The IN-GENIOUS project investigates the emergence, circulation, and institutionalisation of gender-inclusive neologisms in contemporary European languages, with a primary focus on French and exploratory perspectives from Czech, Italian, Polish, and German. The project examines how new lexical forms related to gender and inclusion are created, legitimised, contested, and used across media, institutional, and digital discourse.
By combining corpus linguistics, discourse analysis, and sociolinguistic fieldwork, IN-GENIOUS develops a typology of inclusive neologisms and analyses their social and political significance. The project aims to establish a comparative framework for future multilingual research and to strengthen academic cooperation within the 4EU+ Alliance through shared methodologies, training activities, and scholarly exchange.
The project will produce a systematic typology of gender-inclusive neologisms and a comparative analysis of institutional and user perspectives on inclusive language across Europe. It will enhance understanding of how inclusive lexical innovations are formed, legitimised, and negotiated in different sociocultural contexts, supporting evidence-based language policy and educational practice.
IN-GENIOUS will strengthen international research cooperation within the 4EU+ Alliance through joint methodologies, training activities, and scholarly exchange. The project will culminate in an international conference in Prague and lay the foundation for a collective scholarly volume, contributing to long-term academic collaboration and public engagement.
radka.mudrochova@ff.cuni.cz
Radka Mudrochová is an Associate Professor of French Linguistics at Charles University in Prague, specialising in neology, lexical innovation, and sociolinguistics. Her research focuses on word formation, language contact, and contemporary variation in French and in contrast with other European languages. She has led and participated in numerous national and international research projects, including within the 4EU+ Alliance, and has extensive experience in corpus-based and comparative research. She is the author and editor of several monographs and collective volumes on lexical creativity and language change.
chiara.preite@unimi.it
christine.martinez@uw.edu.pl
sybille.grosse@rose.uni-heidelberg.de
aurelie.picton@unige.ch
What makes your project innovative or unique in your field?
IN-GENIOUS is innovative in its focus on gender-inclusive lexical innovation rather than on grammatical reform alone. It combines comparative, interdisciplinary methods to analyse how new inclusive terms emerge, circulate, and gain legitimacy across different European languages and contexts.
What are you most excited to achieve through this collaboration?
We are most excited to build a strong international research network and develop a shared analytical framework for studying inclusive language across Europe.