Inclusive Grammar in Italian

Linguistic Alternatives and Public Opinion

Abstract

In the case of animate referents, grammatical gender limited to the male/female dichotomy fails to correspond to all gender identities. In the recent years, several gender-neutralisation strategies have been developed in Italian (as well as in many other languages) aimed at offering linguistic solutions for those who do not identify with binary gender categories. If the so-called standard Italian strategies have by now been widely taken up in the guidelines issued by a variety of institutions at a European and national level, the so-called sub-standard strategies, promoted by associations and editorial offices with strong political and social alignments in favour of LGBTQIA+ issues, have been, despite their increasingly widespread and frequent use, the target of severe criticism and objections from public figures, primarily journalists, university teaching staff and political personalities, which have frequently taken on offensive and derisive tones, if not outright disrespectful of the initiatives. On the other hand, those promoting the initiatives reiterate that these are experiments limited to certain contexts (especially written, when referring to gender-indistinct groups of people, when talking or writing about a non-binary person or when referring to an individual regardless of gender). This study proposes an overview of the strategies and motivations used to promote gender-inclusive language.