Nov 17, 2026 Rahel Albicker

She/her, fae/faer, or any pronouns – Gender Identity Expression in Digital Social Networks

Abstract:

This study explores gender identity expression through personal pronoun declarations in digital social networks. Personal pronouns are highly relevant for the expression of not only individual but also collective identity. In recent years, pronoun declarations as a sociolinguistic innovation have become increasingly common in online communication settings. The present study draws on observations from a large social media dataset covering three geographical regions (Australia, UK, US). In total, the dataset contains 351,167 users that are organized in 5,660 ego networks. Tracing users’ pronoun declaration choices as well as their social behavior across geographical regions, the study first establishes an inventory of pronoun declarations and subsequently examines the social contexts in which pronouns are declared. The results confirm previously detected pronoun patterns across regions, highlighting the global nature of the phenomenon. An analysis of users’ social networks suggests that pronoun-declaring users cluster together but tend to form smaller communities than the baseline population. These findings emphasize the social function of pronoun declarations and call for close-up analyses of their use in social networks of varying strengths and sizes.

Biographical Note:

Rahel Albicker is a doctoral researcher in General Linguistics at the University of Eastern Finland. Her research is in the field of English sociolinguistics, focusing on personal pronoun declarations for gender identity expression in digital social networks. In particular, she examines how pronoun declarations spread across social networks of varying strengths and sizes. Her work aims to evaluate the applicability of the weak-tie hypothesis in the context of the sociolinguistic innovation of pronoun declarations.