How is the reclamation of slurs perceived in Italian?

A sociolinguistic survey to inform future NLP studies

Abstract

This study presents a sociolinguistic survey that investigates how the reclamation of LGBT+ slurs is perceived in Italian. Reclamation refers to the practice of repurposing historically derogatory terms into expressions of identity, pride, solidarity, activism. Despite significant advancements in AI in the automatic detection of the abusive use of derogatory terms, the reclamation of slurs remains largely overlooked in NLP research – especially in Italian. Failure to adequately consider the context may lead automated moderation systems to erroneously classify reclaimed slurs as abusive, with the risk of censoring the voices of activists and marginalized communities and limiting their freedom of expression. The survey is based on a web questionnaire designed with input from a preliminary focus group, and it collected both linguistic perceptions and sociodemographic data from 279 respondents. Results show that LGBT+ individuals and younger participants are more familiar with and accepting of reclaimed language. While most respondents agree that ingroup members have greater legitimacy in using reclaimed slurs, opinions vary regarding acceptable contexts and speakers. This underscores the importance of context, intention, and positionality in language interpretation, something that should be taken into account to develop NLP tools that are sensitive enough to deal with reclamatory uses of slurs in the future. Ultimately, this work lays the groundwork for ethical dataset creation and annotation practices that respect marginalized voices, since it supports a community-centered, socially-aware approach to future NLP tools.