[Gala-l] call for papers gender language Italy

[Michela Baldo]

Dear all, could you circulate the call for papers below?http://www.gendersexualityitaly.com/article-submissions/call-for-submissions-3/
Thank youBest wishesMichela Baldo
The editorial board is pleased to issue a call for submissions for Number 3, 2016 of gender/sexuality/italy (g/s/i), a peer-reviewed, digital open-access journal on gender studies in Italian culture.Articles must 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.Articles can include multimedia material (pictures, video, and audio files), provided that copyright permissions are obtained prior to article submission. Please submit your article through this website on Submit an Article by January 30, 2016. For further details, please consult the Submission Guidelines or inquire at info at gsijournal.com.The accepted contributions will be published online in Number 3, 2106 of g/s/i.The journal includes four sections: 1. Themed Section, 2. Open Contributions, 3. Invited Perspectives, and 4.Reviews.
1. Themed Section: Gender and LanguageGuest Editors:Michela Baldo (University of Leicester)Fabio Corbisiero (Università di Napoli Federico II) Pietro Maturi (Università di Napoli Federico II)Human languages - often misinterpreted as neutral tools for labeling the world – have a large influence on the speakers’ symbolic systems, and are on their turn influenced by them, both in terms of organization of meaning and direct interaction between linguistic behavior and outer reality. As shown by speech acts theory, such acts can play, in a communicative situation and more generally within a linguistic community, not only an informative but also a performative role,  acquiring thus the function of real actions capable of modifying reality.The expression of grammatical gender is an example of how an asymmetrical, hierarchical and inconsistent cultural and symbolic structure is reproduced in many languages, among which Italian. A heteronormative orientation guides gender selection in Italian, not only determining the supremacy of the masculine gender over the feminine (the only two genders present in Italian), but also preserving the invisibility of other genders, as represented in queer communities. The predominance of the masculine over the feminine and other genders, 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 the private usage.In Italy the debate about a non-sexist use of language – pioneered by Alma Sabatini in 1987 – still fails to produce important results. For example, in current institutions and media, as well as in common speech and writing, there is still a strong resistance against the use of feminine nouns, and masculine nouns are used with a neutral and inclusive function. This implies a secondary role for the feminine with respect to the masculine gender, and hides the role of women in professions and within mixed groups.At the same time, the traditional heterosexist society also uses linguistic instruments to keep things unchanged, and builds a discourse on gender and sexuality explicitly or implicitly oriented in a homophobic and transphobic, as well as sexist and misogynist way. This is achieved through a violent use of nouns and adjectives, through grammatical and lexical choices in relation to gender, and through the discoursive representation of interpersonal, sexual and family relationships. The idea of a monographic issue stems from a debate started by the AIS “Gender studies” section during the conference “Gender and language: the signs of equality and diversity”, held in Naples in December 2014, about the way in which language represents gender and sexual orientation. Starting from the hypothesis that words can be an efficient tool in the fight against discrimination based on gender and sexual orientation, this issue aims to scrutinize, in theoretical and practical terms, the mutual relationships between social change and evolution of language usage in connection to gender and sexual orientation.One particular goal of this issue is to focus on the permanence at all levels of sexism and heterosexism in the language of institutions and individuals (not only male, not only heterosexuals), by also describing the character and the limits of the current evolution. We also encourage contributions which move in the direction of a radical transformation of the Italian linguistic habits on the subject of gender and sexuality, also with reference to what has been proposed or realized in other countries and languages.    In particular, we welcome contributions in the following thematic areas, which are not meant to be exclusive:-     Sexist and non-sexist linguistic usage: defining women with masculine or feminine nouns; use of masculine or other markers to designate mixed groups of men and women, use of masculine or other markers to label people whose gender is unknown; antisexist linguistic experiments in the Italian linguistic context, also in relation to antisexist innovations in other languages.-     Gender and genders: looking at the category of gender beyond power relationships; taxonomies and pluralization of genders; new conceptual and semantic classes to define gender; new ways to designate mixed groups or people without specifying gender identification (asterisks, slashes, hyphens, etc.)-     Mens’ and womens’ 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; invisibility of homosexuals, bisexuals, queer, transgender and genderqueer people in the public and private discourse; political correctness and linguistic usage of “allies” in the Italian context; the social perception of gender-related and sex-related language; 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 Lgbtqiaa communities and of their interrelations; Lgbtqiaa languages in public and private discourse (code-switching, stereotypical features); linguistic usage in Lgbtqiaa communities; lexicon and semantics of gender in the Lgbtqiaa categories.-     Translation, gender and sexuality: the importance of translation for the creation of new linguistic usages with regard to gender and sexuality; translation as reinforcement or transformation of heterosexist language. For inquiries 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. Open ContributionsThis section of g/s/i welcomes excellent scholarly contributions concerning topics that are consonant with the main focus of our journal, but are not related to the current call for submissions. The deadlines and submission guidelines are the same as those detailed above for the themed call. For inquiries, please email Open Contributions Editor, Ellen Nerenberg, at enerenberg at wesleyan.edu. 
3. Invited PerspectivesThis section is intended for multimedia contributions by practitioners, journalists, philosophers, artists, and other individuals invited by the editors whose contributions may be instrumental to the further development of the current issue. For inquiries, please email Invited Perspectives Editor, Paola Bonifazio, at pbonifazio at austin.utexas.edu. 
4. ReviewsPlease send inquiries about book and media reviews to Reviews Editor, Clarissa Clò at cclo at mail.sdsu.edu. 
For general inquiries please email the Editor, Nicoletta Marini-Maio at marinin at dickinson.edu. 
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