Referring to women in contemporary Italian

Anna M. Thornton (Université de L'Aquila)
Referring to women in contemporary Italian

In this talk I will present some data about contemporary Italian usage in referring to women’s roles in politics, work and society. I will show that different lexemes behave differently with respect to the possibility of using a masculine form as an “unmarked” form that can refer to women; even one and the same lexeme is felt as more or less appropriate in different contexts of usage. I will discuss both linguistic and ideological factors that play a role in speakers’ choices.