NORMS OF USING FEMININE NOUNS IN THE SPANISH-SPEAKING CULTURAL SPACE

Abstract

Abstract

The article is a comprehensive analysis of how feminine forms work in Spanish today in media and professional discourse. It identifies the sociocultural, normative, and pragmatic factors that influence the spread of feminine forms, and outlines the contradiction between the codification policy of the Royal Spanish Academy and actual language practice. The relevance of the study is due to the growing attention to inclusive speech and the need to develop balanced norms for the use of feminitives in public communication.

The empirical basis consists of texts from contemporary Spanish media (El País, ConSalud) representing legal and medical discourse. The analysis showed that regular morphological models ending in -a (abogada, médica) are naturally integrated into professional speech and perform a nominative function without additional ideological connotations. In legal discourse, feminitives function stably and neutrally, while in medical discourse they are accompanied by references to the position of the RAE, reflecting the transitional state of normative consolidation.

The results of the study show: first, the gradual desemantisation of grammatical gender, when feminitives are perceived as natural linguistic units; second, the pragmatic adaptation of inclusive forms in the media space; third, the dependence of the acceptability of feminitives on the professional sphere. Psycholinguistic observations confirm the absence of cognitive barriers to the perception of regular forms, which contributes to their establishment in communicative practice.

It is concluded that feminitives in Spanish are moving from a peripheral phenomenon to a stable element of standard public discourse. Further corpus, sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic studies aimed at studying the dynamics of their use and the possibilities of normative coordination with the language policy of institutions are promising.