[Gala-l] Call for papers

[Michela Baldo]

 Dear all, I would like to circulate among list members this call for paper on language/gender/sexuality.Best wishes
Michela BaldoLecturer in Translation StudiesUniversity of Leicester

Callfor Submissions gender/sexuality/italy,3, 2016 Attenzione: la versione italiana seguequella inglese. Theeditorial board is pleased to issue a call for submissions for Number3, 2016 of gender/sexuality/italy (g/s/i), apeer-reviewed, digital open-access journal on gender studies in Italian culture. Articlesmust be either in English or Italian, no longer than 10,000 words with spaces(including bibliography and footnotes), and must conform to the standards of The Chicago Manual of Style.Articlescan include multimedia material (pictures, video, and audio files), providedthat copyright permissions are obtained prior to article submission. Pleasesubmit your article through this website on Submit an Article by January30, 2016.For further details, please consult the Submission Guidelines or inquire at info at gsijournal.com. Theaccepted contributions will be published online in Number3, 2106 of g/s/i. Thejournal includes four sections: 1. ThemedSection, 2. Open Contributions, 3.Invited Perspectives, and 4.Reviews. 1.Themed Section: Gender and LanguageGuestEditors: Michela Baldo (University ofLeicester)Fabio Corbisiero (Università di NapoliFederico II) Pietro Maturi (Università di NapoliFederico II)Humanlanguages - often misinterpreted as neutral tools for labeling the world – havea large influence on the speakers’ symbolicsystems, and are on their turn influenced by them, both in terms oforganization of meaning and direct interaction between linguistic behavior andouter reality. As shown by speech acts theory, such acts can play, in acommunicative situation and more generally within a linguistic community, notonly an informative but also a performative role,  acquiring thus the function of real actionscapable of modifying reality. Theexpression of grammatical gender is an example of how an asymmetrical,hierarchical and inconsistent cultural and symbolic structure is reproduced inmany languages, among which Italian. A heteronormative orientation guidesgender selection in Italian, not only determining the supremacy of themasculine gender over the feminine (the only two genders present in Italian),but also preserving the invisibility of other genders, as represented in queercommunities. The predominance of the masculine over the feminine and othergenders, observed in all aspect of everyday life (work, education, family,sexuality, etc.) as well as in specialized areas (such as juridical, political,bureaucratic language, and so on), is evident both in the official and theprivate usage.InItaly the debate about a non-sexist use of language – pioneered by Alma Sabatini in 1987 – stillfails to produce important results. For example, in current institutions andmedia, as well as in common speech and writing, there is still a strongresistance against the use of feminine nouns, and masculine nouns are used witha neutral and inclusive function. This implies a secondary role for thefeminine with respect to the masculine gender, and hides the role of women inprofessions and within mixed groups.Atthe same time, the traditional heterosexist society also uses linguisticinstruments to keep things unchanged, and builds a discourse on gender andsexuality explicitly or implicitly oriented in a homophobic and transphobic, aswell as sexist and misogynist way. This is achieved through a violent use ofnouns and adjectives, through grammatical and lexical choices in relation togender, and through the discoursive representation of interpersonal, sexual andfamily relationships.  The idea of a monographic issue stems from a debate started bythe AIS “Genderstudies” section during theconference “Gender and language: thesigns of equality and diversity”, held in Naples in December 2014, about the way in whichlanguage represents gender and sexual orientation. Starting from the hypothesisthat words can be an efficient tool in the fight against discrimination basedon gender and sexual orientation, this issue aims to scrutinize, in theoreticaland practical terms, the mutual relationships between social change andevolution of language usage in connection to gender and sexual orientation. Oneparticular goal of this issue is to focus on the permanence at all levels ofsexism and heterosexism in the language of institutions and individuals (notonly male, not only heterosexuals), by also describing the character and thelimits of the current evolution. We also encourage contributions which move inthe direction of a radical transformation of the Italian linguistic habits onthe subject of gender and sexuality, also with reference to what has beenproposed or realized in other countries and languages.    Inparticular, we welcome contributions in the following thematic areas, which arenot meant to be exclusive:-     Sexistand non-sexist linguistic usage: defining women with masculine or femininenouns; use of masculine or other markers to designate mixed groups of men andwomen, use of masculine or other markers to label people whose gender isunknown; antisexist linguistic experiments in the Italian linguistic context,also in relation to antisexist innovations in other languages.-     Genderand genders: looking at the category of gender beyond power relationships;taxonomies and pluralization of genders; new conceptual and semantic classes todefine gender; new ways to designate mixed groups or people without specifyinggender identification (asterisks, slashes, hyphens, etc.)-     Mens’ andwomens’ language:genderlectal variation in sociolinguistics (textual, pragmatic, lexical,semantic, syntactic, phonetic aspects).-     Heterosexist and non-heterosexist linguistic usage:heteronormativity in public and private linguistic communication; invisibilityof homosexuals, bisexuals, queer, transgender and genderqueer people in thepublic and private discourse; political correctness and linguistic usage of “allies” inthe Italian context; the social perception of gender-related and sex-relatedlanguage; anti-heteronormative initiatives in the Italian linguistic context,also in relation to similar innovations in other languages.-     Language,gender and sexuality: culture, signs, languages and semantics of Lgbtqiaacommunities and of their interrelations; Lgbtqiaa languages in public andprivate discourse (code-switching, stereotypical features); linguistic usage inLgbtqiaa communities; lexicon and semantics of gender in the Lgbtqiaacategories.-     Translation,gender and sexuality: the importance of translation for the creation of newlinguistic usages with regard to gender and sexuality; translation asreinforcement or transformation of heterosexist language. Forinquiries on the Themed Section please email the Guest Editors Fabio Corbisiero fabio.corbisiero at unina.it,Pietro Maturi maturi at unina.it, o Michela Baldo mb648 at leicester.ac.uk. 2. OpenContributionsThissection of g/s/i welcomes excellent scholarly contributionsconcerning topics that are consonantwith themain focus of our journal, but are not related to the current call forsubmissions. The deadlines and submission guidelines are the same as thosedetailed above for the themed call. For inquiries, please email OpenContributions Editor, Ellen Nerenberg, at enerenberg at wesleyan.edu. 3. Invited PerspectivesThissection is intended for multimediacontributions by practitioners, journalists, philosophers, artists, and otherindividuals invitedby the editors whosecontributions may be instrumental to the further development of the currentissue. Forinquiries, please email Invited Perspectives Editor, Paola Bonifazio, at pbonifazio at austin.utexas.edu. 4. ReviewsPleasesend inquiries about book and media reviews to Reviews Editor,Clarissa Clò at cclo at mail.sdsu.edu. Forgeneral inquiries please email the Editor, Nicoletta Marini-Maio at marinin at dickinson.edu.
 
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