Women as a linguistic footnote

Abstract

The debate on nonsexist or gender-sensitive language in Slovenia has been taking place since the mid-1990s. It intensified again in 2018 when the Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana, decided to use the feminine grammatical gender in its internal regulations as generic and inclusive for all genders. The decision provoked heated public reactions and media reports. Through critical frame analysis of 60 media texts published between May and December 2018, this article identifies four basic frames: the decision as impermissible linguistic engineering, as a sign of excessive political correctness, as a false solution to the actual existence of sexism in language, or finally, as a positive change. Whereas many of the arguments used in the Slovenian debate were found in similar debates elsewhere, a new discursive frame emerged that cannot be placed on the classical dichotomy of feminist and antifeminist, but is instead based on equality fatigue and the understanding that gender equality has allegedly already been achieved.Razprava o neseksisticni oziroma spolno obcutljivi rabi jezika v Sloveniji poteka ze od sredine 90. let prejsnjega stoletja. Ponovno se je okrepila leta 2018, ko je bil na Filozofski fakulteti UL sprejet sklep o genericni rabi zenskega slovnicnega spola kot vkljucujocega za vse spole v internih pravilnikih fakultete. Odlocitev je sprozila burne odzive javnosti in prav taksno porocanje medijev. S kriticno analizo okvirjev smo analizirali 60 medijskih besedil, objavljenih med majem in decembrom 2018, in v njih identificirali stiri osnovne okvire: odlocitev kot nedopusten jezikovni inzeniring, kot znak pretirane politicne korektnosti, kot napacno resitev za preseganje dejanskega obstoja seksizma v jeziku oziroma kot pozitivno spremembo. Medtem ko je mnoge argumente, uporabljene v slovenski razpravi, moc najti v podobnih razpravah drugod, se je v analiziranih medijskih porocilih pojavil tudi nov diskurzivni okvir, ki ga ni mogoce umestiti na klasicni feministicni ali protifeministicni kontinuum, saj temelji na zasicenosti z enakostjo in razumevanjem, da je enakost spolov domnevno ze dosezena.