Exploring the Adoption of Gender-Fair Spanish Alternatives in School Domains: An African University in Focus

This paper sets out to investigate the extent of acceptance of gender-fair language proposals within the field of education; that is, the teaching of Spanish as a foreign language. The study was carried out at a Ghanaian public university amongst teachers and students of Spanish as a foreign language. Through a corpus and discourse analysis of audio recorded classroom lessons, examination papers, WhatsApp chats and electronic messages, the author examines the usage of gender-fair language among the members of the academic community. The author inquires if inclusive language is used by the participants, which types are used, why they are used and the patterns of usage. Additionally, a survey is conducted to compare native and non-native participants’ sensibilities to the use of the masculine generic. The author found that despite the resistance of the Spanish Royal Academy and other parties, gender-fair language proposals appear to have infiltrated some academic domains to some extent. Finally, the author recommends some strategies through which Spanish language teachers can avoid gender inequity in language education without departing from the norm. © 2020, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.