Effetti cognitivi del genere grammaticale: evidenze sperimentali e implicazioni teoriche

Language with grammatical gender has long been at the centre of debates on linguistic relativity and gender inclusive language. While the masculine form is traditionally described as the unmarked or generic option in languages such as Italian, a growing body of psycholinguistic evidence suggests that it systematically evokes predominantly male mental representations. This article reviews the experimental literature on grammatical gender and examines the cognitive mechanisms underlying this phenomenon. Starting from the well known surgeon riddle, we discuss evidence from behavioural and psycholinguistic studies across languages, with particular attention to the interaction between grammatical gender, professional stereotypes, and the male as default bias. We also present findings from a recent experiment conducted with Italian secondary school students, showing that different linguistic formulations of the same scenario significantly affect the accessibility of female referents. Building on these results, we distinguish between generic masculine and extended masculine, argue that grammatical markedness should not be equated with cognitive neutrality, and examine competing theoretical accounts of how grammatical gender influences language comprehension and mental representation. We conclude that the effects of masculine forms are best understood as the outcome of an interaction between linguistic structure and broader cultural biases, providing an empirical basis for evaluating proposals for gender inclusive language.