he´s" and "she´s" with equanimity.

I see this happening more and more, and have become almost used to it. But it vexes some purists and contrarians, and from time to time you see some item in the media about how "the politically correct" are destroying the English language. But I predict you´re going to see the trend continue.

Now, "it" would never do. It´s a pronoun reserved for actions, objects, etc. The purists would really declare war on it (pardon the pun).

We fooled around for a while with the androgynous "s/he," but I´m happy to see that it didn´t catch on.

Some of the problem has to do with poor editing. Look at the sentence you cited, "A basic problem that the decision-maker faces is that she does not know how much people value the good; their preferences are private information".

To solve the problem it could have been re-written as:

"A basic problem that the decision-maker faces is one of not knowing how much people value the good; their preferences are private information".

[Renck]

Salve, Donay e Henry.

Muito obrigado pelo esclarecimento.

Henry, thank you for correcting me about the use of "it". By the way, in the same book it reads "For example, even if you gave a central planner all the information relevant to solve the problem, (s)he might still fail to come up with the optimal solution (...)" two pages after the given example. Unfortunatelly, this androgynous, awkward form is still around.

Regards.

[Henry Cunha]

Hey Renck, thanks for the compliment. Your English is very good. I bet you could easily edit that second quote to everybody´s satisfaction!

[Renck]

Eu sugeriria "For example, even if you gave a central planner all the information relevant to solve the problem, coming up with the optimal solution might still not be possible."

[Henry Cunha]

Hi Renck,
I read and re-read the two sentences, the original and the proposed revision. I´m tempted to ask if you think you´ve changed the author´s meaning at all. I´m focused here on the fact that the original sentence seems to be a criticism of central planning as an efficient tool for solving the problem. The revision seems to throw the weight of the argument toward the non-existence of an optimal solution, regardless of the planning method. Do you see what I´m getting at?

All that surgery just to neuter a pronoun!

I propose the following minimalist approaches:

"For example, even if you gave a central planner all the information relevant to solve the problem, that person might still fail to come up with the optimal solution (...)"

Or throw the whole thing into the plural:

"For example, even if you gave central planners all the information relevant to solve the problem, they might still fail to come up with the optimal solution (...)"