Autori: Domaneschi, Filippo, Zappoli, Alessandra
Titolo: Multimodal injustices: Speech acts, gender bias, and speaker’s status
Periodico: Sistemi intelligenti
Anno: 2025 - Fascicolo: 2 - Pagina iniziale: 277 - Pagina finale: 300

The function of verbal language is not merely to describe states of affairs but also to perform various types of speech acts, such as ordering, suggesting, or questioning. Understanding the kind of action performed by a speaker who utters a sentence is a multimodal process that integrates verbal and non-verbal information. Previous research has shown that facial expressions act as non-verbal illocutionary force indicators (IFIDs) for speech acts, but this process is influenced by the speaker’s gender, leading to forms of discursive injustice. Such injustices occur when individuals from stigmatized or oppressed groups, such as women, are prevented from successfully performing speech acts due to biases tied to their social identity. This study examines how hierarchical status and gender influence the association between facial expressions and illocutionary acts. The results show that women in positions of power are perceived as less likely to perform assertive acts, more inclined to ask questions, and are required to use more marked and emphatic conventional cues to successfully execute orders, compared to men. These findings reveal the multimodal nature of discursive injustices, demonstrating how biases systematically disadvantage certain groups in their ability to "do things with words".




SICI: 1120-9550(2025)2<277:MISAGB>2.0.ZU;2-F
Testo completo: https://www.rivisteweb.it/download/article/10.1422/117536
Testo completo alternativo: https://www.rivisteweb.it/doi/10.1422/117536

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