Mara Floris

Proposals for gender-fair language in Italian include Alternative grammatical Gender Encoding Devices (AGEDs) such as the schwa (ə) or asterisk, potentially also accommodating non-binary identities. These solutions, though, often pose challenges for oral communication, accessibility, and social acceptance, as they may be perceived as external to the Italian language system. We examined the possibility of employing diphthongs—integral components of standard Italian phonology—as more internalized AGEDs by testing whether replacing typical masculine or feminine word endings (-o/-i (M), -a/-e (F)) with various diphthongs (e.g., ai, eu) could produce forms interpreted by native speakers as more gender-neutral. We conducted a within-subject experiment, where Italian participants (N = 424) were asked to rate words ending in diphthongs (1) along a five-point scale from feminine to masculine and (2) as singular, plural or unclear for number. Results revealed a significant Diphthong × Number Judgement interaction, with certain diphthongs interpreted as more gender-neutral than others. Specifically, diphthongs that excluded or combined the sounds typically associated with masculine and feminine grammatical genders were rated as more neutral. These findings suggest that select diphthongs could serve as AGEDs, potentially offering an accessible, linguistically coherent pathway toward more inclusive and gender-fair Italian language practices.

Endometriosis is a chronic and often debilitating condition affecting around 10–15% of individuals assigned female at birth, yet diagnosis is delayed by five to eleven years. Beyond biomedical limits, socio-epistemic factors crucially shape how pain is perceived, communicated, and legitimized. This study analyses how epistemic and affective injustices intersect in clinical encounters, showing how power asymmetries sustain diagnostic delay. Testimonial injustice arises when patients’ credibility is deflated through gendered stereotypes of emotionality, leading to psychologization or trivialization of pain reports. Hermeneutical injustice emerges when menstrual and pelvic pain remain conceptually unintelligible within dominant medical frameworks, limiting patients’ interpretive resources. We also identify a form of affective injustice – pathologising affect – in which emotions and bodily experiences are reframed as psychiatric disturbances, disqualifying affect as a legitimate epistemic source. Drawing on source-based epistemic injustice, we argue that downgrading affective experience undermines epistemic agency and diagnostic accuracy. Together, these mechanisms form a self-reinforcing loop that perpetuates epistemic and affective harms.

Psycholinguistic evidence shows that grammatical gender can shape mental representations, influencing how individuals interpret ambiguous scenarios. This study investigates whether varying the linguistic formulation of the “specialist riddle” affects the ability to recognize the surgeon as a woman. We tested four versions of the riddle on Italian high-school students (n = 691), manipulating the term used for “surgeon” to compare the masculine form, a control condition, a gender-neutral periphrasis, and an innovative gender-neutral form. Participants exposed to the masculine generic form perceived the riddle as more difficult and were markedly less likely to identify the surgeon as a woman compared to those exposed to the gender-neutral formulations, especially the innovative one. These findings illustrate how grammatical gender can influence mental representations and highlight the potential of alternative linguistic forms to mitigate the effects of the generic masculine or the “male as default” bias.

This study focuses on the growing importance of gender-fair language and explores innovative strategies proposed also in other languages to avoid gender-specific endings. We present a set of guidelines for the annotation and reformulation of gender-(un)fair texts and their application to a corpus of 1,024 portions of university administrative documents in Italian. Overall, the guidelines presented in this study prove to be valuable both practically and theoretically. They help identify and address non-inclusive expressions while highlighting the complexities of obscuration and visibility in gender-fair language reformulation. In addition, the statistical analysis of the created corpus shows how administrative texts tend to contain gender-unfair language, especially the masculine overextended expressions, showing the need to adopt specific and complete guidelines that lead (and support the staff training) to the use of a more gender-fair language.

Effective communication is widely recognized as a cornerstone of successful medical treatment, as extensively documented in prior research. The doctor-patient relationship relies on clear, accurate information exchange to ensure precise diagnoses, treatment adherence, and patient satisfaction. Yet misunderstandings can seriously undermine this process, creating barriers to optimal care and weakening the therapeutic alliance—a critical element of effective healthcare. Consequently, identifying, understanding, and addressing these misunderstandings is essential. This paper introduces a novel approach to detecting and analyzing such misunderstandings in clinical interactions by drawing on concepts from the philosophy of language. Specifically, we present the ToUCAN Codebook, a structured framework designed to systematically classify and examine instances of textual miscommunication in doctor-patient dialogues. By offering a clear methodology for identifying and preventing potential communication breakdowns, the ToUCAN Codebook contributes to improved healthcare outcomes and a deeper understanding of the dynamics that shape medical discourse.

