Queering Language, Gender and Sexuality; Tommaso M. Milani

Edited by

Tommaso M. Milani [+–]

University of Gothenburg

Professor of Multilingualism

This volume showcases ten years of research on language, gender and sexuality informed by queer theory. In line with a queer dislike for any normalizing discourse and practice, the book gives a multi-faceted set of applications of queer theoretical ideas to linguistic analysis. The chapters that open the book engage with theoretical debates about identity and desire, and the relationships between these concepts. The following contributions offer linguistic precision to two key areas of queer theoretical interest, namely the critique of heteronormativity and the deconstruction of the gender binary. The final chapters pick up on some of the thematic threads of the book, but locate them within recent developments in the study of language and space. With examples from a variety of sociopolitical contexts – Denmark, Greece, Serbia, Sweden, South Africa, USA – and discursive sites – phrasebooks, school interactions, literary texts, as well as online dating sites and chats – the book gives a critical overview of how gender, sexuality and power can be queered through linguistic analysis.

Preliminaries

Acknowledgements [+–] vii-viii

Tommaso M. Milani FREE

University of Gothenburg

Professor of Multilingualism

Introduction

1 Queering Language, Gender and Sexuality: Theory and Practice [+–] 1-12

Tommaso M. Milani £17.50

University of Gothenburg

Professor of Multilingualism

Part I: Identity and Desire

2. Models of Gay Male Identity and the Marketing of ‘Gay Language’ in Foreign-Language Phrasebooks for Gay Men [+–] 15-41

Rusty Barrett £17.50

University of Kentucky

Rusty Barrett is an Associate Professor in the Linguistics Department at the University of Kentucky. His research focuses on language and gender, language and sexuality, Mayan languages, and language revitalization. He is the author of From Drag Queens to Leathermen: Language, Gender, and Gay Male Subcultures (Oxford University Press) and (with Kira Hall) is a co-editor of the (forthcoming) Oxford Handbook of Language and Sexuality.

This chapter examines two models that have been used in theoretical discussions of language and sexuality. The two models, the culture-based model and the desire-based model, view the gay community as formed through a shared culture or based solely on sexual desire. The impact of the models in works by Leap (1996) and Kulick (2000) is discussed, and the models are used to demonstrate competing views of gay language found in foreign-language phrasebooks intended for gay men. Strict adherence to either of these models masks the reality of “gay language” and impedes the progress of research into the relationships between language, gender and sexuality.

3. The Desire for Identity and the Identity of Desire: Language, Gender and Sexuality in the Greek Context [+–] 42-60

Costas Canakis £17.50

University of the Aegean

Costas Canakis is Associate Professor of sociolinguistics and director of the Laboratory for the Ethnographic Study of Language at the Deprtment of Social Anthropology and History, University of the Aegean, Lesvos.

This chapter focuses on three recent studies investigating the discursive construction of sexuality in Modern Greek – in contexts as diverse as same-sex online personals, the performance of heterosexuality in a mixed-sex conversation and coming out narratives – arguing that critical approaches to heteronormativity, the hallmark of queer linguistics, can hardly be dissociated from issues of ‘identity’ and ‘desire’ in language, since heteronormativity specifically aims at regulating their correlation vis-à-vis gender norms. These studies investigate the indexical relation between language, gender and sexuality as experienced by socially positioned agents whose subjectivity is constructed with reference to their desires and whose desires allude to intelligible (and eroticisable) subjectivities. Therefore, any attempt at reductive theorising based on an exclusivist platform, inspired by either identity or desire alone, fails to capture crucial aspects of sexually relevant language

4. Incomprehensible Language? Language, Ethnicity and Heterosexual Masculinity in a Swedish School [+–] 61-86

Tommaso M. Milani,Rickard Jonsson £17.50

University of Gothenburg

Professor of Multilingualism

Rickard Jonsson is a researcher in the Department of Child and Youth Studies, Stockholm University.

This chapter investigate the ways in which a group of those ‘multi-ethnic young lads’ whose linguistic practices have been singled out as incomprehensible, sexist and homophobic in the Swedish media actually use language in a school in a suburb of Stockholm. Essentially, the argument is that the linguistic repertoire of the participants in our study indeed encompasses, though is not reducible to, ethnic, sexist and homophobic insults and jokes. However, such language use is by no means incomprehensible, but conveys specific social meanings and serves particular interactional purposes.

