Online Communities of Use for Neoreflexives

With much discussion of “singular they”, relatively little attention has been paid to the corresponding reflexive form. Themselves tolerates a singular antecedent, though corpus data from Twitter shows themself emerging as a preferred singular form. This paper examines the reflexive pronouns in numerous neopronoun paradigms (neoreflexives), initially to investigate whether or not the -selves is maintained for non-gendered third person singular forms. Data are gathered by searching Twitter for multiple neoreflexives, gathering data over three one-month windows in 2018 and 2019. While -selves forms are quite rare, answering the initial question, other patterns emerge when examining the communities of use for various neoreflexive forms. Perhaps surprisingly, uses in a grammatical sentence with the intention to signal non-binary or other queer identities are exceedingly rare, as a portion of the overall corpus. The “e” forms eself, emself, erself are largely lost amidst tweeters in Africa and the north of the UK, who are orthographically representing their local dialects. Similarly, zemselves does occur in the corpus, but as a marker of non-native English voice. The only form to be in relatively stable use within the queer/non-binary community over all three time windows is hirself. Otherwise, which forms are being actively used within the community seems to be shifting, as in Summer of 2018, emself is the most frequently used in a full sentence, though this is outpaced by xemself in Summer 2019. While this might be a response to awareness of some neoreflexives being part of the dialect of other groups, this may be a response to another shifting use of neoreflexive forms. Some neoreflexives, particularly those with an -er- string parallel to herself (e.g. xerself, zerself), are shifting in use toward right-wing Twitter accounts as tools to denigrate feminine, queer, and non-binary identity. These are being used in a mocking tone, often referring to well-known female figures in progressive politics. Furthermore, by the Summer 2019 dataset, some neoreflexives seem to be being used as terms of abuse within the right-wing Twitter community, carrying a sense of emasculation where the neoreflexive is replacing yourself.

https://digitalcommons.ciis.edu/lavlang/2021/saturday/19