Navigating the interplay between language development and the conceptual representation of gender identity in the Italian language: A mixed methodology study.

Introduction This study investigates conceptual changes resulting from the development of new linguistic forms that capture the spectrum of gender identity self-definitions. Previous studies highlighted that gender experience influences conceptual representation (Mazzuca et al., 2020). Moreover, existing literature on embodied and grounded cognition emphasizes the impact of sensory and bodily experience on language processing (Borghi et al., 2019). From a socio-cultural perspective, the concept of gender develops from internal experiences and interactions with others through processes of social metacognition (i.e., the need for others in the search and negotiation of conceptual meaning) (Borghi et al., 2022). The relevance of cultural changes associated with gender diversity pushes efforts to investigate how these processes fit into language development, by examining the usage of nouns and pronouns in gender identity self-definitions, especially for grammatical gender languages such as the Italian (Tavits and P´erez, 2019; Prewitt-Freilino et al., 2012). We investigate different semantic dimensions in semi-structured interviews about gender identity from people identifying as nonbinary—lying outside the normative linguistic gender of feminine and masculine (Mirabella et al., 2022). Methodology Thirty-nine nonbinary participants were interviewed on their gender identity experiences and linguistic preferences. We analyzed the resulting texts leveraging mixed methodologies spanning from text mining to more traditional linguistic analysis tools. Our dataset is composed of 1140 nouns (e.g., “definition”, “incongruency”). We considered semantic norms on ten dimensions, defined in existing databases. In particular, we included the following dimensions: Abstractness, Concreteness, Familiarity, Context Availability, Modality of Acquisition, Age of Acquisition, Body- Object Interaction, Interoception, and Emotionality, and performed a Principal Component Analysis to reduce dimensionality in the dataset and identify meaningful relations. Preliminary Results Results show that nouns produced by nonbinary participants are collapsed into two main principal components. Abstractness and related conceptual dimensions, like Modality of Acquisition and Age of Acquisition represent the major contributions to the first component. In line with previous literature, more abstract words are acquired later and linguistically compared to more concrete words (Villani et al., 2019). Conversely, Body-Object Interaction, Interoception, and Emotionality characterize the second component. Intriguingly, this second component refers to embodied aspects, and—differently from previous evidence obtained without controlling for participants’ gender identity—it encompasses both interoceptive and exteroceptive aspects (BOI). Overall, our results suggest that cultural and social processes related to gender identity affect conceptual relations—leading to mesh internal and affective experiences with bodily interactions with the environment, further contributing to the definition of gender identities narratives. References Borghi, A. M., Barca, L., Binkofski, F., Castelfranchi, C., Pezzulo, G., and Tummolini, L. (2019). Words as social tools: Language, sociality and inner grounding in abstract concepts. Physics of life reviews, 29:120–153. Borghi, A. M., Fini, C., and Mazzuca, C. (2022). Abstract concepts, social interaction, and beliefs. Frontiers in Psychology, 13:919808. Mazzuca, C., Majid, A., Lugli, L., Nicoletti, R., and Borghi, A. M. (2020). Gender is a multifaceted concept: evidence that specific life experiences differentially shape the concept of gender. Language and Cognition, 12(4):649–678. Mirabella, M., Piras, I., Fortunato, A., Fisher, A. D., Lingiardi, V., Mosconi, M., Ristori, J., Speranza, A. M., and Giovanardi, G. (2022). Gender Identity and Non-Binary Presentations in Adolescents Attending Two Specialized Services in Italy. The Journal of Sexual Medicine, 19(6):1035– 1048. Prewitt-Freilino, J. L., Caswell, T. A., and Laakso, E. K. (2012). The gendering of language: A comparison of gender equality in countries with gendered, natural gender, and genderless languages. Sex Roles, 66(3-4):268–281. Tavits, M. and P´erez, E. O. (2019). Language influences mass opinion toward gender and LGBT equality. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116(34):16781–16786. Villani, C., Lugli, L., Liuzza, M. T., and Borghi, A. M. (2019). Varieties of abstract concepts and their multiple dimensions. Language and Cognition, 11(3):403–430.