Like it or not, inclusive language is already on the agenda for publishers, the media and a number of institutions (Humarán / Cosenza)

 

 

 

Like it or not, inclusive language is already on the agenda for publishers, the media and a number of institutions

 

(As language professionals, we have to know it)  

 

Anyone who undertakes the beautiful work of recounting the history of languages will emphasize that major changes have taken place in tandem with profound transitions (just think of the journey of Latin into the Romance languages), that such changes are imperceptible and we have scant record of them.   As is obvious, this latter point has been modified by new technology.   We live in a time when everything that happens to us is recorded, and accordingly, we have an up-to-date awareness of new developments like the one we are addressing now. Indeed, I would like to draw upon this latter consideration to point out that it would be most interesting (and enriching for the study of our language) if scholars in academia were to conduct qualitative and quantitative research on inclusive language.

Surely many of us have had to put up with teasing about inclusive language (IL).  In Argentina, it’s common to hear that people who talk with an “e” (the “latest scream of fashion” after previous attempts like “@” or “x”) are just a bunch of “woke” teenagers. It’s also commonly associated with a certain political ideology.   

And surely we will agree that these groundless comments about language and its behavior are understandable, let’s say,  in one way of reckoning, and yet those of us who are language professionals can and must inform ourselves about it, even if we wish to reject it. 

Our role as translators goes beyond mere linguistic counseling. It’s a kind of cultural counseling. We have to be able to provide our clients (who are inquiring about the subject more and more each day) with solid arguments that sometimes IL is required, sometimes optional and other times required. A very good example of its required use appears in the character Pollution which the author Neil Gaiman includes in his series Good omens.  Pollution is neither male nor female, which is how the name must be translated because that’s the way the author created it. Allow me to share with you a text I translated for Penguin (with the publisher’s permission). The text is from the book Bodies are cool (Los cuerpos son geniales) by Tyler Feder, and in it there is a non-binary character (they) in the original, and so it was translated (as elle).  

It should be noted, on the other hand, that in the various other fields people work in, these issues are not as important as they are in the domain of language. When you go through profiles on the internet you can see that it’s rare for an engineer to include her pronouns in her profile, but common for those who work for publishers to choose to identify themselves as he, she or they.   In other words, even for our own interactions on the job, it’s useful for us – both as a matter of courtesy as well as business sense – to pay attention to such things, given that in our professional lives we appear to be more sensitive to people’s different ways of addressing each other.  If someone decides to tell the world that she is a cis woman or that they are a non-binary person, then that is how such people should be addressed.

In defense of the masculine “o” that renders women and diversity invisible, it is argued that, “The use of the masculine ‘o’ to include both men and women is fully assimilated in standard usage and plainly understood.” Okay, but … when I was a girl, insults like ‘faggot’ and ‘retard’ that were fully assimilated and plainly understood, nowadays … make our hair stand on end.

A lot of people ask what difference does it make if a woman is called a jueza (“judgess”) instead of a juez (“judge”). It makes a big difference because it renders the feminine a visible, which in Spanish tells us that the person is a woman, and using the a underscores the fact that the position is occupied by a woman (given the importance that such a presence has in and of itself, the language should reflect this). Let us recall that many English-speakers choose to insert the honorific Madame before the word president (which is itself neuter and would create no problems) to emphasize that there is a woman serving as president.

It’s perfectly clear to us what the relationship is between a thing and the word that refers to it. One invents something, then gives it a name that expresses that something (digital native, for instance). And yet, going the other way is not clear to us: when a word modifies a particular something.  

In one of their functions, words illuminate reality with stark clarity: in the performative function. Just seconds after a president announces that Mr. So-and-So shall henceforth assume the duties of the Minister of Health, that So-and-So IS the Minister of Health. Words have such great weight that even in our technological civilization, the ancestral custom of swearing oaths persists.  This is a ceremony in which words solemnly uttered before an expectant audience will inscribe a particular fact on marble in our minds. We speak of artificial intelligence, yet we keep relying on words to express what it will become. That’s how important words are.  

On a more mundane level, let us recall the power that advertising has over people. How does that deodorant make me feel? Cleaner? More in synch with the times? Sexier?  All of this is analyzed among the three pillars of the advertising tripod (advertising company, ad agency and media), and is validated in focus groups exploring the (sought-after) target’s reaction to these words. (And to refer to them as Targets… it almost seems that someone is shooting at them, and they’re victims, doesn’t it?). Essentially, goals will be achieved by the words that are used. Think of other examples from other domains and periods that are just as effective: I had a dream. Just do it.  Women don’t cry any more, they make money.   

The words of erotic literature stir things up in our bodies.  No one can deny it.

When we hear the word “lemon” repeated again and again, our mouth waters.

In this connection, we recommend that you read the New York Times article cited in the sources because it takes up this sort of influence (the effect that words have on reality). Through an examination of the word “pudendum” it was shown that in order “not to say certain words” (due to shame), many women do not look after their own health. According to a survey conducted by the NGO The Eve Appeal in 2014, 65% of the women surveyed avoid getting gynecological checkups in order not to have to say the word vagina.

In particular, because we are word professionals, we can, and indeed, must understand how powerful they are. Time will tell whether the letter “e” will become assimilated in Spanish usage as an inclusive morpheme for women, men and diverse identities, or whether new ways of “speaking more justly” will arise.  But the main thing is that the debate is now under way.  

It is vital to bear in mind that this movement to make language “speak more justly to all people” is not only taking place in the Spanish language. Language specialists, as well as speakers simply interested in linguistic fairness are looking for ways to indicate diversity: in French with an asterisk, in Italian with the schwa, in Swedish with the creation of a neuter personal pronoun (hen), and the same can be seen in other languages like Portuguese, Turkish, Catalan and others.  

