Cover not available

Article published In: Journal of Language and Politics
Vol. 21:6 (2022) ► pp.847–866

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload EPUB
authorization required

Language and culture wars

The far right’s struggle against gender-neutral language

ORCiD logo with link | Dublin City University
Published online: 3 June 2022
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.21050.erd
Abstract
The far right has launched its own particular crusade against gender-neutral language (GNL). In this article, I examine how the parties Rassemblement National, in France, and Vox, in Spain, instrumentalise discursively their opposition to GNL as part of their overall political strategy of confronting social change. By using a culture war framework, I critically analyse the connections between the polarised representations of language and those of other fronts of cultural conflict that the far right directs against adversary groups. I show that both political parties have co-opted language into the culture wars they pursue on other fronts, albeit with significant differences. I argue that in addition to the idea of a single overall struggle based on moral differences and cultural cleavages, culture wars are also to be understood as interconnected fronts in different spheres of contention that the far right strategically exploits.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Culture wars and the far right
  • 3.The far right and language: The different ideological axis of GNL
  • 4.The study
  • 5.GNL in oppositional politics
    • 5.1Struggle against GNL in France
      • The context
      • GNL vs physical safety and the “valuable” feminism
      • GNL vs economic and material security
    • 5.2Struggle against GNL in Spain
      • The context
      • GNL vs freedom from impositions
      • GNL vs ideology-free values and policies
  • 6.Discussion and concluding remarks
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (44)
References
Académie Française. 2017. “Déclaration de l’Académie française sur l’écriture dite ‘inclusive’.” Declaration of the Académie Française, 26 October 2017. [URL]
Akkerman, Tjitske, Sarah L. de Lange, and Matthijs Rooduijn, eds. 2016. Radical Right-Wing Populist Parties in Western Europe: Into the Mainstream? Milton Park: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Andrus, Jennifer. 2012. “Language Ideology, Fractal Recursivity, and Discursive Agency in the Legal Construction of Linguistic Evidence.” Language in Society 41 (5): 589–614. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bain, J. Grant. 2010. “Culture Wars.” In The Encyclopedia of Literary and Cultural Theory, ed. by Michael Ryan, vol. 31, Cultural Theory, A–Z. Wiley Online Library. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Betz, Hans-Georg, and Carol Johnson. 2004. “Against the Current – Stemming the Tide: The Nostalgic Ideology of the Contemporary Radical Populist Right.” Journal of Political Ideologies 9 (3): 311–327. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Blommaert, Jan, ed. 1999. Language Ideological Debates. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brubaker, Rogers. 2017. “Why Populism?” Theory and Society 46 (5): 357–385. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bruzos, Alberto, Iker Erdocia, and Kamran Khan. 2018. “The Path to Naturalization in Spain: Old Ideologies, New Language Testing Regimes and the Problem of Test Use.” Language Policy 17 (4): 419–441. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Busbridge, Rachel, Benjamin Moffitt, and Joshua Thorburn. 2020. “Cultural Marxism: Far-Right Conspiracy Theory in Australia’s Culture Wars.” Social Identities 26 (6): 722–738. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Castle, Jeremiah. 2019. “New Fronts in the Culture Wars? Religion, Partisanship, and Polarization on Religious Liberty and Transgender Rights in the United States.” American Politics Research 47 (3): 650–679. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Davis, Mark. 2019. “A New, Online Culture War? The Communication World of Breitbart.com.” Communication Research and Practice 5 (3): 241–254. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Elgenius, Gabriella, and Jens Rydgren. 2019. “Frames of Nostalgia and Belonging: The Resurgence of Ethno-Nationalism in Sweden.” European Societies 21 (4): 583–602. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2021. “Participation and Deliberation in Language Policy: The Case of Gender-Neutral Language.” Current Issues in Language Planning. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ferreira, Carles. 2019. “Vox as Representative of the Radical Right in Spain: A Study of Its Ideology.” Revista Española de Ciencia Política 511: 73–98. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Forchtner, Bernhard, ed. 2020. The Far Right and the Environment: Politics, Discourse and Communication. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gal, Susan. 2002. “A Semiotics of the Public/Private Distinction.” Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies 131: 77–95. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gal, Susan, Kathryn A. Woolard. (eds.) 2001. Language and Publics: The making of authority. Manchester: St Jerome.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Griffin, Roger. 1999. “Last Rights?” In The Radical Right in Central and Eastern Europe since 1989, ed. by Sabrina P. Ramet, 297–321. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hunter, James D. 1991. Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America. New York: Basic.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1994. Before the Shooting Begins: Searching for Democracy in America’s Culture War. New York: Simon and Schuster.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Irvine, Judith T., and Susan Gal. 2000. “Language Ideology and Linguistic Differentiation.” In Regimes of Language: Ideologies, Polities, and Identities, ed. by Paul V. Kroskrity, 35–84. Santa Fe: School of American Research Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ivaldi, Gilles. 2016. “A New Course for the French Radical-Right? The Front National and ‘De-Demonization’.” In Right-Wing Populist Parties in Western Europe: Into the Mainstream?, ed. by Tjitske Akkerman, Sarah de Lange, and Matthijs Rooduijn, 231–253. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kallis, Aristotle. 2018. “The Radical Right and Islamophobia”. In The Oxford Handbook of the Radical Right, ed. by Jens Rydgren, 42–60. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Krzyżanowski, Michał. 2020. “Discursive Shifts and the Normalisation of Racism: Imaginaries of Immigration, Moral Panics and the Discourse of Contemporary Right-Wing Populism.” Social Semiotics 30 (4): 503–527. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Krzyżanowski, Michał, and Per Ledin. 2017. “Uncivility on the Web: Populism in/and the Borderline Discourses of Exclusion.” Journal of Language and Politics 16 (4): 566–581. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Laclau, Ernesto. 1996. Emancipation(s). London: Verso.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Miller-Idriss, Cynthia, and Hillary Pilkington. 2017. “In Search of the Missing Link: Gender, Education and the Radical Right.” Gender and Education 29 (2): 133–146. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Minkenberg, Michael. 2000. “The Renewal of the Radical Right: Between Modernity and Anti-Modernity.” Government and Opposition 35 (2):170–188. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mondon, Aurelien, and Aaron Winter. 2020. Reactionary Democracy: How Racism and the Populist Far Right Became Mainstream. London and New York: Verso.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mudde, Cas. 2007. Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe. New York: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Norris, Pippa, and Ronald Inglehart. 2019. Cultural Backlash: Trump, Brexit, and Authoritarian Populism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pauwels, Anne. 2003. “Linguistic Sexism and Feminist Linguistic Activism.” In The Handbook of Language and Gender, ed. by Janet Holmes and Miriam Meyerhoff, 550–572. Oxford: Blackwell. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Parks, Janet B., and Mary A. Roberton. 1998. “Contemporary Arguments against Non-Sexist Language: Blaubergs (1980) Revisited.” Sex Roles 39 (5–6): 445–461. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
RAE. 2020. Informe de la Real Academia Española sobre el lenguaje inclusivo y cuestiones conexas. Madrid: Real Academia Española. [URL]
Rheindorf, Markus, and Ruth Wodak, eds. 2020. Sociolinguistic Perspectives on Migration Control: Language Policy, Identity and Belonging. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stavrakakis, Yannis, Giorgos Katsambekis, Nikos Nikisianis, Alexandros Kioupkiolis, and Thomas Siomos. 2017. “Extreme Right-Wing Populism in Europe: Revisiting a Reified Association.” Critical Discourse Studies 14 (4): 420–439. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stockemer, Daniel, and Mauro Barisione. 2017. “The ‘New’ Discourse of the Front National under Marine Le Pen: A Slight Change with a Big Impact.” European Journal of Communication 32 (2): 100–115. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Suny, Ronald Grigor. 2002. “Back and Beyond: Reversing the Cultural Turn?” American Historical Review 1071: 1476–1499. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Thomson, Irene Taviss. 2010. Culture Wars and Enduring American Dilemmas. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Van Dijk, Teun A. 1997. “What is Political Discourse Analysis?” Belgian Journal of Linguistics 11 (1): 11–52. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wodak, Ruth. 2015. The Politics of Fear: What Right-Wing Populist Discourses Mean. London: Sage. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2020. The Politics of Fear: The Shameless Normalization of Far-Right Discourse. London: Sage.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (8)

