Deadline Extension: Call for Papers: 2022-2023 Volume
Inclusive Language: aspects, problems and solutions
“[…] we must deliver inclusive communication at all times, thus ensuring that everyone is valued and recognised in all our material regardless of their gender, racial or ethnic origin, religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation”.
Helena Dalli, European Commissioner for Equality
In recent years Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) has been an important agenda across every field and the discussion over matters of inclusion, of acknowledging diversity, of giving equal opportunities and of respecting differences has been exponentially increasing. In all this evolution and change language has been at the forefront, as it should. Given that language reflects and influences attitudes, behaviour and perceptions, neutral or inclusive language is more than a matter of political correctness; it is necessary in order to avoid word choices which may be interpreted as biased, discriminatory or demeaning. Creating and using inclusive language forms, ones that do not refer to personal attributes, such as gender, race, ethnicity, culture, sexual orientation, disability, or health helps reduce stereotyping, promotes social change and contributes to achieving equality.
Yet, challenges abound. Using non-discriminatory language and producing inclusive texts may become a hard task, especially when the target audience speaks a language that makes it difficult to avoid some sort of exclusion due to its grammatical rules. While there are languages that are grammatically genderless, such as Armenian, Bengali, Persian, Turkish, Georgian, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean (just to name a few), others have different degrees of gender representation. For example, in English, gender is represented in the pronouns – he/him, she/her, while in Greek and Portuguese there are gender markers in almost every other word (e.g., pronouns, adjectives, nouns). Furthermore and independently of grammar, language can be used in a way that reflects, subtly or overtly, stereotypes, or promotes the invisibility, omission, subordination and trivialisation of certain social groups, while analyses and real-world use prove that Language Technology, and MT in particular, shows biased behaviours.
This call for contribution to a thematic issue invites researchers focusing on discriminations manifested through language and on diversity and inclusion matters in language to submit original papers that aim to highlight research, theory and practical suggestions on the use or creation of a neutral and more inclusive language.
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
- Corpus development to include EDI
- Unconscious bias in communication
- Typology of Inclusive Language
- Inclusivity in language technology, especially Machine Translation (MT)
- Inclusive Language and Translation: challenges, solutions and best practices
- Inclusive Language and Interpreting: challenges, solutions and best practices
- The role of Translators and interpreters as agents of inclusion
- Sociological and political aspects of Inclusive Language
- Use of Inclusive Language in law
- Attitudes towards Inclusive Language
Important information and dates
- Full paper submission deadline: December 1st, 2022
- Notification of acceptance/rejection: February 2023
- Submission of final paper: April 2023
- Expected publication date of the issue: June 2023
- Official languages of the journal: Greek, English, French
You must register as an author to submit a paper in the International Journal of Language, Translation and Intercultural Communication (https://ejournals.epublishing.ekt.gr/index.php/latic/index).
Please check Submissions Author Guidelines ( https://ejournals.epublishing.ekt.gr/index.php/latic/about/submissions) and use the format sample you will find in the same link.
Full papers submitted for review should have a minimum number of 10 pages and a maximum number of 15 pages (around 8,000 words including bibliography) and must be prepared in accordance with the paper submission template.
For more information or if you have any questions, please contact Associate Professor Maria Tsigou at ijltic.dflti@ionio.gr
