Book review: Rodney H Jones (ed.), Viral Discourse

Abstract

the analysis of this material is often flawed. One of the central weaknesses of the study is an interpretation of every occurrence of the terms trans, transgender or transsexual as describing trans identity, as opposed to simply referring to trans people. This precarious conflation becomes especially problematic given the failure to include the search term identity at all. There is thus a mismatch between what the study claims to offer (an investigation of trans identities in the press) and what is actually done (investigating how the term trans and related labels are used in the press). Bridging this mismatch between what the term trans entails in the community, on the one hand, and in which contexts it is used in the press, on the other, could have made for a highly relevant and interesting discussion point, but is never addressed by the author herself. This key issue links to a broader methodological problem arising from the search terms used for the construction of the corpus: Zottola does not discuss why she included and excluded specific terms, and does not reflect on the fact that slurs like tranny or shemale are unlikely to occur with positive prosody. While it is important to highlight the press’ continued use of slurs, it would have been crucial to reflect on how their inclusion skews results with more negative collocates than for neutral descriptors. The issues arising from this decision are further aggravated by inaccuracies and inconsistencies in her definitions of core concepts: Zottola never clearly defines what is and what is not included in her understanding of trans beyond stating that she uses it as an umbrella term. Particularly problematic is that despite the introductory claim to use the term gender ‘to mean non-binary and not heteronormative’, any search terms that would account for gender positionings outside the traditional binary (such as nonbinary or genderqueer) are entirely missing from the study. Overall, the book – which would have benefited from a thorough copy-edit – leaves a mixed impression. It successfully demonstrates the importance of acknowledging the ways in which media and their language use contribute to the societal perception of minority groups and highlights how especially the popular press in Britain continue outdated and sometimes harmful practices of language use. In light of the weaknesses pointed out in this review, however, the analysis undertaken in this monograph should rather be seen as a starting point for more thorough investigations into the topic in the future.