Inclusiveness Beyond the (Non)binary in Romance Languages: Research and Classroom Implementation 1032558784, 9781032558783

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Title
Copyright
Contents
List of figures
List of tables
List of contributors
Introduction
Part I Research
1 Using inclusive language at school: reported and perceived use among teachers in Buenos Aires
2 For the children: Brazilian Portuguese and the rainbow scare
3 Gender inclusiveness in a binary language: the rise of the schwa in Italian and the discussion surrounding it
4 Towards feminization and neutralization in the foreign language classroom: evaluation of linguistic possibilities
5 Is Italy ready for gender-inclusive language?: an attitude and usage study among Italian speakers
Part II Classroom implementation
6 The ergonomic classroom: best practices for fostering inclusive learning environments
7 Inclusive Italian in the college classroom: a promising journey
8 Integrating nonbinary language and trans knowledge practices in Romance language classes
9 Diversity, inclusion, equity, and social justice in the Spanish language classroom: what does it mean and what does it look like?
10 Teaching nonbinary Portuguese: strategies and inclusiveness in the classroom
Index

Citation preview

Inclusiveness Beyond the (Non)binary in Romance Languages

Inclusiveness Beyond the (Non)binary in Romance Languages: Research and Classroom Implementation explores both research and best practices related to inclusive language so that all students, regardless of gender identity, may be active participants in their language learning communities. Given the binary nature of Romance language grammars, it is essential that scholarly inquiry into issues related to (non)binarism be further developed and become more visible, and this volume aims to embed the issue of linguistic inclusivity within broader conversations surrounding social justice to ensure that conversations do not stop with mere linguistic changes. The book is divided into two parts: the first focuses on research related to inclusive and nonbinary forms in Romance languages, while the second highlights teaching practices and encompasses inclusive approaches that go beyond the nonbinary. Although the volume focuses on Romance languages, most (if not all) of the content is applicable to other linguistic contexts. This volume also goes beyond issues of gender inclusivity and includes content that leads to a reflection on issues of equity and social justice more broadly. This edited volume is a resource for scholars whose research focuses on inclusive language and for educators who are interested in learning more about why and how to foster inclusiveness in their language classrooms and in their workplaces. Gláucia V. Silva is Professor of Portuguese at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, USA. Cristiane Soares is Senior Preceptor in Portuguese at Harvard University, USA.

Inclusiveness Beyond the (Non)binary in Romance Languages

Research and Classroom Implementation

Edited by Gláucia V. Silva and Cristiane Soares

First published 2024 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2024 selection and editorial matter, Gláucia V. Silva and Cristiane Soares; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Gláucia V. Silva and Cristiane Soares to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Silva, Gláucia V. (Gláucia Valeria), 1963– editor. | Soares, Christiane, editor. Title: Inclusiveness beyond the (non)binary in Romance languages : research and classroom implementation / edited by Gláucia V. Silva and Christiane Soares. Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2024. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2023047793 (print) | LCCN 2023047794 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Romance languages—Study and teaching. | Romance languages—Gender. | Gender identity in education. | Nonsexist language. | LCGFT: Essays. Classification: LCC PC35 .I53 2024 (print) | LCC PC35 (ebook) | DDC 440/.045—dc23/eng/20240202 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023047793 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023047794 ISBN: 978-1-032-55878-3 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-55917-9 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-43290-6 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003432906 Typeset in Sabon by Apex CoVantage, LLC

Contents

List of figures List of tables List of contributors

vii viii ix

Introduction1 CRISTIANE SOARES AND GLÁUCIA V. SILVA

PART I

Research7   1 Using inclusive language at school: reported and perceived use among teachers in Buenos Aires

9

JUAN EDUARDO BONNIN AND GABRIELA MARIEL ZUNINO

  2 For the children: Brazilian Portuguese and the rainbow scare

33

GABRIEL CHAGAS, CRISTIANE SOARES, AND GLÁUCIA V. SILVA

  3 Gender inclusiveness in a binary language: the rise of the schwa in Italian and the discussion surrounding it

50

VERA GHENO

  4 Towards feminization and neutralization in the foreign language classroom: evaluation of linguistic possibilities

66

HUGUES PETERS

  5 Is Italy ready for gender-inclusive language?: an attitude and usage study among Italian speakers GIUSEPPINA SCOTTO DI CARLO

82

vi  Contents PART II

Classroom implementation103   6 The ergonomic classroom: best practices for fostering inclusive learning environments

105

CLAIRE-MARIE BRISSON

  7 Inclusive Italian in the college classroom: a promising journey

120

CARMEN MEROLLA

  8 Integrating nonbinary language and trans knowledge practices in Romance language classes

139

DENISE MARIA OSBORNE

  9 Diversity, inclusion, equity, and social justice in the Spanish language classroom: what does it mean and what does it look like?

156

MARÍA LUISA PARRA AND VIVIANE FARIA

10 Teaching nonbinary Portuguese: strategies and inclusiveness in the classroom

172

YASMIN ZANDOMENICO AND JOYCE FERNANDES

Index

191

Figures

1.1 Distribution by age of each linguistic form in written modality16 1.2 Distribution by age of each linguistic form in oral modality17 1.3 Use of each linguistic form by gender in oral modality 18 1.4 Use of each linguistic form by gender in written modality 19 1.5 Use of each linguistic form according to communicative situation in oral modality 21 1.6 Use of each linguistic form according to communicative situation in written modality 23 1.7 Perception of use: nonbinary forms, by gender and communicative situation in oral modality 25 1.8 Perception of use: nonbinary forms, by gender and communicative situation in written modality 26 5.1 Charts for Q1–Q4 on comprehensibility of G.I.L. 91 5.2 Charts for Q5–Q8 on feasibility of G.I.L. 93 5.3 Charts for Q9–Q12 on feasibility of G.I.L. 95 10.1 Pre-intervention experimental and control groups (Positive statements) 184 10.2 Post-intervention experimental and control groups (Positive statements) 184 10.3 Pre-intervention experimental and control groups (Negative statements) 185 10.4 Post-intervention experimental and control groups (Negative statements) 186

