Education of the republic of uzbekistan termez state university foreign philology faculty the department of english language and literature

Pronouns
Another target of frequent criticism by proponents of gender-neutral language is the use of the masculine pronoun he (and its derived forms him, his and himself) to refer to antecedents of indeterminate gender. Although this usage is traditional, some critics argue that it was invented and propagated by males, whose explicit goal was the linguistic representation of male superiority.^[33] The use of the generic he was approved in an Act of Parliament, the Interpretation Act 1850 (the provision continues in the Interpretation Act 1978, although this states equally that the feminine includes the masculine). On the other hand, in 1879 the word "he" in by-laws was used to block admission of women to the Massachusetts Medical Society.^[34]
Proposed alternatives to the generic he include he or she (or she or he), s/he, or the use of singular they. Each of these alternatives has met with objections. The use of he or she has been criticized for reinforcing the gender binary.^[35] Some^[who?] feel the use of singular they to be a grammatical error, but according to most references, they, their and them have long been grammatically acceptable as gender-neutral singular pronouns in English, having been used in the singular continuously since the Middle Ages, including by a number of prominent authors, such as Geoffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare, and Jane Austen.^[36] Linguist Steven Pinker goes further and argues that traditional grammar proscriptions regarding the use of singular "they" are themselves incorrect:
The logical point that you, Holden Caulfield, and everyone but the language mavens intuitively grasp is that everyone and they are not an "antecedent" and a "pronoun" referring to the same person in the world, which would force them to agree in number. They are a "quantifier" and a "bound variable", a different logical relationship. Everyone returned to their seats means "For all X, X returned to X's seat." The "X" does not refer to any particular person or group of people; it is simply a placeholder that keeps track of the roles that players play across different relationships. In this case, the X that comes back to a seat is the same X that owns the seat that X comes back to. The their there does not, in fact, have plural number, because it refers neither to one thing nor to many things; it does not refer at all.^[37]
Some style guides (e.g. APA^[38]) accept singular they as grammatically correct,^[39] while others^[which?] reject it. Some, such as The Chicago Manual of Style, hold a neutral position on the issue, and contend that any approach used is likely to displease some readers.^[40]
Research has found that the use of masculine pronouns in a generic sense creates "male bias" by evoking a disproportionate number of male images and excluding thoughts of women in non-sex specific instances.^[41][42] Moreover, a study by John Gastil found that while they functions as a generic pronoun for both males and females, males may comprehend he/she in a manner similar to he