Gender-sensitive language in terminological definitions

Abstract This paper examines the use of gender-sensitive language in terminology databases, focusing on terminological definitions. It is based on a case study on definitions of legal agentives in Italian, a grammatical gender language. The key question shaping many crucial choices is whether gender should be regarded as a characteristic of concepts or a property of objects. We discuss the challenges of (re)writing terminological definitions of legal concepts stored in a terminology database. These concern the conceptual, linguistic and comparative levels. With our study, we aim to contribute to the broader debate on language and gender. At the same time, we illustrate gender as a dimension of terminology that goes beyond terms and concerns the description and representation of concepts (e.g. in ontologies).