Tables

2.1 Federal bills 2.2 City and state bills 5.1 Proposals for gender-inclusive forms adapted from Gheno (2019) 5.2 Age 5.3 Location 5.4 Level of education 5.5 Selection of G.I.L. in written communication 5.6 Selection of G.I.L. in oral communication 8.1 Online resources for trans, nonconforming, and nonbinary knowledges as well as for gender-just inclusion in language education 8.2 Examples of indirect nonbinary language: transforming excluding into inclusive language 8.3 Practices for inclusive language and pedagogical applications in the language classroom

41 41 85 88 88 89 97 99 141 143 146

Contributors

Juan Eduardo Bonnin is a full professor of discourse analysis at the National University of San Martín and Researcher at CONICET, Argentina. He is the director of the Workers’ Innovation Center (Centro de Innovación de los Trabajadores, CITRA/CONICET-UMET) and researcher at the Center for the Study of Language in Society (CELES/UNSAM). He is executive editor of Sociocultural Pragmatics and a member of the editorial board of the International Journal for the Sociology of Language. His field of research is discourse analysis and interactional sociolinguistics. His latest book is Discourse and mental health. Voice, Inequality and Resistance in Medical Settings (Routledge, 2019/2020). Claire-Marie Brisson, PhD, is a preceptor in French at Harvard University, USA, and a special correspondent with Radio-Canada in Ontario and Alberta. Having worked in disciplines as varied as French, education, history, German, and engineering, Claire-Marie embraces a multidimensional, interdisciplinary interpretation of education and research. Her interests include North American French, design thinking, and the diaspora in its broad interpretations and cultural manifestations. Gabriel Chagas received his MA in comparative literature and his PhD in comparative literature from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He is currently pursuing his second PhD at the University of Miami, where he is a Portuguese language instructor. His main research interests are comparative literature, global Black studies, and intersectionality. In 2020, Gabriel was awarded the Antonio Candido Prize for Best Master’s Thesis in Brazil. Most of his published essays and articles discuss Brazilian and American Literature from a multidisciplinary perspective focused on Decoloniality. He is now a University of Miami Fellow. Viviane Faria holds two MA degrees, in Portuguese and Brazilian literary and cultural studies and in Hispanic linguistics, both from the University of New Mexico, USA, having earlier completed a BA degree with an emphasis in English and literatures at the Federal University of Minas Gerais

x  Contributors

(UFMG) in Brazil. She has worked as a language instructor for more than 20 years and has been teaching Portuguese and Spanish in the US since 2012. Viviane is currently pursuing a PhD in Luso-Afro-Brazilian studies and theory at UMass Dartmouth, where she intends to explore Portuguese as a heritage language and its acquisition through a multicultural perspective. Joyce Fernandes is a PhD student in the Department of Portuguese and Brazilian Studies at Brown University, USA, where she has focused her studies on African diasporic literature in Portuguese. She is also a teaching assistant in language and culture courses in the department. Vera Gheno is a sociolinguist and literary translator from Hungarian. Her main research interests are lexicography, computer-mediated communication and diversity and inclusion issues, especially from a linguistic point of view. She collaborated for 20 years with the Accademia della Crusca and for four years with the Zanichelli publishing house. She taught as an adjunct professor at the University of Florence, Italy, for 18 years; in September 2021 she became a type A researcher at the same institution. In May 2022 Gheno published her eleventh monography, Chiamami così. Normalità, diversità e tutte le parole nel mezzo (Il Margine). Carmen Merolla is a senior lecturer and coordinator of Italian language at Tufts University, USA. She graduated in comparative studies with a focus on English and Japanese literature, from the Istituto Universitario L’Orientale of Napoli, Italy, and subsequently pursued a master of arts in Italian literature and culture from Boston College, USA. She has authored Interpretazioni, a film-based textbook to learn Italian language and culture through film, and she enjoys experimenting with smart technology in the class to foster cross-cultural competences in her students. Since 2019, her research has focused on the artistic production of first-generation Italians and on the progress of inclusive Italian. Denise Maria Osborne is a senior lecturer in Portuguese at Cornell University, USA. She earned her PhD in second language acquisition and teaching from the University of Arizona, and her MA in applied linguistics from Columbia University. Her areas of interest include second language acquisition, L2–L3 phonetics (perception and production), and the teaching and learning of Portuguese as a foreign language. She has published in journals, such as Language, Heritage Language Journal, Portuguese Language Journal, Journal of Second Language Pronunciation, Revista de Estudos da Linguagem (RELIN), among others. María Luisa Parra is faculty in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures at Harvard University, USA. She directs Harvard’s Initiative on the Teaching of Spanish as Heritage Language. She has a BA in psychology

