Hacia una conciencia lingüística de género: perspectivas teóricas y aplicadas del lenguaje inclusivo en el aula universitaria de español en Italia

This article examines inclusive language in Spanish from a glottosocial perspective, integrating insights from general linguistics and sociolinguistics. It adopts Eugenio Coseriu’s tripartition –system, norm, and speech– as a conceptual framework to distinguish between grammatical structures, socially recognized conventions, and situated linguistic practices. This approach shows that many contemporary controversies surrounding gender do not reflect instability in the grammatical system, but rather ongoing processes of normative reconfiguration and performative linguistic choices in actual language use. A comparative perspective with Italian further demonstrates that typologically related Romance languages may share similar grammatical architectures while developing divergent normative and discursive responses to analogous sociocultural pressures. Within this framework, this article advances a linguistic model for the analysis of gender that distinguishes structural, normative, and discursive levels in debates on inclusive language, and that underpins pedagogical strategies for university-level teaching of Spanish language, linguistics, and translation, particularly in contexts where Spanish is learned as a second or foreign language. The proposed activities combine formal analysis, critical reflection, and applied exercises, with the aim of fostering gender-related linguistic awareness in its social, ideological, and cognitive dimensions, as well as promoting metalinguistic competence and responsible communicative practices.