Project description
Gender representation in Arabic and Italian discourse
Arabic and Italian public discussions, particularly when referring to Islamic and Catholic beliefs, use metaphors to frame gender issues and influence gender-equality policies. Supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the DECODE project aims to explore the use of metaphor and discursive strategies in Arabic and Italian public and institutional discourse by comparing voices from institutions such as Al-Azhar and the Vatican, as well as shared values such as dignity and honour. The project will create a bilingual corpus of 500 000 words from 2015 to 2025, and use conceptual metaphor theory, the metaphor identification procedure, and critical discourse analysis. The findings will allow for more culturally sensitive gender communication.
Objective
DECODE – Sacred Words, Secular Policies investigates how Arabic- and Italian-language public and institutional discourses—especially those drawing on Islamic and Catholic references—use metaphor and other discursive strategies to frame gender and shape (or clash with) gender-equality policies. Pairing parallel institutional voices (e.g. Al-Azhar/Vatican) and shared value vocabularies (dignity, honor, protection), the project fills a cross-cultural research gap at the intersection of language, religion, and gender.
Methodologically, DECODE builds a 500,000-word bilingual corpus (2015–2025) and applies an integrated CMT (Conceptual Metaphor Theory) – MIPVU (Metaphor Identification Procedure, VU University) – CDA (Critical Discourse Analysis) pipeline with rigorous inter-annotator reliability, producing an open, FAIR-compliant dataset, a transferable comparative framework, and a taxonomy of gendered metaphors. Preliminary patterns suggest that “dignity” is framed in Arabic discourse as a “precious object requiring protection” versus an “inherent right requiring recognition” in Italian discourse—differences with direct policy implications.
Hosted by Ca’ Foscari University (return phase) with an outgoing phase at the University of Toronto, the fellowship couples linguistic analysis with religious-studies expertise to ensure cultural-theological accuracy. Expected outcomes include peer-reviewed publications, an annotated bilingual corpus, open methods and code, and a policy brief disseminated to European and national equality bodies, advancing evidence-based, culturally sensitive gender communication aligned with EU open-science and impact priorities.
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CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
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Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
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Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-GF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - Global Fellowships
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Call for proposal
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(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2025-PF
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30123 Venezia
Italy
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