FOREING WORDS DOING GENDER IDENTITIES: THE CASE

FOREING WORDS DOING GENDER IDENTITIES:
THE CASE STUDIES OF “GENDER”, “QUEER” AND “SLUT”
This discussion starts with a theoretical overview of the sociolinguistic phenomenon of language
contact. I will analyze in particular the lexical borrowing as a linguistic process (Malkiel;
Lehmann) and I will proceed by making a distinction between necessary and luxury loans
(Gusmani).
In Italian today there are many words that have been loaned from other languages, predominantly
from English. Sobrero defines this as 'internationalization of languages', a phenomenon derived
from the increasing contact between different cultures and languages. This process appears
stronger and more rooted in the fields of science and technology and, according to Sobrero's
theory, the language lending the words is that of a nation considered advanced in these fields.
However, these loans are not restricted solely to these areas. This paper focuses on loans of a
different nature, derived from academia and / or activism (the importance of this and / or will be
explored in this paper), and reproduced in our language in these specific fields as much as in
more mainstream contexts.
The analysis of this phenomenon will be developed through the analysis of three foreign words
recently welcomed into the Italian language (albeit to varying degrees): "gender", "queer" and
"slut".
The choice of these terms is partly dictated by the fact that these words all derive from the same
technical context. Additionally these three key words have become widely used in the everyday
language. Over the last year "gender" in particular has become widespread, following the
discussion on the so-called "gender ideology".
The paper will discuss contextualisation of these three terms within the current panorama of
Gender Studies and Queer Theory, and the exploration of the history of the movements that
originated these words. This process will inform the discussion on wether these specific terms
should be considered as necessary or luxury loans, and what sociolinguistic factors help
determining this.
The aim of the discussion is to show that in the three cases described some factors are
determinants in welcoming these words (Zoller), and to show in what ways and what kind of
social implications there are.
At first I will focus on the word "gender", providing an analysis of the concept itself to check its
translatability (or not) with the Italian use of "gender". I will then proceed with a brief history of
his environment in Italian academic use and vice versa with its increasingly English use in the
so-called battle against the "ideology of gender" in order to highlight the instrumental use of
what here will be considered a luxury loan.
I will proceed similarly with the analysis of the term "queer", offering an etymological analysis
of the concept, analyzing his use in Italian academia and the reception by the LGBT and feminist
movements to confirm that its difficult to translate and looking to the impact this non-translation
has both in academia and in the activism.
Lastly the term "slut" will be analyzed in relation to its use in the context of 'SlutWalk', following
its arrival in Italy and its various translation attempts (ie: the Roman collective Cagne Sciolte).
The analysis will reveal that this is in fact a luxury loan relating to the mutilation due to the
prestige of one culture over another. While enjoying the prestige of another culture that this term
is not widely known in our country because of a force de rupture loss (we refer clearly to the
concept of Derrida) in its re-signification effects.
Despite the sociolinguistics methodological approach that has been used here, the background
context remains a philosophical one. This approach encourages to focus on bodies who
pronounce these words and the subjects and identities that are challenged by them (Butler). The
aim of this article is therefore to see how these identities are constructed through language and
how a performative politics can or can not become a policy of re-signification.
An analysis of the history of these words, supported by the theory of performativity of language
and the possibility of re-signification of the terms from time to time will show how the choice of
using the term in Italian or English, it increases or it diminishes the strength, or at least leading to
a different communicative impact.
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