PALGRAVE STUDIES IN LANGUAGE, GENDER AND SEXUALITY GENDER, DISCOURSE AND IDEOLOGY IN ITALIAN FEDERICA FORMATO Palgrave Studies in Language, Gender and Sexuality Series Editors Helen Sauntson York St John University York, UK Allyson Jule School of Education Trinity Western University Langley, BC, Canada Language, Gender and Sexuality is a new series which highlights the role of language in understanding issues, identities and relationships in relation to genders and sexualities. Te series will comprise innovative, high quality research and provides a platform for the best contempo- rary scholarship in the feld of language, gender and sexuality. Te series is interdisciplinary but takes language as it central focus. Contributions will be inclusive of both leading and emerging scholars in the feld. Te series is international in its scope, authorship and readership and aims to draw together theoretical and empirical work from a range of coun- tries and contexts. More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/15402 Federica Formato Gender, Discourse and Ideology in Italian Federica Formato Lancaster, UK Palgrave Studies in Language, Gender and Sexuality ISBN 978-3-319-96555-0 ISBN 978-3-319-96556-7 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96556-7 Library of Congress Control Number: 2018948659 © Te Editor(s) (if applicable) and Te Author(s) 2019 Tis work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifcally the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microflms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. 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Cover image: © Enzo D./Getty Images Tis Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG Te registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland To Marisa Acknowledgements Writing this frst monograph had its ups and downs. Sexist episodes narrated in this book allowed me to criticize, and raise a voice against, an imbalanced society. However, these, at times, made me feel power- less. Because of this, I want to thank everyone who supported this pro- ject and reminded me of its importance. I owe my thanks to Palgrave for giving me a platform to discuss the relation between language and gender in Italian. I thank the editors of “Palgrave Studies in Language, Gender and Sexuality”, Helen Sauntson and Allyson Jule for considering this volume as part of a much needed and timely series. Since it started, the feld of language and gender has increasingly put women (and minority gender groups) at its centre, and I am delighted to ofer an overview of the situation in Italy. I will always be profoundly grateful to my Ph.D. supervisors Professor Elena Semino and Dr. Jane Sunderland. I started my academic path with them in 2011 and they have continued to generously ofer their precious help even after I fnished my Ph.D. in 2014. It was in a conversation with Jane that the name for this volume was chosen. Teir mentoring throughout these years has helped me to be consistent, vii viii Acknowledgements dedicated and passionate. Teir professional qualities, competences and skills marry charismatic and formidable personalities. I want to thank the colleagues and the students I met and worked with during these years. Discussions on language and gender in several contexts have helped me to refect on how language is used to address, refer to and talk about gender and gendered identities. In particular, I want to thank Deborah Chirrey who gave me a chance to teach with her on the “Language and Gender” and “Communicating Sexuality” modules for several years at Edge Hill University. Colleagues at Shefeld University also deserve my thanks for the great experience in their department convening the module “Language and Gender” and their precious comments and feedback ofered when I presented the contents of this book in a staf gathering. Together with the academic institutions mentioned above, I ofer my thanks to IGALA (International Gender and Language Association) and its community. In coordinating its blog, I had a chance to meet and collaborate with fantastic academics. IGALA’s commitment to diversity and equality is a commendable example of activism towards parity. Among those who supported my voice against sexism and ine- qualities, there are those who engage with me on these topics on the Facebook page I created Lingua di genere (Gendered language) and on my twitter account. Tey give me courage and hope. Laura Boldrini, the Speaker of the Camera dei Deputati, has been of great inspiration. She never stepped back, she gracefully yet frmly faced the backlash of a society (and politics) that does not seem to be ready to give a chance to a brilliant feminist politician. I am indebted to the respondents of the survey conducted in 2015 who gave me permission to publish the results and their insights into gen- dered language (discussed in Chapter 3), those who provided help with translating a sentence into several languages (presented in Chapter 2) and colleagues whom I discussed sections of this book with or helped in other ways. I have a list of people that belong to my private life who were crucial to the production of this volume. Over time, I have come to realize that my mother’s way of raising me was, even if unconsciously and natural to her, a feminist one. She always valued my freedom and always insisted Acknowledgements ix that I should be and feel free, as well as be unafraid of what life could bring. As a single mother, she herself stood free against a fx gendered frame in Italy. As for all of the other fantastic people who fll my life with unconditional support and love, I thank them for sticking with me regardless of the corners of the world in which we each live. I learned that geographical distance and vicinity are inversely proportional to the willingness of building long-life relationships, full of love and trust. I wrote a part of this book in the beautiful island of Fuerteventura: in her sun, her people and her sceneries I found creative inspiration. A special mention goes to Julia Firmin who has proofread the chapters of this book. Her friendship, together with her precious help, is a gift. Contents 1 Introduction to the Study of Gender in Italian 1 2 An Overview of Grammatical Gender in Italian 39 3 Feminine Forms Between Recommendations and Usages 81 4 Women in the Public Sphere: Gendered Language 135 5 Women, Crime and Gender in the Private Sphere: Femminicidio 199 6 Conclusions 273 Glossary 1 289 Glossary 2 293 Index 295 xi Abbreviations ACC Accusative CA Chiara Appendino CADS Corpus-Assisted Discourse Studies CAT Categorization CD Camera dei Deputati CofP Community of Practice CS Corriere della Sera DAT Dative, ablative, locative FDI Fratelli d’Italia FEM Feminine GEN Genitive, possessive GIV Given GM Giorgia Meloni IDV Italia dei Valori LS La Stampa M5S Movimento 5 Stelle MASC Masculine MD-CADS Modern Diachronic Corpus-Assisted Discourse Studies NOM Nominative PD Partito Democratico PDL Partito delle Libertà xiii xiv Abbreviations POS Part of Speech PRO Pronoun RC Resto del Carlino SR Senato della Repubblica VOC Vocative VR Virginia Raggi List of Figures Fig. 4.1 Analytical framework developed to investigate sexual terms used to attack or self-represent female politicians 164 Fig. 5.1 Sample of newspaper article before removing noise 226 Fig. 5.2 Sample of newspaper article included in the news corpus after noise has been removed 227 Fig. 5.3 Collocations of the node gelosia in the news corpus 231 Fig. 5.4 Collocations of the node raptus in the news corpus 234 Fig. 5.5 Percentages of the 6 ‘blame’ sub-categories used to cluster the headlines in the period 2013–2016 245 Fig. 5.6 Sample of text taken from the Sara corpus before adding the XML mark-up 253 Fig. 5.7 Sample of text from the Sara corpus after adding the XML mark-up 253 xv List of Tables Table 1.1 Numbers and percentages of female and male ministers of 12 governments in Italy (1996–2018) 12 Table 1.2 Numbers and percentages of female and male deputies (CD) and senators (SR) in the last 5 parliaments (2001–present) 14 Table 2.1 Absolute frequencies and frequencies for million words of the semi-epicene masculine and feminine plural forms of pediatra in itTenTen 65 Table 2.2 Absolute frequencies and percentages of feminine and masculine articles preceding the semi-epicene pediatra 65 Table 2.3 Absolute frequencies and frequencies for million words comparing the use of article + surname and surname only 67 Table 3.1 Speakers’