Journal of Language and Sexuality - Volume 10, Issue 1, 2021

Abstract

This paper begins by introducing the Special Issue of the Journal of Language and Sexuality. Then the paper shifts focus, to consider concerns that have shaped studies of language and sexuality over the past ten years and are shaping these studies’ immediate and emerging interests. The paper also considers how the Journal could support these interests in language and sexuality oriented in terms of a “mesh of possibilities …” (Sedgwick 1993: 8) rather than psychosocial processes, masculine/feminine binaries, or hetero/homosexual hierarchies.

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.

Abstract

This 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 term homosexual with non-heteronormative language use, and the question of what counts as queer linguistic work.

Abstract

This paper discusses contributions of the Journal of Language and Sexuality made in the past decade in publication in relation to a development of the field currently recognized as language, gender and sexuality. I detail the development by using studies on joseigo ‘Japanese women’s language’ and discuss how it has impacted the field as a domain of scholarship and practice in the current moment beyond the study of the Japanese language. Lastly, I end the paper by commenting on directions in which language and sexuality studies have not yet examined but ought to address in future inquiry.

Abstract

In this article, I reflect upon the persistence of racial injustice and sexism in the process of knowledge production. This gendered racial injustice is seen in publication rates, citation rates, and appointments to editorial boards. The underrepresentation of women in general, and black women in particular, discursively constructs scholarly enquiry as normatively white and masculine. The exclusion of nonwhite scholars partially emanates from a reliance on Euro-American theoretical frameworks that are applied, often uncritically, in other contexts as if the Euro-American experience were universal. The result is scholarship that is incongruous with local experiences and practices. As the Journal of Language and Sexuality celebrates its tenth year of publication, it would benefit from including epistemic perspectives that are pluralistic in ontologies, cosmologies, and insights.

Abstract

In this open letter, I ask the editors of the Journal and its readers, to reflect on the Journal’s relationship to studies of language and Black sexuality, and consider new ways to reach scholars of Black life, culture, and language. Studies of Black language practices rarely deal with the ways that Black language practices are often complicated by gender/sexuality. And yet, there are scholars doing this work, but like Queer Linguistics, it often doesn’t “look” that way that typical studies of language are supposed to look. This is because linguistics and linguistic anthropology as disciplines have often failed to capture the imagination and attention of these scholars; it is not because studies of Black sexuality and language do not exist. I encourage the Journal then to seek out these studies and to do so with a sense of urgency.

Abstract

Few in the humanities and social sciences will doubt the long-standing historical conflation of sex, sexuality and gender both within and without academia. Despite research and socio-political movements aiming for the contrary, it continues even now. This paper discusses the ongoing conflation between these interrelated but independent social categories in current linguistic research, including how it can serve to reflect and reinforce socio-political antagonism outside of academia. I propose two potential directions of travel: (1) welcoming ideological pluralism between scholars on the primacy of either sex, gender or sexuality; and (2) horizontally disaggregating the three categories. I argue that engaging with both strategies in tandem serves to benefit researchers, participants and the public. The former encourages trust in academic research during a time wherein that trust is waning. The latter enables an analytical distinction between sex, gender, and sexuality in linguistic research, whilst continuing to acknowledge their interrelatedness. Implemented together, they will allow researchers to embed research in the 21st century, which entails pluralistic and competing socio-political activism between equally deserving groups.

Abstract

While normativity has been central to queer linguistic research, the emergent field of trans linguistics provides opportunities for greater nuance and elaboration on the concept. Drawing from interviews with non-binary people documenting their narratives of doctor-patient visits, I present a series of recounted interactional moments where what might be considered ‘normative’ is in fact a survival strategy, highlighting how we might view certain invocations of the transnormative (Johnson 2016) in more complicated ways. Notions of normativity and authenticity, which are too often weaponized against trans people as a means to measure their ‘success’ in approximating cisheteronormative ideals, are not easily transported from queer linguistics to trans linguistics. As concepts imbricated with a history of violence for trans people, they must be treated with care and responsibility, as part of an active devotion to dismantling transphobia.

Abstract

In this contribution to the special issue of the Journal of Language and Sexuality celebrating its 10th anniversary, I reflect on several key articles in the journal that related to my work in language and sexuality with queer, Latinx and bi/multilingual individuals and organizations, survey the field of language and sexuality today from my vantage point, and propose several directions for the future of language and sexuality studies, namely: to engage multilingualism, to question our ideologies as researchers, to grapple more deeply with intersectionality through ethnography, and to consider age more seriously.

This article reviews Queering Masculinities in Language and Culture