Part II: Beyond Binaries?

5. Do Bodies Matter? Travestis’ Embodiment of (Trans)Gender Identity through the Manipulation of the Brazilian Portuguese Grammatical Gender System [+–] 89-102

Rodrigo Borba,Ana Cristina Ostermann £17.50

Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro

Rodrigo Borba is an Assistant Professor of English Language at the Anglo-German Literature Department of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro

UNISINOS – Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos

Ana Cristina Ostermann is Professor of Linguistics at Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos.

This study investigates Southern Brazilian travestis’ manipulation of gender identity through the manipulation of the Portuguese grammatical gender system. We argue that the embodiment of feminine features onto biologically male bodies enables travestis to wander through various ideologies about masculinity and femininity and incorporate these ideologies in their linguistic construction of identity. Travestis use masculine forms to refer to themselves or other travestis when: (1) producing narratives about the time before their body transformations took place; (2) reporting speech produced by others when talking about travestis; (3) talking about themselves within their family relationships; and, perhaps the most unveiling category, (4) distinguishing themselves from ‘other’ travestis they do not identify with – a face-saving strategy. Thus, the study shows how southern Brazilian travestis use the grammatical gender system in Portuguese as a linguistic resource to manipulate their identity/ies and the identity/ies of the community they belong to.

6. Butch Camp: On the Discursive Construction of a Queer Identity Position [+–] 103-123

Veronika Koller £17.50

Lancaster University

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Veronika Koller is Reader is Discourse Studies at Lancaster University.

This chapter analyses an historical essay by Lorna Gulston that constructs a particular lesbian identity position by combining elements of female masculinity/butchness with a camp stance usually attributed to gay men. Beyond the text itself, the analysis also addresses how the article, which was published in a British feminist magazine in 1980, sets this identity in opposition to prevailing discourses on lesbian identity at that historical moment. More generally, the essay is intended to contribute to a data-driven discussion that links claims about the relations between language, gender and sexuality back to concrete textual evidence. Employing a discourse-historical approach, the analysis focuses on the parameters of social actor representation, intertextuality and interdiscursivity. It draws on earlier discourses and practices by setting up 1950s-style butches and femmes as social actor groups, while ironically alluding to 1970s lesbian feminists who criticized lesbians’ gendered subject positions as an emulation of oppressive heterosexuality. Irony is a predominant feature in the text, realised by metaphors that draw on biologist notions of gender (e.g. BUTCHES ARE AN ENDANGERED SPECIES), and by extreme hypotaxis mimicking archaic speech styles. Apart from irony, the text also exhibits other features of ‘camp talk’ such as innuendo, Latinate terms, or hyperbole. The text constructs a hybrid butch/camp identity while ironically drawing on essentialist notions of gender and sexuality, and can therefore be regarded as an early instance of queer discourse. How the author parodies and exaggerates lesbian feminist notions of butch/femme as a bygone 1950s cliché shows her as being ahead of her time. An analysis of her text is thus highly relevant for present-day scholars of language, gender and sexuality.

7. The Other Kind of Coming Out: Transgender People and the Coming out Narrative Genre [+–] 124-147

Lal Zimman £17.50

University of California, Santa Barbara

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Lal Zimman is Assistant Professor of Linguistics and Affiliated Faculty in Feminist Studies at the University of California Santa Barbara.

This article demonstrates the importance of considering transgender speakers apart from gays, lesbians, and bisexuals, even where there is significant overlap in the linguistic practices of these groups. Through an analysis of transgender coming out narratives, it is shown that previous accounts of this genre, which have focused on gays and lesbians, do not extend to the entire LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) community. Coming out as transgender differs from coming out as gay or lesbian primarily in that there are two distinct ways a person can come out as transgender: before and after a change in gender role. The dissimilarity of coming out before such a transition and afterwards presents a challenge to previous characterizations both of coming out and the narratives that result from this practice. Ultimately, the coming out narrative genre reveals itself as a venue for making sense of stigmatized identities in community-specific ways.

