Gender-inclusive language in the Argentine digital public discourse: A glottopolitical perspective

Abstract

[El número en el que aparece el artículo tenía que publicarse en diciembre de 2024 pero se demoró porque la revista cambió de editorial: de Equinox pasó a Toronoto University Press. Se estima la publicación para marzo 2025 https://www.equinoxpub.com/home/]. This article presents preliminary results of an institutional research project on novel uses of Spanish in Argentina. Specifically, since the resurgence of gender-inclusive language movements in 2018, the assessments of speakers and institutions on the creation of new gender morphemes (such as "e" and "x") have exposed perspectives on language that we consider problematic: the regulatory institutions of Spain are taken as a reference for discussions about Spanish in Argentina. By taking into account the debates about the right to speak and the exercise of linguistic authority in a context of growing demands for social equity, we will focus on the tensions, proximities and distances between individual discourses and dominant discourse about “inclusive language”, associated with the pan-Hispanic ideology of the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE). Especially, we seek to inquire into the language ideologies and representations are currently produced concerning inclusive language. Adopting a dialogic approach to discourses and a glottopolitical perspective (Arnoux, 2014; Arnoux and Del Valle, 2010; Becker, Arnoux and Del Valle, 2021), we will carry out a qualitative approach to the strategies of enunciative heterogeneity expressed in digital public discourse. To do so, we will analyze tweets and readers´ comments on news published by Argentine digital newspapers during 2019, a year in which a new edition of the RAE report on inclusive language was published, and when two important linguistic events took place in Argentina: the VIII International Congress of the Spanish Language and the so-called "counter-congress" La furia de la lengua [Anger of the Language], both in the City of Córdoba, with high media repercussion.The following methodological question will rule this article: which mechanisms of polemical discourse —understood as a continuum within argumentative discourse— are implemented when discussing gender inclusive language? We will focus on which voices are evoked, which statements are delegated and which are not, and how different voices are represented in order to legitimize the positions of speakers and institutions.