Article published in:
10th Anniversary Issue: Reflections on the Field of Language and Sexuality Studies
Edited by William L. Leap and Heiko Motschenbacher
[Journal of Language and Sexuality 10:1] 2021
► pp. 13–24

Queer linguistics and identity

The past decade

| University of Nottingham , Nottingham, UK
In this short essay, I offer some reflections on language and sexuality work over the past decade. My discussion is focused on the increasing influence of queer theory, in particular, and I comment on trends in research into language and queer identities. I take into account not only the work published in the Journal of Language and Sexuality and beyond, but also that presented over the past decade at the annual Lavender Languages and Linguistics conference.
Keywords: lavender linguistics, queer theory, normativity studies, nonbinary sociophonetics, language, sexuality and religion
Published online: 15 February 2021
https://doi.org/10.1075/jls.00010.jon
References

References

Adams-Thies, B.
2019 Hooking up mildly or wildly: Linguistic interventions for the negotiation of gay male desires. Journal of Language and Sexuality 8(1): 108–131. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Afzal, Ahmed
2014 ‘Being gay has been a curse for me’: Gay Muslim Americans, narrative and negotiations of belonging in the Muslim ummah. Journal of Language and Sexuality 3(1): 60–86. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Bailey, Aimee
2019 ‘Girl-on-girl culture’: Constructing normative identities in a corpus of sex advice for queer women. Journal of Language and Sexuality 8(2): 195–220. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Baker, Paul
2013 From gay language to normative discourse: A diachronic corpus analysis of Lavender Linguistics conference abstracts 1994–2012. Journal of Language and Sexuality 2(2): 179–205. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2014 ‘Bad wigs and screaming mimis’: Using corpus-assisted techniques to carry out critical discourse analysis of the representation of trans people in the British press. In Contemporary Critical Discourse Studies, Christopher Hart & Piotr Cap (eds), 211–236. London: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar
Barrett, Rusty
2017 From Drag Queens to Leathermen: Language, Gender, and Gay Male Subcultures. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Baudinette, Thomas
2017 Constructing identities on a Japanese gay dating site: Hunkiness, cuteness and the desire for heteronormative masculinity. Journal of Language and Sexuality 6(2): 232–261. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Borba, Rodrigo
2019 The interactional making of a ‘true transsexual’: Language and (dis)identification in trans-specific healthcare. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 256: 21–55. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Borba, Rodrigo & Milani, Thommaso
2017 The banality of evil: Crystallised structures of cisnormativity and tactics of resistance in a Brazilian gender clinic. Journal of Language and Discrimination 1(1): 7–33. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Cashman, Holly R.
2018 Narrating the intersection: Time, space, and transition in one queer life. Gender and Language 12(4): 416–436. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Chojnicka, Joanna
2015 Homophobic speech in post-socialist media: A preliminary typology of homophobic manipulative discourse. Journal of Language and Sexuality 4(1): 138–173. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Comer, Joseph
2018 ‘Equality on the sea’: Interrogating LGBTQ privilege in the tourism discourse of Africa’s ‘gay capital’. Gender and Language 12(4): 479–503. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Cordoba, Sebastian
2020 Exploring Non-Binary Genders: Language and Identity. Unpublished PhD dissertation, De Montfort University.Google Scholar
Corwin, Anna I.
2017 Emerging genders: Semiotic agency and the performance of gender among genderqueer individuals. Gender and Language 11(2): 255–277. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Crenshaw, Kimberle
1991 Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color. Stanford Law Review 43(6): 1241–1299. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Dame, Avery
2013 ‘I’m your hero? Like me?’ The role of ‘expert’ in the trans male vlog. Journal of Language and Sexuality 2(1): 40–69. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Derecka, Magdalena
2019 Manifestations of transphobia in computer mediated communication: A case study of language discrimination in English and Polish internet-mediated discourse. Studies in Polish Linguistics 14(3): 101–123. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Duggan, Lisa
2002 The new homonormativity: The sexual politics of neoliberalism. In Materializing Democracy, Russ Castronovo & Dana D. Nelson (eds), 175–193. Durham: Duke University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Findlay, Jamie Y.
2017 Unnatural acts lead to unconsummated marriages: Discourses of homosexuality within the House of Lords debate on same-sex marriage. Journal of Language and Sexuality 6(1): 30–60. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Fine, Julia Coombs
2019 Performing graysexuality: A segmental and prosodic analysis of three voices employed in the construction of the graysexual self. Journal of Language and Sexuality 8(1): 1–29. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Gupta, Kat
2018 Response and responsibility: Mainstream media and Lucy Meadows in a post-Leveson context. Sexualities 22(1–2): 31–47.Google Scholar
Hadodo, Matthew John & Kanwit, Matthew
2020 Menos masculino, demasiado infantil: How age and gender ideologies index sexuality in diminutive perception in Madrid Spanish. Journal of Language & Sexuality 9(2): 127–150. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Hall, Kira
2013 ‘It’s a hijra!’: Queer linguistics revisited. Discourse & Society 24(5): 634–642. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Jones, Lucy
2012 Dyke/Girl: Language and Identities in a Lesbian Group. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2018 ‘I’m not proud, I’m just gay’: Lesbian and gay youths’ discursive negotiation of otherness. Journal of Sociolinguistics 22(1): 55–76. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2019 Discourses of transnormativity in vloggers’ identity construction. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 256: 85–101. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2020 Subverting transphobia and challenging ignorance: The interactive construction of resistant identity in a community of practice of transgender youth. Journal of Language and Discrimination 4(2): 202–225.Google Scholar
Jones, Lucy & Collins, Luke