Patient-centred care (PCC) is widely promoted as a gold standard in contemporary medicine, emphasising autonomy, shared decision-making, and informational transparency. However, its implementation often assumes a level of epistemic symmetry and emotional capacity that may not align with patients’ lived experiences – especially in contexts of terminal illness. This study draws on 31 post-consultation interviews with patients recently diagnosed with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) to explore how trust is constructed, experienced, or undermined in clinical communication. Using inductive thematic analysis, we identified five key themes: trust as cumulative and relational; honesty and clarity as affective anchors; empathy and the moral significance of small gestures; the mediating role of companions; and communication as a site of narrative repair. Rather than seeking decisional control or informational primacy, many patients articulated a desire for interpretive guidance, emotional containment, and communicative attunement. These findings challenge normative assumptions about patient empowerment and call for a reconceptualisation of PCC as a practice of epistemic and affective responsiveness. Trust, in this view, is not a background condition of care, but its central infrastructure – fragile, temporal, and co-produced in the intersubjective space of the clinical encounter.

This article examines the pathologisation and over-medicalisation of pregnancy, arguing that pregnancy should not be classified as a disease. While medical interventions are essential in managing pregnancy-related complications, excessive medicalisation can undermine maternal autonomy and contribute to unnecessary interventions. We trace the historical shift from midwifery-led childbirth to obstetric control, highlighting how pregnancy came to be viewed as a clinical condition requiring constant medical oversight. Drawing on philosophical theories of disease, we analyse the debate surrounding pregnancy’s classification, considering naturalistic, normative, and pragmatic perspectives. Using focus group data from midwives, we provide concrete examples of over-medicalisation, including the routine overuse of procedures such as induction and episiotomy. We argue that a balanced approach is needed – one that acknowledges pregnancy’s physiological nature while ensuring access to medical care when appropriate. Avoiding both excessive medicalisation and rigid naturalisation can better support pregnant individuals’ well-being and decision-making autonomy.

Using the Venus of Willendorf as a case study, I explore the interplay between narrative knowledge and the construction of gender roles in archaeological interpretation. Archaeological narratives, often developed from limited data and connected by speculative elements, significantly shape public perception and academic understanding. While these narratives aim to bridge gaps in the archaeological record, they inadvertently reflect contemporary societal structures, especially in the assignment of gender roles. This study examines the tendency within archaeology to project modern gender norms onto the past, frequently in the absence of definitive evidence. Such projections can result in reconstructions that not only misrepresent but also oversimplify the complex nature of past gender roles. By critically analysing these narrative practices and their reliance on cognitive biases, this research aims to uncover how historical gender roles are constructed and highlight potential inaccuracies in this process.

Endometriosis is a chronic and often debilitating condition affecting around 10–15% of individuals assigned female at birth, yet diagnosis is delayed by five to eleven years. Beyond biomedical limits, socio-epistemic factors crucially shape how pain is perceived, communicated, and legitimized. This study analyses how epistemic and affective injustices intersect in clinical encounters, showing how power asymmetries sustain diagnostic delay. Testimonial injustice arises when patients’ credibility is deflated through gendered stereotypes of emotionality, leading to psychologization or trivialization of pain reports. Hermeneutical injustice emerges when menstrual and pelvic pain remain conceptually unintelligible within dominant medical frameworks, limiting patients’ interpretive resources. We also identify a form of affective injustice – pathologising affect – in which emotions and bodily experiences are reframed as psychiatric disturbances, disqualifying affect as a legitimate epistemic source. Drawing on source-based epistemic injustice, we argue that downgrading affective experience undermines epistemic agency and diagnostic accuracy. Together, these mechanisms form a self-reinforcing loop that perpetuates epistemic and affective harms.

Anorexia Nervosa (AN) is a psychiatric illness that presents a complex variety of perceptual alterations and somatic sensations. These alterations occur at the level of (1) bodily representations and (2) bodily experiences. The alterations are widespread, and they involve multiple cognitive functions. We reviewed the current literature linking the psychiatric literature on AN with the philosophical debate on the Cognitive Penetrability of Perception (CPP). We describe the alterations in perception, starting from the most widespread and studied, i.e., those concerning distortions in the estimation of the dimensions of one's body (“dysmorphophobia” or “body image disturbance”) to then describe those of more recent analysis involving alterations in bodily experiences. Body image disturbances in AN have been linked to alexithymia, emotional dysregulation, and altered interoceptive awareness, highlighting the complex interaction between emotion, cognition, and perception in AN. We show how the recent debate on CPP can benefit from the empirical investigations in AN, and can, in turn, serve to outline new lines of research.