Gender-Inclusive Language in Media Discourse: A Contrastive Analysis of Gendered Person References in German and Chinese Press Texts

Gender distinctions in language influence how identity categories are constructed and affect how individuals are mentally processed by audiences (Braun et al. 2007; Gygax et al. 2008; Stahlberg & Sczesny 2011). This study investigates how structural differences between German, as a language with grammatical gender, and Mandarin Chinese, without grammatical gender, influence gender representation, especially focusing on person references in press texts. It also examines how translation between these two languages affects gender visibility in cross-linguistic communication.

In German, the grammatical gender is obligatory for the person references, such as der Lehrer (‘male teacher’) or die Lehrerin (‘female teacher’). Their word form reflects both biological and linguistic gender through the articles and morphological marking (Braun et al. 1998). In contrast, person references in Chinese like 教师 (‘teacher’) are inherently non-gender marked, quite similar to the respective expressions in English. If gender needs to be marked, it would be highlighted in Chinese through additional modifiers (男教师 ‘male teacher’, 女教师 ‘female teacher’), or through pronouns in written context (Packard 2000). In third-person pronouns, gender distinction can be introduced through the characters 他 (‘he’), 她 (‘she’) and 它 (‘it’) with the same pronunciation, which differentiate at the semantic level rather than the morphosyntactic one. 

These fundamental structural differences pose challenges for translation, as they can impact the meaning and tone of the original text. Non-gender marked expressions in Chinese often require gender decisions when translating into German, which may raise unintended gender specifications. Conversely, terms marked with grammatical gender in German may lose their gender distinction in Chinese translations. These shifts can influence how readers interpret the texts in cross-language communication.

This study is based on a self-compiled bilingual corpus of the online news from People’s Daily in its German and Chinese edition (Sept. 2023 – Sept. 2024), comparing the Chinese original texts and their German version of the same content. The current analysis focuses on the first four months of the time span. It examines how non-gender marked person references in Chinese news articles are translated in German, and how this process affects gender representation.

Initial findings indicate that gender-neutral person references in Chinese are frequently translated into German with the generic masculine form, which may misrepresent the subjects’ actual gender. In some cases, German translations tend to use more concrete, agentive formulations like person references to denote collective or institutional agents, compared to the abstract or impersonal expressions in Chinese original texts (e.g. translating the term 邮政行业 ‘postal branch’ into Paketzusteller ‘parcel delivery men (i.e. ‘parcel delivery company’)’). This preference also increases the use of explicitly gendered person nouns in German translations.

It should be noted that the German translations are also produced by People’s Daily, but not by native German media institutions. They may not fully reflect current trends in gender-inclusive language in German-speaking media but offer an insight into institutional translation practices within a German-as-a-foreign-language (DaF) context. Future work may include bidirectional translation if there are convincing sources.

By highlighting the systemic contrasts between German and Chinese, this study contributes to the broader discussion on how typological differences influence gender representation in translation. These findings also indicate the importance of flexible language practices in multilingual media to ensure clear and inclusive communication across languages and cultures.