Language, Cognition, and Gender

The Initial Training Network - Language, Cognition, and Gender (ITN LCG) investigates European languages from an interdisciplinary perspective to expand current knowledge of how language influences and forms the cognitive representations of women and men. The diversity of Europe offers a unique opportunity to investigate the impact of language and culture in establishing and maintaining gender inequality. This issue has not yet been systematically addressed on a large scale, although the reduction of gender inequality is generally considered an important issue within Europe. Therefore, ITN LCG will provide a structured interdisciplinary research training programme for young researchers in the emerging supra-disciplinary field of language, cognition, and gender to enhance the scientific understanding of this topic and improve the quality of initial research training in Europe. For the first time, these lines of research will be investigated from cross-language and cross-cultural perspectives by bringing together 10 complementary providers of research-training and 12 associated partners from public and private sectors. ITN LCG has four interrelated research objectives: a) deriving indices for selected European languages that reflect the extent to which the features of a language result in gender related representations in speakers/listeners, b) investigating to what extent gender equality in formal standards of language and the use of gender-fair language correlates with higher levels of socio-economic gender equality, c) analysing the impact of language on gender stereotyping in social judgement and decision making, and d) developing and evaluating scientifically-based prototypes of guidelines and training tools for gender-fair communication in European languages. ITN LCG will strengthen the capability of its young fellows to contribute effectively to our knowledge-based economy and society, and will add to their intersectoral and transnational employability.