This paper investigates how gender-fair strategies in source texts influence the production of non-binary translations in the Italian to German combination. We use a controlled test set featuring binary and non-binary approaches to assess their effectiveness for non-binary renderings in the target language. We also introduce an automatic evaluation framework that classifies target sentences into four categories: non-binary, binary-gendered, single-gendered, and incoherent. Relying on human analysis, we compare Reasoning LLMs against standard inference, examining whether reasoning improves translation quality and automatic evaluation. Our results show that reasoning models are more successful in shifting from binary to non-binary formulations and in handling linguistic challenges such as epicene terms and special characters, although there are no improvements in sentence-level consistency and evaluation accuracy. A qualitative analysis of German translations shows that reasoning encourages the reformulation of source-side strategies through neutralization, visibility strategies, and paraphrasing, resulting in more natural target texts.
- Reasoning About Gender: How Source Text Strategies Impact Italian-to-German Machine Translation Beyond the Binary
- Paolo Di NataleL SchlutterE ChiocchettiM Alber
- Proceedings of the 4th Workshop on Gender-Inclusive Translation Technologies (GITT 2026), pp.49-72
- Lardelli M, Savoldi B, Hackenbuchner J, Bentivogli L, Gkovedarou E, Daems J
- 9789403901374
- 4th Workshop on Gender-Inclusive Translation Technologies (GITT 2026) (Tilburg, 15/06/2026–15/06/2026)
- Open Press Tilburg University
- Online
- 24
- 9789403901374
(UNIBZ)101867634
991007436020601241 - n.a.
- This article is licensed under a Creative Commons 4.0 licence, no derivative works, attribution, CCBY-ND.
- Faculty of Education
- English
- Conference proceeding
- Di Natale P, Schlutter L, Chiocchetti E, Alber M
- Editors/Supervisors: Lardelli M, Savoldi B, Hackenbuchner J, Bentivogli L, Gkovedarou E, Daems J