The debate over gender categories: how to make languages adequate

Abstract

The discussion about political correctness is very interesting from a semiotic and semantic point of view because it brings to the fore the problem of the flexibility of the linguistic system, that is to say, the way in which linguistic uses condition and modify the language system. The following contribution reflects in particular on the evolution of gender sensitivity (from feminisation to neutralisation), highlighting how language may become a terrain of cultural and ideological struggle. When a social group wants to impose a new linguistic form, it is not only two visions of the world that collide, but also two forms of temporality : the slow and progressive one of common sense (which relies on habits and memory) and the accelerated one of those who seek a rapid transformation, perhaps forgetting that language evolves with the speaking masses, not at the behest of single subjects or groups.