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Cover -- Half Title -- Series -- Title -- Copyright -- Table of Contents -- Acknowledgments -- PART 1 Introduction -- 1 Language, sexuality and the LIDISNO Project -- PART 2 Theoretical and methodological considerations -- 2 Language and normativity -- 3 Sexual normativities -- 4 A linguistic take on labeling theory -- 5 Corpus linguistics in language and sexuality studies: Queer linguistic challenges -- PART 3 Case studies -- 6 Sexual labels I: A co-occurrence analysis -- 7 Sexual labels II: A collocational word-sketch analysis -- 8 Discursive shifts associated with coming out: A keyword and concordance analysis -- 9 Language use before and after Stonewall: A historical corpus analysis -- 10 Metalinguistic comments in gay men's pre-Stonewall narratives: A folk linguistic analysis -- 11 Shedding light on sexual speech acts: A pragmatic analysis -- 12 The desire-identity shift in language use: A semantically driven corpus analysis -- PART 4 Conclusion -- 13 Extending the remit of labeling theory -- 14 Non-heteronormative language guidelines -- References -- Index.

AbstractThis article presents a short overview of the field of language and sexuality since the mid-1990s and discusses two issues that have repeatedly played a role in my own work in the field during the last decade: the incompatibility of the termhomosexualwith non-heteronormative language use, and the question of what counts as queer linguistic work.

This study analyses the linguistic landscape of Wilton Manors, Florida, as it surfaces on its main street, Wilton Drive. Wilton Manors is a community with one of the largest LGBT populations in the US. The study thus makes a contribution to the field of linguistic landscapes and sexuality, using normativity as a central theoretical reference point. The data for the study were collected during a daytime walk on Wilton Drive and consist of photos of store fronts, restaurants, bars, advertisements and other signs, supplemented by printed material collected on the Drive and information provided by the official website of Wilton Drive. In my multimodal analysis, I investigate linguistic and non-linguistic signage, identifying mechanisms that render Wilton Drive a gay space. More specifically, I analyze how signage is used to discursively construct sexual identity, gender, desire and sexual practices. It is shown that homonormativity plays a central role in this context. Same-sex sexualities are discursively constructed as the local norm. At the same time, the signage on Wilton Drive is highly exclusive in the sense that it represents predominantly gay male experiences, whereas heterosexualities, lesbian and other sexualities are discursively marginalized or even silenced. At the same time, particular versions of gay masculinity are privileged, namely ones that can be described as white, middle-class and focused on consumption, gay identity politics and non-romantic forms of sexual activity.

AbstractAs an introduction to the special issue, this paper presents an overview of previous corpus linguistic work in the field of language and sexuality and discusses the compatibility of corpus linguistic methodology with queer linguistics as a central theoretical approach in language and sexuality studies. The discussion is structured around five prototypical aspects of corpus linguistics that may be deemed problematic from a poststructuralist, queer linguistic perspective: quantification and associated notions of objectivity, reliance on linguistic forms and formal presence, concentration on highly frequent features, reliance on categories, and highlighting of differences. It is argued that none of these aspects rules out an application of corpus linguistic techniques within queer theoretically informed linguistic work per se and that it is rather the way these techniques are employed that can be seen as more or less compatible with queer linguistics. To complement the theoretical discussion, a collocation analysis of sexual descriptive adjectives in the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) is conducted in an attempt to address some of the issues raised. The concluding section makes suggestions for future research.

This article addresses the current marginalisation of structural gender linguistics within the field of language and gender. Traditional, structuralist-minded approaches to language and gender are briefly reviewed, and it is argued that a revitalisation of the study of gendered language structures can only be achieved when such analyses reflect recent theoretical developments within the field. More specifically, this necessitates a reconceptualisation of (gendered) language structures in the light of discursive or poststructuralist theories, namely as the result of processes of discursive materialisation in language use. Also discussed at a methodological level is how de-essentialisation as a central driving force of discursive approaches to language and gender can be operationalised in various types of structural linguistic analysis. Four basic dimensions of deessentialisation are distinguished for this purpose: first, the contrastive linguistic dimension (de-essentialisation across languages); second, the historical linguistic dimension (de-essentialisation across time periods); third, the lexicogrammatical dimension (de-essentialisation across linguistic gender categories); and fourth, the pragmatic dimension (de-essentialisation across usage contexts). A contrastive sample analysis of the complexities of pronominalisation in English and German complements the discussion.

This article provides an ethnographically based discourse analysis of linguistic practices of heterosexual construction in a transnational media context, Eurovision Song Contest press conferences. It aims to shed light on how research on heterosexualities can contribute to the critical discussion of heteronormativity as commonly found in Queer Linguistics. The analysis identifies the following patterns of heterosexual construction: 1. talk about spouses, partners and family, 2. talk about heterosexual love song lyrics, 3. binary gender polarisation, and 4. the projecting of heteronormative desire onto participants. This order roughly corresponds to an increase in the heteronormative force of the constructions found. More blatant forms of heteronormative enforcement prove to cause negative reactions in this community of practice. It is argued that the sexual constructions documented incorporate aspects of both sexual identity and desire and that the transnational salience of the context facilitates a stronger confrontation of heterosexual construction with alternative discourses.

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This article is an attempt to reclaim the term "genderlect" as a valuable sociolinguistic concept. It shows that "genderlect" in its traditional sense as a variety according to speaker sex is just as much a myth as are early sociolinguistic theorisations of "women's/men's language". From a postmodernist perspective, genderlects must be seen as stereotypical resources for gendered stylisation practices that are not to be equalled with how women and men actually speak. This is illustrated by using material from a comprehensive study on linguistic gender stylisation in advertising discourse. Moreover, it is suggested that the strictly binary genderlect concept is abandoned and replaced by another one that sees genderlects as heavily context-dependent, community-based and therefore infinite in number. A postmodernist genderlect concept should be able to deal with hegemonic as well as subversive gender styles and at the same time acknowledge that what is generally judged to be hegemonic in one context might be subversive in another (or vice versa).