Questão 66982

A sociolinguistics professor is discussing language variation and prejudice, focusing on a phenomenon of language change in progress: the use of 'singular they' as a pronoun for a non-binary individual or for a generic person whose gender is unknown or irrelevant (e.g., 'Each student should hand in their essay tomorrow'). She notes the strong prescriptive backlash against this usage, with critics labeling it 'ungrammatical', 'illogical', or 'a concession to political correctness'. The professor wants her students, future teachers, to analyze this phenomenon not from a prescriptive viewpoint, but from a descriptive, sociolinguistic one, understanding the complex interplay of linguistic change, social identity, and language ideology. She provides them with a text from a historical linguist: 'The claim that 'singular they' is a modern corruption is historically false. It has been in continuous use in English since the 14th century, employed by authors like Chaucer and Shakespeare. Its recent stigmatization is a product of 18th-century prescriptivist grammarians who sought to impose the rules of Latin onto English. The current resurgence of 'singular they' is thus not a corruption, but a reclamation of a historical form, now also repurposed to serve a new social function: the linguistic representation of non-binary identities.'

Analyze the following statements about 'singular they':

I. From a purely descriptive linguistic perspective, the widespread and systematic use of 'singular they' by a large community of speakers makes it a grammatical feature of contemporary English, regardless of prescriptive rules.
II. The prejudice against 'singular they' is a form of 'language ideology'—a set of beliefs about language that is used to justify and rationalize social and political positions. It is often less about grammar and more about resistance to social change regarding gender identity.
III. A teacher who insists that only 'he or she' is correct, and penalizes students for using 'singular they' in generic contexts, is not just teaching a grammar rule, but is implicitly enforcing a particular, and contested, language ideology.

Which statement(s) is/are consistent with a critical sociolinguistic analysis of this phenomenon?