Part III: Unpacking Heteronormativity

8. Constructing Hegemonic Masculinities in South Africa: The Discourse and Rhetoric of Heteronormativity [+–] 151-177

Russell Luyt £17.50

University of Winchester

Russell Luyt is a senior lecturer in the Department of Psychology at the University of Winchester. He is particularly interested in identity processes as well as debates concerning research philosophy and qualitative methodology. His work is grounded within a critical perspective and has to date focused primarily on the social psychology of gender. This has included, for example, the critique of traditional masculinity, femininity and gender measurement; media representations; masculinities and aggression; as well as the intersection of gender and other social categories in South Africa. He is currently extending these lines of research and developing his interest in radicalisation among marginalised communities from a gender perspective.

This paper considers how local and regional representations of hegemonic masculinity are (re)produced, and how men’s gender identities are constituted, through situated interaction in South Africa. It points toward the important role played by the discourse and rhetoric of heteronormativity among these men in hegemonic sense-making, and in particular, the underlying discursive practices of performative / intimate (hetero)sexuality and homosexual rejection / acceptance. An attempt is made to account for complexity and diversity in this sense-making across intersecting social categories such as ethnicity and social class. Focus group discussion among Afrikaans, English and Xhosa men was transcribed and back-translated where necessary. A technique of discourse analysis that considers the rhetorical aspects of text is developed through the introduction of norm-referencing rhetorical devices. Findings highlight the extent to which practices of both compliance and resistance contribute toward the (re)production of masculinities.

9. On-line Constructions of Metrosexuality and Masculinities: A Membership Categorization Analysis [+–] 178-198

Matthew Hall,Brendan Gough,Sarah Seymour-Smith,Susan Hansen £17.50

University of Derby

Matthew Hall is an Associate Academic and Researcher at the University of Derby.

School of Social, Psychological & Communication Sciences
Calverly Building, Rm 902b
Leeds Metropolitan University
City Campus
Leeds LS1 3HE

Nottingham Trent University

Susan Hansen is Senior Lecturer in Psychology at Middlesex University. She is a discursive psychologist with an interest in language and gender and the application of qualitative methods to the study of social problems, particularly in the field of sexual violence.

The relatively recent growth of identity categories for men participating in non-conventional masculine activities can be linked to contemporary consumption and lifestyle opportunities (Gill et al., 2005). While there have been various studies pertaining to media representations of ‘metrosexuality’, ‘new’ masculinities, and the marketing of health and beauty products to men, we currently know little about how men define, ascribe to and disavow contemporary identity markers such as ‘metrosexual’. The existence of on-line forums dedicated to the discussion of metrosexuality provides an obvious opportunity to examine contemporary masculinities. In this paper we report on a study of one such internet forum, using membership categorisation analysis (Sacks, 1972, 1992) to investigate the deployment of metrosexuality and related identity categories. Our analysis highlights the masculinised parameters through which metrosexuality is taken up (and rejected), which include notions of vanity, conspicuous consumption, professional status and sexual prowess. The continued influence of hegemonic forms of masculinity in this context is discussed.

10. A Bit too Skinny for Me: Women’s Homosocial Constructions of Heterosexual Desire in Online Dating [+–] 199-222

Kristine Køhler Kohler Mortensen £17.50

Department of Swedish
University of Gothenburg
Sweden

Using the notion of homosocial desire, this article explores how homosociality ties into heterosexual desire in an online dating context. During the past two decades, the number of users has increased rapidly and online dating today forms a key context for negotiating romantic relations. Thus, online dating practices are rich fields for investigating the workings of desire. Based on audiovisual recordings of two Danish female friends engaging in online dating activities, this article demonstrates how participants, through joint stance-taking, co-construct shared desire and adjust individually-produced desire to create homosocial affiliation. Hence, in this case, heterosexual desire construction is a collaborative undertaking generated through homosocial bonding. The performed desire carries a strong physical focus, partly produced by the participants’ attention to bodily detail and partly through the dating site’s visual design. The article concludes by arguing for the incorporation of attention to homosocial aspects in research into heterosexual desire.

Part IV: Gender, Sexuality and Space

11. Normal Straight Gays: Lexical Collocations and Ideologies of Masculinity in Personal Ads of Serbian Gay Teenagers [+–] 225-255

Ksenija Bogetić £17.50

University of Belgrade

Ksenija Bogetic is a senior lecturer in the English Department at the University of Belgrade, Serbia, and a research fellow at the Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences, Slovenia.

