È possibile una linguistica intersezionale in Italia?: breve storia di un termine militante all’interno degli studi linguistici italiani

What does it mean to use the framework of intersectionality in linguistic analysis? Is it possible to apply it to Italian linguistics in a fruitful manner? To answer these questions, it is necessary to understand how and when the terms “intersezionalità / intersezionale” entered the Italian lexicon. To elucidate the history of these terms, this article makes use of various corpora comprising written sources in Italian as well as online databases. It contends that, even though the English term “intersectionality” can be traced back to 1989 to the work of Crenshaw, the appearance in the Italian public discourse of the terms “intersezionalità / intersezionale” is quite recent and appears to date back to the early 2000s. The second part of the paper discusses the results of an anonymous questionnaire that aimed to investigate the understanding of “intersezionalità” within the Italian linguistic community. The results of the survey indicate that most Italian linguists who participated in the inquiry are familiar with the terms. The usage of “intersezionalità / intersezionale,” however, appears to be mostly used in this context to refer to: i) the intersection of different aspects that characterize social identity (such as ethnic background, gender, age, etc.) without considering the potential implications of discrimination that can result from multiple axes intersecting each other (discrimination by gender, race, ableism, etc.); and ii) the linguistic discrimination and the debate on the feminine inflection expressing inherent and/or grammatical gender. The last part of the paper analyses these results in light of linguistic research conducted in Italy in recent years and seeks to understand how debates around the issue have mainly focused on sex and gender linguistic discrimination. Finally, it will identify potential opportunities where the framework of intersectionality can be applied in Italian linguistics with the help of different sociolinguistic paradigms, such as raciolinguistics, glottophobia, or linguicism.