2020 PrEP in the press: A corpus-assisted discourse analysis of how users of HIV-prevention treatment are represented in British newspapers. Journal of Language & Sexuality 9(2): 201–224. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Leap, William
(ed) 1995 Beyond the Lavender Lexicon: Authenticity, Imagination, and Appropriation in Lesbian and Gay Languages. Amsterdam: Gordon and Breach.Google Scholar
2010 Homophobia as moral geography. Gender and Language 4(2): 187–220.Google Scholar
Leap, William & Motschenbacher, Heiko
2012 Launching a new phase in language and sexuality studies. Journal of Language and Sexuality 1(1): 1–14. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Levon, Erez
2016 Conflicted selves: Language, sexuality and religion in Israel. In Language, Sexuality and Power: Studies in Intersectional Sociolinguistics, Erez Levon & Ronald Beline Mendes (eds), 215–239. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Livia, Anna & Hall, Kira
(eds) 1997 Queerly Phrased: Language, Gender and Sexuality. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Lopez, Qiuana & Bucholtz, Mary
2017 ‘How my hair look?’: Linguistic authenticity and racialized gender and sexuality on The Wire. Journal of Language and Sexuality 6(1): 1–29. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Love, Robbie & Baker, Paul
2015 The hate that dare not speak its name? Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict 3(1): 57–86. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Mann, Stephen L.
2012 Speaker attitude as a predictive factor in listener perception of gay men’s speech. Journal of Language and Sexuality 1(2): 206–230. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Milani, Tommaso & Levon, Erez
2016 Sexing diversity: Linguistic landscapes of homonationalism. Language and Communication 51: 69–86. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Motschenbacher, Heiko
2011 Taking queer linguistics further: Sociolinguistics and critical heteronormativity research. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 212: 149–179.Google Scholar
2020 Walking on Wilton Drive: A linguistic landscape analysis of a homonormative space. Language & Communication 72(2): 25–43. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
forthcoming. Language and sexual normativity. In Oxford Handbook of Language and Sexuality, Rusty Barrett & Kira Hall eds Oxford Oxford University Press
Motschenbacher, Heiko & Stegu, Martin
2013 Introduction: Queer linguistic approaches to discourse. Discourse & Society 24(5): 519–535. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Mowlabocus, Sharif
2020 ‘What a skewed sense of values’: Discussing PreP in the British press. Sexualities 23(8): 1343–1361. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Osatananda, Varisa & Gadavanij, Savitri
2019 Materializing gay identity: An analysis of gay-sounding speech in Thai. Journal of Language and Sexuality 8(1): 30–52. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Paterson, Laura L. & Coffey-Glover, Laura
2018 Discourses of marriage in same-sex marriage debates in the UK press 2011–2014. Journal of Language and Sexuality 7(2): 175–204. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Peterson, David
2016 Homophobic grammar: The role of transitivity and phoricity in homophobic formation. Journal of Language and Sexuality 5(1): 61–93. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Provencher, Denis M.
2017 Queer Maghrebi French: Language, Temporalities, Transfiliations. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.Google Scholar
Russell, Eric
2015 Sounding gay and sounding straight: The performance of male sexual identity in Italian. Journal of Language and Sexuality 4(1): 30–76. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Sauntson, Helen
2018 Language, Sexuality and Education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Sauntson, Helen & Morrish, Elizabeth
2012 How gay is football this year? Identity and intersubjectivity in a women’s sports team. Journal of Language and Sexuality 1(2): 151–178. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Shrikant, Natasha
2014 ‘It’s like, ‘I’ve never met a lesbian before!’’: Personal narratives and the construction of diverse female identities in a lesbian counterpublic. Pragmatics 24(4): 799–818. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Thompson, Katrina Daly
2019 Becoming Muslims with a ‘queer voice’: Indexical disjuncture in the talk of LGBT members of the progressive Muslim community. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 30(1): 123–144. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Thorne, Lisa
2013 ‘But I’m attracted to women’: Sexuality and sexual identity performance in interactional discourse among bisexual students. Journal of Language and Sexuality 2(1): 70–100. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Turner, Georgina
2015 A real lesbian wouldn’t touch a bisexual with a bargepole. Critical Discourse Studies 12(2): 139–162. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Turner, Georgina, Mills, Sara, van der Bom, Isabelle, Coffey-Glover, Laura, Paterson, Laura L. & Jones, Lucy
2018 Opposition as victimhood in newspaper debates about same-sex marriage. Discourse & Society 29(2): 180–197. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
van der Bom, Isabelle, Coffey-Glover, Laura, Jones, Lucy, Mills, Sara & Paterson, Laura
2015 Implicit homophobic argument structure: Equal-marriage discourse in The Moral Maze. Journal of Language and Sexuality 4(1): 102–137. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Webster, Lexi
2018 ‘I wanna be a toy’: Self-sexualisation in gender-variant twitter users’ biographies. Journal of Language and Sexuality 7(2): 205–236. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Wright, Lyn
2017 Bilingual/bisexual: Linguistic and sexual fluidity in fictional accounts of bilingualism and language learning. Journal of Language and Sexuality 6(1): 177–203. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Zimman, Lal
2013 Hegemonic masculinity and the variability of gay-sounding speech: The perceived sexuality of transgender men. Journal of Language & Sexuality 2(1): 1–39. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2014 The discursive construction of sex: Remaking and reclaiming the gendered body in talk about genitals among trans men. In Queer Excursions: Rethinking Binaries in Language, Gender, and Sexuality, Lal Zimman, Jenny L. Davis & Joshua Raclaw (eds), 13–34. Oxford: Oxford University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Zottola, Angela
2018 Transgender identity labels in the British press: A corpus-based discourse analysis. Journal of Language and Sexuality 7(2): 237–262. CrossrefGoogle Scholar