Contributors xi

and a PhD in Hispanics linguistics from El Colegio de Mexico, Mexico City, Mexico. Her courses draw from critical pedagogy, community engagement, and inclusion of visual arts and creativity. In 2019, her work was recognized by Babson University with the 2019 Most Innovative Professors Award. She was also selected as one of the favorite professors by Harvard class 2022. Hugues Peters is a senior lecturer in French studies at UNSW Sydney, Australia. He received his master in romance philology from the Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium, and his PhD in French linguistics from Pennsylvania State University, USA. He is co-author with Christopher Laenzlinger of Des savoirs linguistiques aux savoirs scolaires. L’accès à la grammaire par le lexique (Editions Lambert-Lucas, France, 2016), and the creator of a learners’ corpus of spoken French: The UWI French L2 Corpus (SLA-Bank Talkbank, 2017, http://dx.doi.org/10.21415/T5G975). He strives to apply his research on French grammar and culture and on second language acquisition to the teaching of French, more recently on the topic of language inclusivity. Giuseppina Scotto di Carlo is currently researcher and lecturer in English Language and Linguistics at the University of Naples l’Orientale (Italy), Department of Asian, African, and Mediterranean Studies. She holds a PhD in English for Special Purposes (ESP) from the University of Naples Federico II (Italy). Her research interests cover institutional discourse, gender studies, and science popularization. Some of her most recent works include A discourse analysis of the “Trumpusconi” phenomenon: Is Trump our contemporary Berlusconi? (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2021); “An analysis of self-other representations in the Incelosphere: Between online misogyny and self-contempt” (Discourse & Society, 2023); and “Defining gender across Europe: A linguistic analysis of the definition, translation, and interpretation of the word ‘gender’ from the Beijing Declaration to the Istanbul Convention” (International Journal for the Semiotics of Law, 2022). Gláucia V. Silva is a professor in the Department of Portuguese at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, USA, where she also coordinates the Portuguese language program. She is the author of Word order in Brazilian Portuguese (Mouton de Gruyter, 2001) and co-author of four Portuguese language textbooks. Her current research addresses various aspects in learning and teaching Portuguese as a heritage/foreign language, including perception and production of linguistic features, performance in different language skills, instructors’ needs, and inclusive language. She has facilitated several workshops and professional development series on Portuguese as a heritage language. Cristiane Soares is a senior preceptor and the Portuguese language coordinator at Harvard University, USA. She has a PhD in Luso-Afro-Brazilian

xii  Contributors

studies and theory (University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, USA), an MA in applied linguistics (University of Massachusetts Boston, USA), and a BA in Portuguese and Brazilian literature (Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil). Cristiane has over 15 years of experience teaching Portuguese as a foreign and heritage language in the United States; she teaches Portuguese language and Brazilian culture courses at all levels. Her current research focuses on Portuguese pedagogy, Portuguese as a foreign language, and inclusive and nonbinary language in Portuguese. Yasmin Zandomenico holds a BA in Portuguese (Linguistics and Literatures) from Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo, Brazil, and is a doctoral candidate in the Luso-Afro-Brazilian studies and theory program at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth (USA). She has published articles in academic journals in Brazil, Portugal, and the United States, among which Itinerários, Revista de Comunicação e Linguagens (RCL), and Portuguese Language Journal, respectively. Her research is in the field of Brazilian literary studies and applied linguistics in Portuguese, with emphasis on gender and sexuality. She is also a teaching fellow in the Department of Portuguese at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. Gabriela Mariel Zunino has a PhD in linguistics (UBA). She is an assistant professor of psycholinguistics at the University of Buenos Aires and the University of Comahue; and researcher at CONICET, Argentina; and editor of Quintú Quimün. Revista de Lingüística (UNCOMA). Within studies on cognition and language processing, she focuses on interdisciplinary studies linking theoretical linguistics, philosophy of mind, psycholinguistics, and education. She has national and international publications on the relations between thought and language, the articulation between syntax and semantics during language comprehension, and in recent years has focused on analyzing the processing of nonbinary morphological forms in Spanish and its relationship with the cognitive manipulation of mental representations of gender stereotypes.

Introduction Cristiane Soares and Gláucia V. Silva

Language plays a significant role in how social structures are produced, maintained, and reinforced (Okan, 2019), and being aware of this role helps us understand social inequalities and power dynamics. Language that excludes certain groups of people denies their full participation in a community; in learning environments, this denial entrenches inequality and causes marginalization (Annamalai  & Skutnabb-Kangas, 2020). Some identities may become invisible, such as that of nonbinary and gender nonconforming individuals, who face binary expectations of behavior and self-presentation (Paechter et al., 2021). Given the binary nature of many Romance language grammars, it is essential that scholarly inquiry into issues related to (non) binarism be further developed and become more visible. The languages represented in this volume (French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish) share traits present in several other Romance languages, including a grammatical gender system used for both animate and inanimate nouns. Nouns and pronouns agree in number (singular or plural) and gender (masculine or feminine) with adjectives and with determiners, such as articles, demonstratives, quantifiers, interrogatives, possessives, (some) numerals. This somewhat complex agreement system, combined with the traditionally masculine-feminine binary grammatical gender, might pose difficulties for efforts related to gender neutrality in Romance languages. These difficulties are compounded by the generic masculine, that is, the use of the masculine form to refer to groups of people, such as les professeurs (French), gli insegnanti (Italian), os professores (Portuguese), los profesores (Spanish), used to allude to teachers or professors of all genders. Research has shown that the generic masculine is biased towards the representation of men (Gastill, 1990; Gygax et al., 2021; Redl et al., 2022; Silveira, 1980; Stetie & Zunino, 2022). As highlighted by Pappas and Karras (2021, p.  1), “language functions in favor of dominant groups”; the generic masculine reinforces societal male dominance. On the other hand, gender-fair language can help change perceptions (Vervecken et al., 2015). As the debate about diversity, inclusion, equity, and accessibility evolved, the necessity to find linguistic alternatives to include people beyond the male/ DOI: 10.4324/9781003432906-1

