Cover not available

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

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
authorization required

Queer linguistics and identity

The past decade

 | University of NottinghamNottingham, UK
Published online: 15 February 2021
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/jls.00010.jon
Abstract
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.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The shifting focus of Lavender
  • 3.Challenging normativity
  • 4.Conclusion
  • References
References (60)
References
. 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 logo with link to Google Scholar
Barrett, Rusty. 2017. From Drag Queens to Leathermen: Language, Gender, and Gay Male Subcultures. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google 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 2561: 21–55. Google Scholar logo with link to Google 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. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cashman, Holly R. 2018. Narrating the intersection: Time, space, and transition in one queer life. Gender and Language 12(4): 416–436. Google Scholar logo with link to Google 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. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cordoba, Sebastian. 2020. Exploring Non-Binary Genders: Language and Identity. Unpublished PhD dissertation, De Montfort University.Google Scholar logo with link to 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. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Crenshaw, Kimberle. 1991. Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color. Stanford Law Review 43(6): 1241–1299. Google Scholar logo with link to Google 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. Google Scholar logo with link to Google 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. Google Scholar logo with link to Google 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 logo with link to Google Scholar
Hall, Kira. 2013. ‘It’s a hijra!’: Queer linguistics revisited. Discourse & Society 24(5): 634–642. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jones, Lucy. 2012. Dyke/Girl: Language and Identities in a Lesbian Group. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google 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. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2019. Discourses of transnormativity in vloggers’ identity construction. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 2561: 85–101. Google Scholar logo with link to Google 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 logo with link to Google Scholar
Leap, William (ed). 1995. Beyond the Lavender Lexicon: Authenticity, Imagination, and Appropriation in Lesbian and Gay Languages. Amsterdam: Gordon and Breach.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2010. Homophobia as moral geography. Gender and Language 4(2): 187–220.Google Scholar logo with link to 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. Google Scholar logo with link to Google 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 logo with link to Google Scholar
Livia, Anna & Hall, Kira (eds). 1997. Queerly Phrased: Language, Gender and Sexuality. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Love, Robbie & Baker, Paul. 2015. The hate that dare not speak its name? Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict 3(1): 57–86. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Milani, Tommaso & Levon, Erez. 2016. Sexing diversity: Linguistic landscapes of homonationalism. Language and Communication 511: 69–86. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Motschenbacher, Heiko. 2011. Taking queer linguistics further: Sociolinguistics and critical heteronormativity research. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 2121: 149–179.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2020. Walking on Wilton Drive: A linguistic landscape analysis of a homonormative space. Language & Communication 72(2): 25–43. Google Scholar logo with link to Google 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. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mowlabocus, Sharif. 2020. ‘What a skewed sense of values’: Discussing PreP in the British press. Sexualities 23(8): 1343–1361. Google Scholar logo with link to Google 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. Google Scholar logo with link to Google 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. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Provencher, Denis M. 2017. Queer Maghrebi French: Language, Temporalities, Transfiliations. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sauntson, Helen. 2018. Language, Sexuality and Education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google 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. Google Scholar logo with link to Google 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. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Turner, Georgina. 2015. A real lesbian wouldn’t touch a bisexual with a bargepole. Critical Discourse Studies 12(2): 139–162. Google Scholar logo with link to Google 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. Google Scholar logo with link to Google 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. Google Scholar logo with link to Google 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. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (10)

Cited by ten other publications

Castro Mosqueda, Hector
2025. From Mockery to Advocacy: Dissecting LGBTQ+ Narratives in Mexican Spanish-Language Media. Entreciencias: Diálogos en la Sociedad del Conocimiento 13:27 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Pan, Zhaoyi
2025. Thai transgender people’s English articulation in intercultural communication. Journal of Language and Sexuality 14:1 ► pp. 67 ff. DOI logo
Considine, John
2024. Review of Turton (2024): Before the Word was Queer: Sexuality and the English Dictionary, 1600–1930. Historiographia Linguistica DOI logo
Lindeman, Meri
2024. “Like little Helsinki girls in the backseat of a tram”. Journal of Language and Sexuality 13:1 ► pp. 98 ff. DOI logo
Milani, Tommaso M. & Holly R. Cashman
2024. Why should we care about multilingualism, gender, and sexuality?. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 27:5 ► pp. 631 ff. DOI logo
Vičar, Branislava
2024. Kvirovsko jezikoslovje v kontekstu poststrukturalističnih jezikoslovnih pristopov. In Slavistična prepletanja 5, ► pp. 221 ff. DOI logo
Vriesendorp, Hielke & Rory Thomas Wilson
2024. Minority genders in quantitative survey research: a data-driven approach to clear, inclusive, and accurate gender questions. Linguistics Vanguard 10:1 ► pp. 493 ff. DOI logo
Tagarro, Pablo M. & Nerea Suárez González
2023. Navarro Carrascosa, Carles (2023). Corpus oral de la comunidad de habla LGTBI. Materiales para la investigación en Lingüística queer hispánica. Alcalá de Henares: Editorial Universidad de Alcalá, 377 páginas. Estudios LGBTIQ+, Comunicación y Cultura 3:2 ► pp. 249 ff. DOI logo
Falabella Fabrício, Branca
2022. Language, gender and sexuality in 2021. Gender and Language 16:2 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Reilly-Thornton, Ashley
2022. Review of Paíz (2020): Queering the English Language Classroom: A Practical Guide for Teachers. Journal of Language and Sexuality 11:1 ► pp. 129 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 13 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue