{"title":"Resignifications: Linguistic Resistance and Queer Expressions of Latinidad","authors":"Juan Sebastián Ferrada","doi":"10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190212926.013.73","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190212926.013.73","url":null,"abstract":"The resignification of language practices among LGBTQIA+ communities has seen the reclamation of terms like queer, dyke, and faggot enter mainstream discourse. Marginalized communities who view the reclamation of language as a form of empowerment also have a long history of resignifying certain forms of pejorative language to revalorize meanings along ethnic and racial lines. This chapter provides an overview of contributions from queer theory, queer studies, and queer linguistics that center the reclamation of historically pejorative terms used for queer communities, but situates these queer resignifications within the context of linguistic reclamations enacted around ethnic and racial affiliations. The chapter specifically focuses on the reclamation of the Spanish terms joto/a/x and jotería by Latinx communities in the United States—terms that have historically been used to denigrate men performing traits associated with femininity—to illustrate how linguistic reclamation provides an avenue for resistance by creating and maintaining new worlds of possibility.","PeriodicalId":153363,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Language and Sexuality","volume":"251 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-06-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116162210","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Bisexuality: Narrating Sexual Fluidity","authors":"R. K. Turai","doi":"10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190212926.013.68","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190212926.013.68","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter attends to bisexuality in places where it is not specifically named, such as in narratives of sexual fluidity over the lifespan. Building on a history of bisexual research addressing sexual desires, practices, and identities alongside biphobia, the chapter proposes a life narrative framework for the sociolinguistic examination of bisexuality that approaches sexual desires as both signs and effects. An analysis of a personal biography describing the process of lesbian self-realization at the end of state socialism in Hungary highlights the impact of compulsory heterosexuality on women’s lives, exposing the effects of gender hierarchy and its associated economics on the interpretation and realization of same-sex desire. However, the analysis also reveals continuities between the previous socialist culture of silence regarding homosexuality and the current capitalist culture of sexual objectification, which upholds heterosexuality by encouraging “performative bisexuality.” The chapter stresses the importance of attending to situated hierarchies of class, gender, and sexuality in the sociolinguistic study of bisexuality.","PeriodicalId":153363,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Language and Sexuality","volume":"47 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-02-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115113877","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"At the Crossroads of Language, Race, and Sexuality","authors":"E. Chun, K. Walters","doi":"10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190212926.013.42","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190212926.013.42","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter explores how researchers have examined race and sexuality as mutually implicated dimensions of language use and interpretation. While past descriptions of language have inadvertently conflated these dimensions by foregrounding certain speakers and erasing others, recent research has decentered the privileged gaze of whiteness and heterosexuality by examining the language of racially and sexually marginalized communities and by exploring the semiotic mapping of hierarchies of race onto those of sexuality. The chapter analyzes interactions among Korean American girls who highlight the sexual value of locally racialized body parts, illustrating how their acts of intersectional highlighting allow them to contest the sexual devaluation of Korean bodies while reproducing the very ideologies they challenge. Researchers are encouraged to reflexively consider their own strategies of intersectional highlighting by asking what ends are served—and not served—when making intersectional facts visible in their analyses.","PeriodicalId":153363,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Language and Sexuality","volume":"13 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126223559","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Animacy as a Sexual Device","authors":"Mel Y. Chen","doi":"10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190212926.013.10","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190212926.013.10","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter explores the relationships between gender and sexuality and the linguistic concept of animacy. Opening with an overview of linguistic animacy, it moves into a discussion of its import for discussions of forms of sociopolitical power such as colonialism, and their relationship to dehumanization as well as agency. It explores the potentiality of animacy for revisory approaches to humanity, turning to the use of animacy in the particular case of the pronominal “it” in considerations of linguistic gender and transnational trans identity. The chapter concludes with a reiteration of the ways animacy is useful as a sexual device.","PeriodicalId":153363,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Language and Sexuality","volume":"46 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133509857","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Populist Discourse and Desire for Social Justice","authors":"Erzsébet Barát","doi":"10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190212926.013.72","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190212926.013.72","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter reviews research on populism by describing the role of discourse in articulating a “we” as an empty signifier. The emergence of “gender-ideology” discourse is presented as key to contemporary forms of exclusionary populism, as demonstrated in a case study of Hungary’s recent modification of the national register to prevent transgender individuals from retroactively changing their “sex at birth” status. The chapter argues that the discrediting of gender as an ideology mobilizes not only exclusionary right-wing populism but also feminisms asserting binary distinctions of a biologized sex and gender. While the government defends “us, the Hungarian people” against a “gender” that is not material but pure propaganda, self-identified progressive feminists dismiss trans-politics for focusing on identity instead of political economy. Both groups thus use “gender ideology” to mobilize an exclusionary rhetoric of hate. The chapter proposes that “us, the people” may instead be used to motivate a radical left populism organized around a “feminist people” of flexible inclusivity.","PeriodicalId":153363,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Language and