2  Cristiane Soares and Gláucia V. Silva

female binary became evident. Amid these discussions, educators realized they could not forge an inclusive classroom if they continued to deny some of their students the fundamental right to say who they are. Consequently, linguistic alternatives (in many languages) slowly started to enter the classroom, informed by research and practices adopted by the LGBTQIA+ community. When teachers, linguists, researchers, and allies promote language inclusiveness, they are recognizing the undeniable power that language plays in society. By using nonbinary language, they are proposing to share this power with a larger group of people, individuals who have been excluded, attacked, or silenced because they fail to find words in our linguistic systems to express themselves. In this book we hope to contribute to this debate, presenting research, practices, and classroom implementation that support the use of nonbinary forms in French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish. Besides that, our proposal to move beyond the nonbinary derives from the idea that many of the debates around inclusiveness seem to focus on either deconstructing or reaffirming the binary and on the impact that inclusiveness has on language structures: What endings should we add to nouns? What new pronouns should be created? What other linguistic features should be considered? When we limit our conversation to linguistic features, however, we fail to consider the violence and oppression that made language a weapon used against people who have been historically marginalized, a weapon that creates arbitrary rules, dictates norms, and constructs boxes in which everyone is forced to fit. When we focus the debate on solely language, we risk treating inclusiveness simply as an attempt to create new forms and words, which can be perceived by some as unnecessary, or as an effort that brings confusion, causes disruption, and ruins our linguistic systems. We lose sight of the effects that misgendering (i.e., referring to someone using language that does not match their gender identity) might have on the physical and mental health of transgender (Dolan et al., 2020) and other nonconforming individuals, among many other potentially devastating consequences. Among all the theories that have informed the discussion around language inclusiveness, feminism has played a pivotal part. Marcia Tiburi (2018/2021) affirms that feminism “has an important role, [since it deals] with the words through which people have always been controlled, restricted, and dominated” (p. 75; all translations are ours). The author explains that feminism transcends gender and sexuality and “is evidently a fight against accumulated suffering,” “bring[ing] together the markers of race, gender, sexuality, and social class” (p. 55). Tiburi also emphasizes that feminism “helps us improve the way we see others. [It gives us] the right to be who [we] are, to freely express the way [we] are and appear and, above all, [feminism leads us] to understand ourself” (p. 23). Thus, promoting language inclusiveness is moving one step towards forging societies in which language would no longer be used as a weapon to “discriminate, abuse, marginalize, disrupt, and destabilize individuals and

Introduction 3

communities” (Bouman et al., 2017, p. 1). But language is only one piece of the puzzle. When proposing nonbinary alternatives for languages, we must also understand the history, the social and cultural factors that have shaped these struggles. Consequently, new pronouns and language structures should not be introduced in a vacuum. In that sense, it is crucial that educators have access both to research and best practices related to inclusive language so that all students may be active participants in their language learning communities. Although most of the texts in this volume address issues related to nonbinary language, two chapters go beyond (non)binarity and discuss inclusion and equity more broadly; all of them propose practices that have impact beyond the classroom. Finally, we must also recognize that this book is essentially about the (im) possibility of using inclusive language in French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish. Although all authors in this edition believe that gender-inclusive practices are a necessity, we cannot deny the efforts made to silence voices and experiences that go beyond the binary, in clear attempts to make the quest for inclusiveness impossible. Not surprisingly, several authors in this book describe examples showing that almost every affirmative action towards inclusiveness is faced with resistance and hostility. This edited volume is intended as a resource for scholars whose research focuses on inclusiveness and for educators who are interested in learning more about why and how to foster inclusiveness in their language classrooms and in their workplaces. By publishing this title in English, we hope to expand the dialogue among professionals in Romance languages and English-speaking researchers and educators, sharing current studies and practices on inclusive language in French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish. Since the fight for inclusiveness has been a struggle in most cases, we hope that in learning from one another we can find allies across languages. The book is divided into two parts: Part I contains chapters that report on research related to inclusive and nonbinary forms in Romance languages; the chapters in Part II focus on teaching practices that encompass inclusive and nonbinary approaches. However, this volume goes beyond issues of gender inclusivity and includes content that takes into consideration the oppression of other minoritized groups, thus leading to a reflection on issues of equity and social justice more broadly. Although the volume focuses on Romance languages, most (if not all) of the content is applicable and/or can be adapted to other linguistic contexts. The chapters in each part are organized by alphabetical order of (first) authors’ names. Part I opens with Juan Eduardo Bonnin and Gabriela Mariel Zunino’s analysis of a survey among teachers in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on the use of gender-inclusive language and attitudes towards gender morphology in Spanish. Their data reveal that gender duplication is the form most participants (reportedly) use to avoid the generic masculine, but there are important differences among groups of participants. Moving to neighboring

