The Academy, as an institution (usually through the director or the secretary), defended itself against the demands by reiterating rational arguments: the RAE (and, therefore, its dictionary) has no ideology or power, therefore, it is limited to register the usages, acting in a scientific way (and not politically correct). However, when the defenders of the Academy or its members take the initiative in the press in a private capacity, they usually resort to emotional strategies, where dysphemisms, rhetorical figures (fundamentally irony, metaphors and hyperbole) prevail, the ad hominem argument (to disqualify the adversary, especially as ignorant and censorious), precipitous generalizations and the fallacy of the domino or slippery slope effect (to warn us of the dangers that could befall the dictionary if certain definitions were eliminated).

The discourse from the other side, feminism, is fundamentally emotional; stemming from a feeling of offense and bases its argument on assessments and judgments towards the RAE and its dictionary, mixing assessments of people with the object evaluated, that is, the dictionary, which is branded as androcentric, male chauvinistic and sexist (the three adjectives most repeated). Some academics, such as Soledad Puértolas or Carme Riera, take both sides, because, on the one hand, they defend the permanence of the definitions denounced in the dictionary (as historical testimony and usage), but explicitly recognize the sexist (even misogynist) heritage they drag along with it.

A relevant fact is how feminist revendications born and disseminated in networks end up becoming news on the press, which accommodates other discursive instances, allowing the intervention of new actors, unknown people who acquire certain authority, diminishing, at least for a sector of the population, that of the Academy, which has changed the most controversial definitions and those with the most impact on the networks in the digital version of its dictionary (those affecting the adjectives feminine and easy), even though, in the beginning they stated that they would not do so.

Although the RAE defended itself by saying that the dictionary cannot be politically correct or be ideologised, however, the fact that in 2011 a unit was created to channel criticism and proposals related to the academic dictionary and the changes that had been carried out in recent editions, some of which came about right after the media campaigns, revealing that the Academy is not indifferent to criticism and that, to a lesser or greater extent, it took note of them.

Therefore, we believe it is proven that the texts analysed, where the academic dictionary is debated, can be considered manifestations of what are called linguistic ideologies, and have tremendous value as living testimonies to the evolution of society and of the influence of the social media, as well as the assumption of equality by a public (partly anonymous) who demands that the Academy, through its main work (the academic dictionary), make changes that reveal that the institution is adapting to the times.

6. Bibliographical references

Amossy, R. (2016). L’argumentation dans le discours. Paris: Armand Colin, 3.ª ed.

Cabeza Pereira, M. C. & Rodríguez Barcia, S. (2013). “Aspectos ideológicos, gramaticales y léxicos del sexismo lingüístico”. Estudios filológicos, 52, 7-27. <http://www.scielo.cl/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0071-17132013000200001>