Lingua inclusiva: forme, funzioni, atteggiamenti e percezioni

Overview & Synopsis

This volume includes seven contributions devoted to inclusive language, understood in two interrelated meanings: the inclusion of women in discourses dominated by masculine forms and the inclusion of people who do not identify with binary gender identities. The goal is to stimulate respectful and informed discussion about linguistic structures, with a focus on Italian. The research presented, based on qualitative and quantitative corpus analyses, psycholinguistics experimental studies and questionnaire-based sociolinguistic investigations, describes specific language varieties or text types, highlights the main structural differences between Italian and German, investigates the supposed neutrality of the so-called ‘unmarked’ (or even ‘inclusive’) masculine or the public perception of inclusive language, and reflects on the use of grammatical desinences in the construction of gender identity in chatbots. A concerning scenario emerges from all the contributions, particularly for the degree of visibility of women in Italian cultural discourse and for the lack of denotation of prestige associated to the female gender.