Lengua(je) y género: Entre lo sensato y lo ridículo

Abstract

This paper analyzes a recent political correctness-related trend, which has become common practice in certain professional, academic, and especially political circles. The linguistic phenomenon discussed involves the use of both definite articles preceding a coordinated noun phrase, whose members have different genders, as in se dirigió a los y las profesores y profesoras. The paper argues that such a procedure is functionally uneconomical and violates both universal principles of grammatical agreement and basic morphosyntactic rules of Spanish. An account of the issue of nominal classification in general, the evolution of the Latin gender system into Spanish, and genderassignment rules in present-day Spanish is made in order to support the paper´s main claim. The analysis reveals that the Spanish gender system is a formal system, free of such issues as patriarchy or gender-inequality; such a system cannot be violated arbitrarily even if such violations are inspired by noble reasons such as gender-equity. The paper concludes by stating that social change, concretely gender-equity cannot be achieved by violating the linguistic system, but rather by means of a change in people´s minds through education.