Global Gender Inclusivity Challenges Adapted to Local Administrative Language Needs

Author : Vasiliki Chelidoni

Abstract :The paper entitled “Global Gender Inclusivity Challenges Adapted to Local Administrative Language Needs” presents how different public administration systems can influence Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) policies. In brief, by building monolingual corpora of national inclusive language guides, the local commitment to inclusive language reform is assessed to advance administrative communication among civil servants or between citizens and public services. In particular, based on a corpus linguistics approach, the corpus management and text analysis software Sketch Engine is used to create a monolingual corpus of British inclusive language guides as well as a monolingual corpus of French inclusive language guides, each of which is comprised of national guides issued by either the public services or the higher education institutions. The comparison of these two corpora reveals the best and most common inclusive language practices adopted by each public administration system while considering the unique features of every respective national language. For instance, practices like double forms, feminized alternatives, neutral nouns, non-binary formulations, and non-gendered structures can be identified and thoroughly examined. Finally, given the significant importance of setting corpus design criteria, collecting text material to build specialized corpora, and combining quantitative and qualitative data analysis methods to process corpora with Sketch Engine’s tools (e.g. frequency lists, concordances), this paper highlights the degree of gender inclusivity in different administrative languages, thus contributing to the intertwining of global challenges and local needs in our rapidly shifting world.

Keywords :Gender inclusivity; administrative language; inclusive language guides; public administration systems; monolingual corpora

Conference Name :International Conference on Gender Studies and Culture of Gender (ICGSCG-25)

Conference Place Edinburgh, UK

Conference Date 1st Sep 2025