As we have been saying, words modify reality. They can make us want things and consume them. They can say things justly or reproduce hate speech. They empower or they wound. And fundamentally, words tell us who we are as we use them: our geographic origin, perhaps our professional training, our political affiliation, our ideology, our vision of the cosmos – even if we’d rather they didn’t. Our words say us.  

What does the use of the masculine gender as a generic communicate about a person (whether real or fictitious)? What is revealed by the use of expressions like “cuerpa” instead of “cuerpo” (body), “miembra” instead of “miembro” (member) or “yuta madre” instead of “puta madre” (a substitute for whore mother, colloquially often meaning something like bloody hell)? And doubling up with “todas y todos” (all females and all males) or “todas, todes y todos” (all females, all non-binaries and all males).  Or if instead of the neomorpheme “-e”, one resorts to “x” or “-@”?    

It is clear that there is an underlying vision of gender, and of what constitutes sexism in language. 

 

What is gender?

Gender is a social and cultural construction that is traditionally binary; this means that societies attribute to individuals certain values, thoughts, feelings and behaviors based on whether they are men or women. Simone de Beauvoir (2016, p. 269) once said “one is not born a woman: rather, one becomes a woman.” Drawing on queer theory, Judith Butler (1988) goes deeper and maintains that gender is not an internal reality, it is not something given, but rather a phenomenon that is constantly produced and reproduced. It is performative because we are not only performing a role, we are constructing it as we act it out, through our behavior, our attire, our way of speaking. And here the two-way process that we’ve been discussing of mutual influence between language and reality comes into play once again.   

Gender identity is defined as the internal and individual experience of gender as each person feels it, which may or may not match up with the sex assigned at birth (Law 26743). If the two coincide, we speak of people who are cisgender; if not, of people who are transgender. This latter term is an umbrella term that encompasses many gender identities; some sources speak of as many as 94 (Sexual Diversity, 2023).

We can distinguish two paradigms around the concept of gender, with their respective communication strategies and convictions on what constitutes a sexist use of language.  It should be noted that these two points of view overlap and coexist at present.  

The first paradigm is based on a fixed and restrictive conception of gender (the man/woman distinction), which treats gender (or sex) and genitality as the same thing.

The first feminisms and women’s movements struggled against the privileged position of men over women, but did not question the binary division (and there are those who still uphold this view). Accordingly, in many societies and languages, there appeared guides and recommendations seeking an egalitarian language that would include and respect women.  Among the most common suggestions are avoiding the generic masculine, lexical gaps, apparent-duals and other sexist usage.

The strategies used are:

     doubling up

     the @ (because it looks like a feminine “a” combined with a masculine “o”);  

     the generic feminine (used by a minority)

   a series of stratagems for avoiding marks of gender: abstract nouns, paraphrasis, periphrasis, impersonal constructions and so on.  

It should be noted that this view of gender is also shared by those who think these approaches are unnecessary because the masculine includes women as well.  

The second paradigm calls into question the categories of “man” and “woman,” and recognizes a vast diversity of gender identities, as we have already noted.  

It is within this paradigm that what is popularly known as “inclusive language” has arisen, and that we, following the translator and researcher Ártemis López (2019), refer to as “direct non-binary language.”  

 

Non-binary language

López distinguishes two strategies for writing outside of binary categories, which they call direct non-binary language (DNL), and indirect non-binary language (INL).   

DNL consists of using a new gender morpheme: “-e” and “-x” are the most commonly used variants, though not the only ones. The suffix “-e” took hold not only because it’s easier to pronounce, but also because the other options are incompatible with screen readers used by people who are blind or vision-impaired, which would thereby create another kind of exclusion.  

DNL has two contexts for its use: 

1. As generic (the use that is most resisted, even by certain feminisms)  

2. To designate people who are non-binary, of fluid gender or other gender identity who expressly choose not to use either the masculine or feminine to describe themselves.

On the other hand, INL is the same strategy suggested in the first paradigm: to avoid the marks of gender through impersonal constructions, abstract nouns, etc.

 

Our role and professional ethics

To those of us who work with translation, interpretation and editing, why should these questions matter? If our work is to build bridges of communication and enable that particular voice to express itself and convey exactly what it wants to convey, both denotatively and connotatively, then it behooves us to be able to discern the underlying gender vision and implement the appropriate linguistic and communication strategies.  

Just as we are giving the finishing touches to this text the controversy over rewriting the works of Roald Dahl has broken out, which we cannot fail to mention. Dahl – like any other person – chose to construct a reality with his words, both in his literature as well as in his own life.  We do a great disservice to today’s children if we conceal the fact that these realities also exist.  

So it is not a matter of using the morpheme “-e” indiscriminately. We’re not going to put it in the mouth of the protagonist of American Psycho, of Bret Easton Ellis, or of any infamously macho or transphobic public figure.  

But we do have to know when and how to use it: for instance, it’s mandatory for the character Morgan in the acclaimed novel Girl, woman, other by Bernardine Evaristo, or for artists like Sam Smith, who expressly and publicly declared that they were non-binary.  

Over and above any controversy, and regardless of our own stance on the matter, in our capacity as intermediaries and advisors, we who are engaged in the language professions must rise to the occasion.

After all, as Margaret Atwood said: “A word after a word after a word is power.” 

 

 

 

Aurora Humarán / Erika Cosenza

Third Congress of the North American Academy of Spanish Language (ANLE)

Coral Gables (Miami, USA)

May 2023