4  Cristiane Soares and Gláucia V. Silva

Brazil (and to Portuguese), the sociopolitical debate on gender-neutral forms is the topic of Chapter 2, by Gabriel Chagas, Cristiane Soares, and Gláucia V. Silva, which examines bills and laws proposed at the city, state, and federal levels to curb the use of nonbinary forms. All these legal initiatives describe nonbinary language as a “threat” to education and to children, evidencing a “rainbow scare” reminiscent of the Red Scare and the Lavender Scare, which, like those before it, is also used to oppress minorities with a discourse that portrays members of those minorities as threats to a nation’s moral values. In Italy, the use of the schwa [ə] as a nonbinary ending has been much debated in recent years, as outlined by Vera Gheno in Chapter 3. The history of the birth and emergence of the schwa as a symbol of inclusion in Italy is delineated clearly by Gheno, who shows the polarized debate around the form that has been undertaken among scholars and speakers of Italian. Ideological polarization over inclusive language is present in France as well, as mentioned by Hugues Peters in Chapter 4. Peters, a scholar based in Australia, discusses the use and teaching of nonsexist language practices in French and evaluates their advantages and disadvantages for the foreign language classroom. Chapter  5, by Giuseppina Scotto di Carlo, closes Part I. The chapter reports on a survey conducted among Italian speakers to examine their attitudes towards gender-inclusive language (GIL). Scotto di Carlo’s detailed data confirm the split among Italians, laid out in Chapter 3, between accepting and rejecting GIL in their language, but there are differences between what may be accepted in oral and in written communication. In Chapter 6, the first in Part II, Claire-Marie Brisson, a French language instructor, goes beyond the nonbinary and discusses how Ergonomic Pedagogical Design Thinking (EPDT) may provide a model for transformative educational practices. Brisson shows how blending human factors and ergonomics with pedagogy may promote diversity, equity, and inclusion and, at the same time, acknowledge community efforts to develop more inclusive language. Carmen Merola describes the adoption of nonbinary Italian in an American university in Chapter  7. Merola provides the guidelines for the use of nonbinary forms in Italian as well as several resources for inclusive Italian. Chapter 8, by Denise Maria Osborne, discusses some of the challenges that Portuguese language educators may encounter in relation to nonbinary linguistic forms. Osborne also shares with readers several lesson plans that reflect gender inclusiveness and trans-affirming pedagogies. Translated to English, these lesson plans may be adapted to instruction in different languages. In Chapter 9, María Luisa Parra and Viviane Faria bring definitions and tools that aimed at helping educators reflect on what inclusion, equity, and social justice mean in the context of Spanish language classes. The chapter provides a blueprint for the development of classroom activities based on the concepts discussed. Chapter 10, which concludes Part II, describes the results

Introduction 5

of classroom research conducted by the authors, Yasmin Zandomenico and Joyce Fernandes. The chapter explores inclusive teaching strategies in the Portuguese as a foreign language classroom that foster a diverse and respectful learning environment. Zandomenico and Fernandes also highlight the importance of using nonbinary forms and inclusive pedagogies to counter gender biases and to create welcoming spaces for all learners. In the following pages we proudly present scholarly work related to and/ or developed in six countries: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, France, Italy, and the United States. As mentioned before, we hope that publishing this volume in English will allow professionals across languages to find ideas and basis for their own work. We hope the resources provided in this book will be useful for language researchers and educators alike as they find ways to implement inclusiveness in their practice. References Annamalai, E.,  & Skutnabb-Kangas, T. (2020). Social justice and inclusiveness through linguistic human rights in education. In A. C. Schalley & S. A. Eisenchlas (Eds.), Handbook of home language maintenance and development (pp. 377–400). De Gruyter. Bouman, W. P., Schwend, A. S., Motmans, J., Smiley, A., Safer, J. D., Deutsch, M. B., Adams, N. J., & Winter, S. (2017). Language and trans health. International Journal of Transgenderism, 18(1), 1–6. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15532739.201 6.1262127 Dolan, I. J., Strauss, P., Winter, S., & Lin, A. (2020). Misgendering and experiences of stigma in health care settings for transgender people. Medical Journal of Australia, 212(4), 150–151. https://doi.org/10.5694/mja2.50497 Gastill, J. (1990). Generic pronouns and sexist language: The oxymoronic character of masculine generics. Sex Roles, 23(11–12), 629–643. Gygax, P., Sato, S., Öttl, A.,  & Gabriel, U. (2021). The masculine form in grammatically gendered languages and its multiple interpretations: A challenge for our cognitive system. Language Sciences, 83, Article 101328. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. langsci.2020.101328 Okan, Z. (2019). Language and social justice. In R. Papa (Ed.), Handbook on promoting social justice in education (pp. 1–16). Springer. Paechter, C., Toft, A., & Carlie, A. (2021). Non-binary young people and schools: Pedagogical insights from a small-scale interview study. Pedagogy, Culture & Society, 29(5), 695–713. https://doi.org/10.1080/14681366.2021.1912160 Pappas, L., & Karras, I. D. (2021). Gender ordering as an indicator of linguistic sexism in standard average European languages. European Journal of Literature, Language and Linguistic Studies, 4(4), 1–20. http://dx.doi.org/10.46827/ejlll.v4i4.233 Redl, T., Szuba, A., de Swart, P., Frank, S. L.,  & de Hoop, H. (2022). Masculine generic pronouns as a gender cue in generic statements. Discourse Processes, 59(10), 828–845. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langsci.2020.101328 Silveira, J. (1980). Generic masculine words and thinking. Women’s Studies International Quarterly, 3, 165–178.

6  Cristiane Soares and Gláucia V. Silva Stetie, N. A., & Zunino, G. M. (2022). Non-binary language in Spanish? Comprehension of non-binary morphological forms: A psycholinguistic study. Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics, 7(1), 1–38. https://doi.org/10.16995/glossa.6144 Tiburi, M. (2021). Feminismo em comum: Para todas, todes e todos. Rosa dos Tempos. (Original work published 2018) Vervecken, D., Gygax, P., Gabriel, U., Guillod, M., & Hannover, B. (2015). Warmhearted businessmen, competitive housewives? Effects of gender-fair language on adolescents’ perceptions of occupations. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, Article 1437. http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01437