Questions of male speech behaviour have long been a key topic in language-oriented investigations of gender. Central to this discussion is the notion of masculinity, with scholars stressing the variability of masculine identities and the multiple roles that language can play in their construction. Looking at diverse heterosexual contexts, a number of studies have provided rich accounts of the ways that men draw on cultural discourses of gender in order to construct socially valued masculine identities (Cameron 1997; Coates 2003; Kiesling 2002, 2005; Pascoe 2007, 2010). The concept of “hegemonic masculinity” (Connell 1995) has been especially useful for theorizing the most dominant or most desired form of masculinity in society. However, little work has been done to explore how hegemonic masculinity is linguistically performed within non-heterosexual male groups, or how this form of masculinity relates to nonhegemonic masculinities. The present article seeks to address these issues, by examining linguistic collocation patterns in a corpus of gay Serbian teenagers’ personal ads.

12. Language, Sexuality and Place: The View from Cyberspace [+–] 256-280

Brian W King £17.50

University of Hong Kong

Brian King is a faculty member in the School of English at University of Hong Kong. His primary research interest is language use in communities, in particular discursive performances of gender and sexuality, computer-mediated communication, and the social construction of space/place. Methodologically he draws on interactional sociolinguistics, corpus linguistics, and linguistic ethnography.

This study attempts to use space/place as a tool in discourse analysis, focusing on the immediate surroundings of interaction. It investigates the ongoing performance of sexualised place (and place-based sexuality) through the use of language in online chat-rooms. The central questions focus on how the shared imaginary of a room helps to shape the performances of genders and sexualities unfolding ‘there’ and how the gendered and sexualised discourses sexualise the room. Guided by the triangle of space model (Gotved, 2002, 2006), attention is paid to the chat rooms’ user interface, the spatial metaphor of the ‘room,’ and to participant interaction as part of the three dimensions of online spatiality. Analysis focuses on data taken from a corpus of computer-mediated chat-room interaction. These are queer places for performances (in this case) of non-heterosexual, masculine identities and desires, which are marginalized in our heteronormative society. Gotved’s model of online spatiality allows linguistic analysis to demonstrate that social understandings of space and place interact with individuals and communities on a mutually reformulating path.

13. Homophobia as Moral Geography [+–] 281-308

William L. Leap £17.50

Dept of Anthropology, American University, Washington DC & Center for Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton FL

William L. Leap is Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at the American University in Washington, DC.

Gay men’s stories about homophobic violence will, at times, disguise reference to the persons who initiate harassment and injury. Instead, these stories emphasize the details of location or allow the victim of narrated violence to confirm the status of narrative hero. Each approach to story-telling has noticeable effects on the connections between sexual sameness and violence as displayed within the narrative. This paper examines these approaches to story-telling and their effects on homophobic formation (Leap, introduction, this volume), and traces the broader implications of these narrative styles within contemporary politics of gay visibility, assimilation and whiteness.

End Matter

Index [+–] 309-319

Tommaso M. Milani FREE

University of Gothenburg

Professor of Multilingualism

Reviews

Provides a comprehensive overview of a decade of 'queer linguistic' research... On the basis of its diverse methodologies and the richness of its theoretical frameworks alone, this book should be read widely as an introduction to language, gender and sexuality studies... A suite of excellent contributions to queer linguistics from its inception to now. The future of the field is only tantalizingly described, but readers of this book will be reminded of its accomplished past, and assured of its bright prospects under the guidance of scholars like Milani and the contributors. Here's to more discomforting, provoking and queering!
Journal of Language and Sexuality

Anyone who wants to engage with research in this area and gain a deeper insight into the methodological and theoretical debates this work engenders would find this a very valuable starting point.
Journal of Language and Politics

As a survey of ‘queer’ approaches to language, gender, and sexuality, it is a powerful collection with both theoretical heft and definitive detail. It would be an excellent reader for a course that focuses in some way on language and gender/sexuality.
This is a book that should be read by scholars outside of the narrow field of language, gender, and sexuality (LGS), because the processes that are pointed to here all have important lessons for sociolinguists working in areas in which gender and sexuality are not the primary focus, and lessons for gender/sexuality scholars not working directly on language.
Journal of Sociolinguistics

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Queering Language, Gender and Sexuality

Tommaso M. Milani [+–]

University of Gothenburg

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