Annali di Ca’ Foscari. Serie occidentale

Rivista | Annali di Ca’ Foscari. Serie occidentale
Fascicolo | 56 | 2022
Articolo | A Linguistic Perspective on Feminisation and Gender-Inclusive Language

A Linguistic Perspective on Feminisation and Gender-Inclusive Language

How Partitive Constructions Can Be Used to Uncover Implicit Gender Bias in Italian

Abstract

This article reports the results of a study on the perception of feminisation and gender mismatches in Italian. The study probes the intuition of native Italian speakers through tasks that highlight their linguistic habits. The results point to two separate but interrelated reflections. First, they show that semantic gender can override grammatical gender in partitives. Second, they reveal that the acceptance of feminine profession nouns is not widespread, especially for those nouns that refer to prestigious professions. The work presented here stems from an Italian adaptation of a study originally designed for French and German.


Open access | Peer reviewed

Presentato: 01 Agosto 2021 | Accettato: 08 Luglio 2022 | Pubblicato 19 Settembre 2022 | Lingua: en

Keywords Gender-fair languageFeminisationGender mismatchGender agreementPartitive constructions


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