Part I

Research

Chapter 1

Using inclusive language at school Reported and perceived use among teachers in Buenos Aires Juan Eduardo Bonnin and Gabriela Mariel Zunino Abstract Inclusive language in Argentina is a matter of public debate, especially in the field of education. However, there is little sociolinguistic research on who uses it, in what settings, and how it relates to other variants of gender morphology. To understand the sociolinguistic reality of inclusive language at school, a survey about reported use and attitudes towards gender morphology variants was conducted. A group of 429 teachers in the city of Buenos Aires (Argentina) participated in this study. We analyze generic masculine, duplication, neutralization, and nonbinary forms (i.e., [-e] or [-x]). This chapter presents findings on reported and perceived use, including settings (in school, out of school), participants (with authorities, colleagues, families, or students), and modality (oral or written). Results show that gender duplication is the preferred form in all settings, thus reducing the use of generic masculine as unmarked. This preference, however, is stronger among women and younger speakers, as men and older participants still prefer the generic masculine. Second, perceived use shows that teachers consider innovative forms among colleagues and outside the classroom more than in asymmetric situations. This shows the importance of community in understanding linguistic innovation in school. 1.1 Introduction On June 9th, 2022, the Buenos Aires City Hall issued Resolution N.º 2566/ MEDGC/22, which orders teachers to carry out their teaching activities and institutional communications “in accordance with the rules of the Spanish language, its grammatical norms and the official guidelines for its teaching” (p.  5; all translations by the authors). The measure, as clarified in a press release, “applies only to the content taught by teachers in class, to the material given to students and to the official documents of educational institutions” (Buenos Aires, 2022). Although the resolution does not say it

DOI: 10.4324/9781003432906-3

10  Juan Eduardo Bonnin and Gabriela Mariel Zunino

explicitly, it is, in practice, an attempt to prohibit the use of inclusive language (IL) by teachers at school. The resolution is in line with the position of the Royal Spanish Academy (Real Academia Española), quoted in a tweet: “[t]he use of the @ or the letters ‘e’ and ‘x’ as supposed marks of inclusive gender is foreign to the morphology of Spanish” (Real Academia Española, 2021; quoted in Gobierno de la Ciudad, 2022, p. 3). Actually, no reference is made to teaching in foreign languages (such as English, German, or French in bilingual elite schools), original American languages (considered by law as part of the Intercultural Bilingual Education), or to regional varieties of Spanish, none of which adjusts to “the rules of the Spanish language.” Why did the Buenos Aires City Hall suddenly become so concerned with grammar? The aforementioned resolution quotes two technical reports: one written jointly by the Undersecretariat of Pedagogical Coordination and Educational Equity (Subsecretaría de coordinación pedagógica y equidad educativa), the General Directorate of Educational Planning (Dirección general de planeamiento educativo) and the General Directorate of Private Management Education (Dirección general de educación de gestión privada), and one produced by the Unit of Integral Evaluation of Educational Quality and Equity (Unidad de evaluación integral de la calidad y la equidad educativa). Both reports are supposed to argue that nonbinary morphology prevents students from acquiring literacy skills. However, none of them is available, and attempts to reach them by NGO Amnesty International and the fact-checking site Chequeado have been unsuccessful. In a critical white paper (Bonnin et al., 2022), we discussed the statement that inclusive language is an obstacle to acquiring literacy skills. Instead, we note that there is no evidence to make such an affirmation. On the contrary, experimental evidence shows that inclusive language does not carry a higher processing cost than the generic masculine when appearing in plural noun phrases and may work better as non-marked form when referring to stereotypical nouns (Stetie & Zunino, 2022). So if there is no evidence that inclusive language prevents students from developing literacy skills, why the ban? Several studies have argued that resistance to IL is the product of a combination of conservative ideas about gender and/or language (Bonnin & Coronel, 2021; Lindqvist et al., 2021; Zunino & Dvoskin, 2023). From this perspective, the use of nonbinary forms is rejected by those who oppose language innovation and/or those who oppose feminism and/or nonbinarism. In this context, we reached out to teachers’ unions to conduct a joint survey on reported use and attitudes toward inclusive language. The survey had three main purposes. The first was to measure the actual reported use and attitudes of Buenos Aires teachers toward IL. Second, we wanted to compare the attitudes of this population with those of the general population (­Bonnin & Coronel, 2021) in order to understand if there were any specificities among teachers. Finally, we wanted to compare reported use and attitudes between teachers working primarily in public and private schools, as

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we expected private school teachers to have more conservative attitudes and less frequent use of IL. The questionnaire was designed in Google Forms, in collaboration with representatives of the Unión de Trabajadores de la Educación (UTE; Union of Education Workers) and the Sindicato de Docentes Privados (SADOP; Union of Private Teachers), who distributed it among teachers. In the case of SADOP, the survey was answered by 354 persons. In the case of UTE, the respondents totaled 56. As a consequence to this difference in responses, UTE data was discarded, and statistical analysis was conducted exclusively on the SADOP survey. 1.2  What is “inclusive language”? Innovative gender-neutral forms are a recent phenomenon that can be observed in various languages around the world as a correlate to the visibility and activism of feminist, transgender, nonbinary, and gender nonconforming movements (Zunino & Stetie, forthcoming; Zunino & Dvoskin, 2023). Studies in social psychology show that grammatical gender may impact on male-biased perception, reproducing social stereotypes through grammatical gender, even when applied to inanimate nouns (Boroditsky et al., 2003; Everett, 2011; Stahlberg et al., 2007). In a more specific direction, Stetie and Zunino (2022) and Zunino and Stetie (2022), among others, show that nongendered forms are more efficient in communicating gender diversity when used in all kinds of nouns; meanwhile, the interpretation of generic masculine is highly modulated by the noun stereotypicality. There are different strategies in different languages to convey nongendered meaning when applied to humans, that generally coexist in the spontaneous use: feminization or duplication, neutralization, and innovation (Stetie & Zunino, forthcoming). Feminization or duplication proposals are based on the use of paired forms (male and female): he/she, él/ella, los/as carpinteros/as. Neutralization consists of the use of epicene, collective nouns, or noun phrases that avoid the grammatical gender marking, so that they can be considered “neutral” concerning gender: people, the humanity. Finally, within the innovation proposals, there are differences depending on whether they concentrate on lexical, morphological, or merely (ortho)graphic innovations. Among lexical innovations, the most common are new pronouns such as nonbinary “hen” in Swedish (Renström et al., 2022), refunctionalizations such as singular “they” in English (Bradley et al., 2019), or compound nouns such as “policeperson,” which involves a combination of innovation and neutralization strategies (Lindqvist et al., 2021). 1.3  Inclusive language in Spanish Spanish has a binary grammatical gender system that differentiates masculine and feminine for nouns. Although as a grammatical feature masculine