Cited by eight other publications

Bleich, Erik, Gyula Zsombok & A Maurits van der Veen
2025. Social proximity, discursive opportunity structures, and the diffusion of the culture wars: The case of “woke” in France. International Journal of Comparative Sociology DOI logo
Dhoest, Alexander
2025. Them! Ingroup-outgroup dynamics in Flemish anti-woke discourses on X. Discourse, Context & Media 65 ► pp. 100886 ff. DOI logo
Dhoest, Alexander & Steve Paulussen
2025. The mediated construction of “woke”: Emerging discourses and primary definers in the Flemish press. Journalism 26:9 ► pp. 1918 ff. DOI logo
Kaukonen, Elisabeth, Polina Oskolskaia, Liina Lindström & Raili Marling
2025. Gender, language and labour: gender perception of Estonian and Russian occupational titles. Frontiers in Communication 9 DOI logo
Erdocia, Iker & Josep Soler
2024. In pursuit of epistemic authority in public intellectual engagement: the case of language and gender. Multilingua 43:1 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Schauer, Gila A.
2024. Results: Components of Intercultural Competence. In Intercultural Competence and Pragmatics, ► pp. 53 ff. DOI logo
Schauer, Gila A.
2024. Results: Intercultural Competence and Gender-Neutral Language. In Intercultural Competence and Pragmatics, ► pp. 105 ff. DOI logo
Hale, Miriam-Linnea & André Melzer
2023. Girls vs. Men - The Prevalence of Gender-Biased Language in Popular YouTube Videos. In Entertainment Computing – ICEC 2023 [Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 14455], ► pp. 176 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 13 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue