The Directorate-General for Translation’s gender-neutral English guidelines (1998-2022)

Abstract

Ten years before the European Parliament adopted the Gender-neutral language in the European Parliament multilingual guidelines (2008), the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Translation had already included a section on this subject in the third edition of its English Style Guide (1998). The original text was later reproduced in other European Union’s style guides, namely the Interinstitutional Style Guide, the European Commission Style Guide and the ephemeral European Commission Guidelines for Inclusive Communication, withdrawn shortly after publication due to political and religious complaints. After a quarter of a century, the guidelines have drifted apart through their respective updates. What are the exact inconsistencies of the current style guides? How do the changes reflect developments in the field of inclusive language? And do the guidelines include gendered terms and expressions relevant for EU linguists? A unified EU policy on linguistic sexism across its languages and institutions expressed in a set of relevant and coherent language guidelines seems vital to enabling and fostering the implementation of non-sexist language as a gender mainstreaming tool in the EU.