La rappresentazione lessicografica dei femminili professionali
Abstract
The nouns referring to women in professions or occupations offer an interesting field to analyse the linguistic representation of women, including both the sociolinguistic reflections
that can be found there and the changes that have taken place in the extra-linguistic reality
and historical context. The linguistic datum can be considered an indicator of the social
processes to which it is linked. The present contribution presents the results of an analysis
concerning the diachronic evolution of the lexicographic representation of a group of seven
italian lexemes (amministratrice, avvocata, direttrice, medica, ministra, procuratrice and
sindaca). The dictionary is chosen as a privileged observatory of analysis from a diachronic
perspective and as a documentary resource because it gathers within it the linguistic heritage of a nation. Dictionaries attempt to describe reality, to record language but also, especially in the past, to guide its use, by placing itself between politically and linguistically
correct. The analysis was carried out along a timeline linking the first Vocabolario della
Crusca (1612) to Zingarelli (1995), to which are added the very recent cases of Devoto-Oli
and Vocabolario Treccani. The reconstruction of the lexicographic representation will make
it possible to place chronologically the origin of certain stereotypes, of the overextension of
the generic masculine 'prescribed', as well as the hypotheses concerning the suffixes and
semantic distribution of the analysed lexemes.
URI
https://www.cussoc.it/index.php/journal/issue/archivehttp://elea.unisa.it/xmlui/handle/10556/8714