Sexuality","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127929946","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"From “Gay Lisp” to “Fierce Queen”: The Sociophonetics of Sexuality’s Most Iconic Variable","authors":"J. Calder","doi":"10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190212926.013.49","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190212926.013.49","url":null,"abstract":"The sound of the queer voice has captured the intrigue of the popular and sociolinguistic imagination, spurring a wave of research investigating what makes someone “sound gay.” This chapter follows the trajectory of the sociophonetics of LGBTQ+ speakers, focusing on what is perhaps the most robustly studied phonetic variable in queer linguistics: the /s/ sound. The chapter explores how a group of non-normative drag queens in San Francisco use acoustic dimensions of /s/ to project radical queerness, illustrating how this community’s practices bear on greater conversations in sociolinguistics involving the connection between phonetic variation and the articulation of identity.","PeriodicalId":153363,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Language and Sexuality","volume":"89 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126484548","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Trash: Language, Sexuality, and Social Class","authors":"Rusty Barrett","doi":"10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190212926.013.18","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190212926.013.18","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter considers four linguistic areas related to the intersection of sexuality and social class. The first is the link among sexual promiscuity, stereotypes of working-class sexuality, and ideologies of “vulgar” or “obscene” language. The second area considers the role of class in patterns of language change and changes in sexual normativity, both of which show movement from the middle class outward. The third area considered is the relationship between stereotypes of social class and LGBTQ+ identities, where negative portrayals of the working class remain constant across contrasting views of LGBTQ+ identities. The final area considered is the way in which language related to sexuality reproduces social forms of class inequality, particularly though diminishing the potential for sexual pleasure among the working class.","PeriodicalId":153363,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Language and Sexuality","volume":"106 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132446440","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Sexual Stylistics","authors":"José Antonio Jódar-Sánchez","doi":"10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190212926.013.62","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190212926.013.62","url":null,"abstract":"The aim of this chapter is to survey the field of sexual stylistics and to illustrate the latest analyses within that field. The first section addresses the questions some researchers have asked in their studies about the language of sexuality in literature. The second section lays out the primary trends in this field, including feminist, critical, and corpus stylistics. The third section delves into the main research topics in this field. Special attention is devoted to different genres (e.g., children’s literature or popular fiction), linguistic features (e.g., metaphors or euphemisms), and sexual practices (e.g., masturbation or incest). The fourth section illustrates the trend of corpus stylistics through a computational and discourse analysis of the language of sexuality in the tetralogy Antagonía by Catalan author Luis Goytisolo. The chapter closes with a summary and some guidelines for future research.","PeriodicalId":153363,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Language and Sexuality","volume":"104 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-10-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124767757","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Queer Performativity","authors":"Tommaso M. Milani","doi":"10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190212926.013.15","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190212926.013.15","url":null,"abstract":"The aim of this chapter is to present and re-read Judith Butler’s well-known performativity theory. The main argument advanced here is that, even though Butler’s work is widely viewed as instigating the field of queer studies, it is perhaps time to revisit performativity in order to queer it. The act of queering should be understood in the context of this chapter in two ways. First, it entails going against the sociolinguistic grain and troubling the linguistic core of performativity in a way that engages with “aspects of experience and reality that do not present themselves in propositional or even in verbal form” (Sedgwick 2003: 6), such as affect, embodiment, and the materiality of the built environment. The embodied and affective aspects of performativity are illustrated with the help of examples from gender and sexual activism in Israel, which show how multi-semiotic and sensory meanings are performatively brought into being in order to stake political claims. Second, queering performativity entails questioning the antinormative mantra encoded in the very notion of queer. This requires going back to a performative utterance par excellence—“I do” in wedding ceremonies—in order open up an uneasy self-reflection about (anti)normativity in queer scholarship.","PeriodicalId":153363,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Language and Sexuality","volume":"20 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-04-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128003602","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Mediatizing Sex","authors":"C. Thurlow","doi":"10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190212926.013.41","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190212926.013.41","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter focuses on sex/uality in the context of so-called new media and, specifically, digital discourse: technologically mediated linguistic or communicative practices, and mediatized representations of these practices. To help think through the relationship among sex, discourse, and (new) media, the discussion focuses on sexting and two instances of sexting “scandals” in the news. Against this backdrop, the chapter sets out four persistent binaries that typically shape public and academic writing about sex/uality and especially digital sex/uality: new-old, mediation-mediatization, private/real-public/fake, and personal-political. These either-or approaches are problematic, because they no longer account for the practical realities and lived experiences of both sex and media. Scholars interested in digital sex/uality are advised to adopt a “both-and” approach in which media (i.e., digital technologies and The Media) both create pleasurable, potentially liberating opportunities to use our bodies (sexually or otherwise) and simultaneously thwart us, shame us, or shut us down. In this sense, there is nothing that is really “new” after all.","PeriodicalId":153363,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Language and Sexuality","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-04-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129242016","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}