Gender-inclusive translation techniques and constraints through national comparable corpora
Abstract:
The paper entitled “Gender-inclusive translation techniques and constraints through national
comparable corpora” presents the gender-inclusive language techniques that can be adopted or avoided
in interdisciplinary settings (i.e., administrative and legal) of specialized translation within different
national contexts (UK, France, Greece). In particular, monolingual comparable corpora of national
official documents are built and processed by exploiting the corpus management and text analysis
software Sketch Engine. In brief, corpora- based examples [estimated at around 1,000,000 words per
national language (en, fr, el)] drawn from different countries’ public service websites (e.g., gov.uk,
légifrance.gouv.fr, diavgeia.gov.gr) indicate that the use of double forms and the practice of adapting the gender
form to the person in question can be adopted as gender-inclusive language techniques in administrative
and legal translation settings, as they co-exist with the formal constraints of national legislations’ drafting
requirements for clarity and precision. However, in these interdisciplinary settings of specialized
translation, neutral word choices and terms are usually not recommended, because they can create
ambiguity regarding the legal obligations contained in the corresponding national texts. Under these
circumstances, another gender- inclusive language technique that can be avoided is the alternation of
masculine and feminine forms in the same text. Overall, while generic masculine references are no longer
the absolute practice, the linguistic combination of gender inclusivity and clarity in interdisciplinary
settings constitutes both a priority and a challenge for specialized translators. Therefore, the comparable
corpora of all countries’ official documents become a comprehensive basis for investigating the genderinclusive translation solutions that align with each national legislation’s drafting rules and norms.