12  Juan Eduardo Bonnin and Gabriela Mariel Zunino

is generally defined as the non-marked option (Ambadiang, 1999), critical feminist movements first denounced it as a form of invisibilization of women, thus advocating for duplication, as in “alumnas y alumnos.” The RAE and other conservative linguistic institutions stood against the duplication, mainly based on arguments such as being “unnecessary,” “anti-­ economical,” etc. In a second moment, during late 1990s and early 2000s, a more radical stance was taken denouncing gender binarism, thus proposing non-gendered morphemes. The first one, “@,” was rapidly abandoned, as it evoked the binary [-a] and [-o]. The “x” has been more widely adopted even in English, where the term “Latinx” is well-known, especially in campuses and academic settings. However, it only works in written communication and cannot be adequately pronounced. Thus, the morpheme [-e] was publicly introduced in Argentina in 2012 by LGBTTIQ+ activists M. Wayar and Lohana Berkins and has spread because it can be used both in written and oral form. Particularly for Spanish, the use of [-e] as a nonbinary morphological variant has been registered in different communities in America and Spain (Palma et al., 2023). The strategy involves adding a third nonbinary morphological variant to the traditional Spanish binary gender paradigm (-o vs. -a) in nouns and pronouns referring to people. This modification is projected to all words that must agree with the former (mostly determiners and adjectives). A sentence such as “Ella es una niña muy animada y traviesa” requires the modification of several words to generate agreement in Spanish. This sentence in its nonbinary form would be “Elle es une niñe muy animade y traviese.” Similar to the strategies proposed in other languages, Spanish nonbinary forms have two functions: generic and individual reference. Research on IL in Argentina has often followed a critical agenda embedded in transfeminist activism. Theoretical essays about the political meaning of IL argue that it questions not only sexist dominance but also binary hegemony (Salerno, 2021). The use of gender-neutral [-e] has been publicly discussed, often with a very aggressive attitude among its detractors (cf. Pérez & Moragas, 2020). Research on attitudes toward IL has mainly been centered in influential normative actors, that is, the RAE and Latin American national academies, but also traditional media. From a psycholinguistic point of view, Stetie and Zunino (2022) conducted an experimental study suggesting the specialization of IL forms when referring to gender-mixed groups of people. Processing times in noun phrases with generic masculine appear to be modulated by stereotypicality of role names. Thus, when applied to masculine stereotypes (such as “butcher,” carnicero), the masculine morphology refers more often to purely masculine groups (“los carniceros” is understood as a group of male butchers), while the nonbinary form is specialized for gender-diverse groups (“les carniceres” refers to mixed groups). A similar argument is made by Zunino and Stetie (2022), who observe that participants in voluntary tasks, mediated by

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beliefs and linguistic norms, tend to accept more generic masculine a suitable generic form. However, when analyzing sentence processing, only the nonbinary morphology consistently referred to mixed groups. Thus, for these authors, IL may function with generic meaning more precisely than generic masculine. From a sociolinguistic point of view, Kalinowski (2020) conducted a corpus-based study of IL in Twitter from 2007 to 2020 in Argentina. This study shows an increase in its use over time, mainly related to important feminist events, such as the Gender Identity Act of 2012 or the failed Interruption of Pregnancy Act of 2018. Kalinowski argues that nonbinary innovative forms [-e] and [-x] are used by an active minority in a very limited number of words: 72.37% of IL tokens used on Twitter correspond to four words “Todxs/es,” “amigxs/ues,” “elxs/es,” and “chicxs/es.” ­Bonnin and Coronel (2021) conducted an online survey of attitudes toward inclusive language in Argentina with 4,205 participants. The study distinguishes between acceptability and adoptability of gender morphology, that is, between an attitude towards the other’s use of a given form and the speaker’s own disposition to use it. The results show a broadly positive attitude of acceptance towards IL but a lower willingness to use it. They also show that IL is more accepted and adopted in vocative positions that are peripheral to the sentence, which can be interpreted as an index of its discursive, strategic use. 1.4  Materials and methods 1.4.1  Construction and justification of the hypothesis The survey design was conducted in collaboration with personnel from UTE and SADOP. It conveyed both a sociolinguistic interest and a political concern about the actual extension of nonsexist and/or non-gendered forms among teachers in Buenos Aires. As our main interest was the reported use of gender morphology, we defined the following options: • Generic masculine (such as “estimados,” “compañeros”). • Gender duplication (such as “estimados y estimadas” or “compañeros y compañeras”). • Neutralization (such as “el alumnado” or “las personas”). • Nonbinary forms (such as “estimades,” “compañerxs,” “maestr@s”). According to previous research (Bonnin & Coronel, 2021, p. 3), age and gender are relevant for understanding the adoptability (i.e., the reported “willingness to adopt”) of nonsexist and/or gender-neutral morphology. As we understand that language use depends upon specific communicative

