Language, gender and diversity: what does semiotics have to do with it?

Abstract

In this work, we aim to demonstrate how sexist discourses and  discourses about language are built to perpetuate gender prejudices, as race and  class, as anti-scientific discourse is used to establish language normatized by  grammars and dictionaries as the only correct and acceptable, and sexist and  intolerant linguistic performances perpetuate forms of violence against the  female body (cis women and LGBTQIA+ gender identities), and their consequent  social exclusion. Using the theoretical-methodological aim of the discursive  semiotics, we verify the figurative and veridictory construction of our corpus,  revealing values such as the denial of the transformations of/in language in use  in a journalistic article published in Veja magazine in 2001, in Ordinance No.  604/21, of the Ministry of Tourism, and in Draft Law No. 948/21, legislative  devices that veto the use of neutral language in the Brazilian public sphere. As  we explain how sexist language inflicts on exclusion and symbolic violence to the  population that is not exclusively male, we simultaneously analyze the Manual  para o uso não sexista da linguagem (2014), published by the Government of  Rio Grande do Sul. As a result, we present what it is and how the Portuguese  speaker can use non-sexist language and neutral language in different situations  of social interaction.