Le discours public sur la langue équitable en genre en Allemagne : refus d’une altera lingua

Abstract

This contribution examines the discursive strategies used by certain speakers and writers in the Federal Republic of Germany to reject a gender-inclusive language as a variety suitable for all social uses. The strong positions taken on its subject are aimed at an argumentative destruction that could be understood as a refusal to grant it a systemic and social status: it cannot be a language. Three types of argument are used to achieve this otherness (altera lingua): (1) the denial of scientific status to the discussion and to the language; (2) the ridiculousness of the language produced; (3) the denial of an existence right to gender-inclusive language. The corpus consists of statements by linguists as well as by informed speakers (writers, journalists, humorists) refusing to pervert the only true language.

Keywords

• German gender-inclusive language; language delegitimization; generic use of the masculine; mocking of the altera lingua; gender wars.