14  Juan Eduardo Bonnin and Gabriela Mariel Zunino

settings, we selected five situations typical of everyday teachers’ work, each defined by different power relationships between participants: • Communication with principals (asymmetrical, against teachers) • Communication with colleagues (symmetrical, among teachers) • Communication with students inside the classroom (asymmetrical, favors teachers) • Communication with students outside the classroom (less asymmetrical, favors teachers) • Communication with students’ families (less asymmetrical, against teachers) • In each situation (except students outside the classroom) we have distinguished between oral and written modality because they may affect both processing cost and degree of formality in the interactions. In what follows, we will explore two hypotheses: (1) that generic masculine is challenged as an unmarked option, although the preferred option is not nonbinary innovation but duplication. In terms of power relations, this challenge is more evident in asymmetrical situations that favor teachers (i.e., communication with students) than in those against them (communication with principals). Also, (2) that perceived use of nonbinary morphology is higher than reported use, as a correlate with previous results that show higher attitudes of acceptability rather than adoptability of this kind of forms. 1.4.2 Participants Three hundred fifty-four teachers from private schools in Buenos Aires participated in the study. Of this total, 77 declared themselves as cisgender men, 275 as cisgender women, and 2 as nonbinary. The mean age was 46.19, with a minimum age of 24 years and a maximum age of 72 years. In terms of highest level of education attained, the sample contains 192 participants with complete tertiary education, 83 with completed university education, 25 with incomplete postgraduate studies, and 54 with completed postgraduate studies. Finally, to characterize the sample in terms of teaching seniority, we considered blocks derived from the scale established by law: 94 participants had between 0 and 7 years of teaching seniority, 127 between 8 and 20 years of seniority, and 133 had 21 years of teaching seniority or more. 1.4.3 Procedure Data were collected by administering two identical questionnaires in the networks of union members in Buenos Aires between September and November  2022. Both questionnaires were distributed as separate Google forms along with the survey. The rationale for using two questionnaires was to compare the results from members of a public and of a private teachers’

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union. A pilot test was conducted with 15 randomly selected people to detect internal inconsistencies in the questionnaire, semantic inconsistencies in the questions, and difficulties in understanding the instructions and the proposed response categories. Since cases were reached by convenience, this is a nonprobability sample, which means that neither generalization nor sampling error can be estimated with any degree of confidence for the entire private teaching force in Buenos Aires. However, it can help to better understand the ways in which different variables are associated, especially in relation to the hypothesis proposed here. 1.5 Results Based on the proposed hypothesis, we focus on the analysis of the uses of each linguistic form in each communicative situation. We considered not only the modality of interaction (oral or written) but also the type of communicative situation defined by participants. In this sense, interactions were considered in the following different situations: with colleagues, with school authorities, with families, with students inside the classroom, and with students outside the classroom. In addition to potential differences based on the modality, we are particularly interested in comparatively analyzing these situations as a function of social role distribution and the degree of power asymmetry that each of them entails. Finally, we present data on the perception of use of nonbinary forms. All the frequency data are represented as proportions so that the graphical visualization of the data is rigorous. 1.5.1  Reported use by age As reported in previous research, age is a relevant variable to understand reported use of gender morphology, especially regarding nonsexist and/or non-gendered language. The greatest use of duplication and nonbinary forms was found in the age group between 25 and 40 years, while the greatest use of generic masculine was found in the older age groups, between 50 and 60  years. The general trend seems to be that the greater the age, the greater the report of use of generic masculine. The use of gender-neutral forms, on the other hand, shows an intermediate pattern in terms of age group: between 40 and 50  years. Although younger participants tend to use more innovative forms, participants under the age of 25 reported almost no use of nonbinary morphology, while increasing their use of generic masculine. 1.5.2  Reported use by gender With regard to gender identity, we observe the following results for both modalities:

16  Juan Eduardo Bonnin and Gabriela Mariel Zunino

Figure 1.1  Distribution by age of each linguistic form in written modality

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Figure 1.2  Distribution by age of each linguistic form in oral modality

18  Juan Eduardo Bonnin and Gabriela Mariel Zunino

Figure 1.3  Use of each linguistic form by gender in oral modality

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Figure 1.4  Use of each linguistic form by gender in written modality

20  Juan Eduardo Bonnin and Gabriela Mariel Zunino

Duplication is the preferred option both for written and oral modality for cis men and women and nonbinary people. As the group of nonbinary participants is too small (n=2), there isn’t sufficient data to draw any relevant conclusion. Women report a much more frequent use of duplication than men, in both modalities. Likewise, they report little or no use of the generic masculine as an admissible form, while men report a relatively more frequent use, especially in oral modality. For its part, the report on the use of nonbinary forms does not show marked distinctions based on gender identity. 1.5.3  Reported use of gender morphology Initially, we analyzed the data corresponding to personal use in the workplace. For each modality (oral and written), generalized linear models (GLM) were performed under binomial distribution. The dependent variable (“I use it” vs. “I don’t use it”) was analyzed as a function of two independent variables, Linguistic form and Communicative situation (defined by the interlocutors in the interaction). All contrasts were coded as repeated contrasts. To select the final model, we uses the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC). The selected model included the factor Communicative situation nested to Linguistic form as fixed effects and Participants as random effect. 1.5.3.1  Reported use in oral modality For oral modality, we found a main effect of linguistic form, with duplication being the preferred form distinguished from all other forms. The analysis of paired contrasts offers the following result: βDUP-NBF = 2.71, SE = 0.10, z  =  26.86, p < 0.001; βDUP-GM  =  1.26, SE  =  0.07, z  =  17.19, p < 0.001; βDUP-WGM = 1.41, SE = 0.07, z = 19.00, p < 0.001. When the patterns of each linguistic form are analyzed based on the communicative situation, we find different interactions. The use of duplication in the oral modality exhibits patterns with statistically significant differences depending on the communicative situation. Although the difference reported between the use with colleagues and with school authorities is not significant, the rest of the communicative situations do show an important distinction. Duplication is used more often in communications with students both outside (p