The demands made to the RAE about sexism in the dictionary: the impact of media discourse

Las demandas a la RAE sobre el sexismo del diccionario: La repercusión del discurso mediático

doxa.comunicación | 29, pp. 43-60 | 43

July-December of 2019

ISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978

How to cite this article:

Guerrero Salazar, S. (2019). The demands made to the RAE about sexism in the dictionary: the impact of media discourse.Doxa Comunicación, 29, pp. 43-60.

https://doi.org/10.31921/doxacom.n29a2

Susana Guerrero Salazar. PhD in Hispanic Philology, has received an Extraordinary Degree and Doctorate award. She is a senior lecturer in Spanish philology at the University of Málaga and belongs to the research group News Analysis on Linguistic Dissemination, the Languages of Spain and its varieties. She is a member of the Project Language and Press and the Project Metalinguistic discourse in the Spanish press (1940-today). Multidimensional analysis and characterization. She received the XX Leonor de Guzmán National Essay Prize for her work The Spanish sports press: linguistic and discursive sexism (2016). Her main lines of research are lexicology and discourse analysis in the communication media. She has recently published Creativity and play in the sports discourse of the press: lexical-semantic contributions (2018).

University of Málaga, Spain

[email protected]

ORCID: 0000-0003-0715-9690

Abstract:

The press and social networks constitute the most recurrent platform for debate on the subject of “women and language”. The media discourse on this subject covers many aspects that have not yet been addressed in depth, including the discourse that is generated when the academic dictionary is taken as a point of reference. This article analyses sexism (or not) of some definitions in the dictionary through a press corpus obtained from the Hemeroteca Virtual de las Lenguas de España (HEVILE), which has allowed us, in the first place, to catalogue the words and definitions related to women which have been news in recent years and, therefore, the object of debate; secondly, to verify the beliefs and linguistic attitudes regarding the role of the Academy and its dictionary in society; and, finally, to decide what effects the debate generated (especially through social networks) on the latest changes carried out in some of these definitions.

Keywords:

Academic dictionary, sexist meanings, press, social networks, ideology.

Resumen:

La prensa y las redes sociales constituyen la plataforma más recu-rrente para el debate en torno al tema “mujer y lenguaje”. El dis-curso mediático a este respecto abarca múltiples facetas que no se han abordado en profundidad todavía, entre ellas, el discurso que se genera cuando se toma como punto de referencia el diccionario académico. El presente artículo analiza el sexismo (o no) de algunas acepciones del diccionario a través de un corpus de prensa obteni-do de la Hemeroteca Virtual de las Lenguas de España (HEVILE), el cual nos ha permitido, en primer lugar, catalogar las palabras y definiciones relacionadas con las mujeres que han sido noticia en los últimos años y, por tanto, objeto de debate; en segundo lugar, constatar las creencias y actitudes lingüísticas sobre el papel de la Academia y su diccionario en la sociedad; y, por último, dirimir qué efectos ha tenido el debate generado (sobre todo a través de las redes sociales) sobre los últimos cambios llevados a cabo en algunas de estas acepciones.

Palabras clave:

Diccionario académico, acepciones sexistas, prensa, redes sociales, ideología.

Received: 23/07/2019 - Accepted: 04/11/2019

Recibido: 23/07/2019 - Aceptado: 04/11/2019