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Article In: English World-Wide: Online-First Articles

Body no be firewood

Queer world Englishes

ORCiD logo with link | Universität Heidelberg
 | Universität Heidelberg
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Abstract
Our paper has a dual goal: in a programmatic vein, we locate the intersection of Queer Linguistics and World Englishes, identifying traditions, the current state of the art, and major research strands. Second, in a case study, we identify discourse patterns of negotiating homosexuality on Nairaland, a local and diasporic online community of Nigerian speakers. Through corpus-assisted discourse analysis, we find that colonization plays a major role in discourse surrounding homosexuality in Nigeria, with contradictory beliefs about whether it has imported homosexuality or homophobia. We conclude with a call for broader engagement with gendered and queer paradigms in World Englishes research and make suggestions for future research.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Bringing gender and queer studies into World Englishes
    • 2.1Entanglements of World Englishes and Queer Theory
    • 2.2Existing work on World Englishes and gender
      • 2.2.1Queer linguistic perspectives on Global English
      • 2.2.2World Englishes perspectives on gender and queerness
  • 3.Case study: Navigating homosexuality on Nairaland
    • 3.1Situating the data
    • 3.2“Body no be firewood”: Closet discourse at the individual level
    • 3.3“Learnt it from oyibo”: Nigerian homosexuality in global versus local negotiation
  • 4.Queering World Englishes: Future fields for the discipline
    • More is more
    • Embracing queer theory
    • Queering methodologies
    • Impact
  • Notes
  • Author queries
  • References
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