Journal of Language and Sexuality - Volume 6, Issue 1, 2017

This article builds on research in queer linguistics and linguistic scholarship on race in the media to examine the semiotic representation of race, gender, and sexuality in The Wire, often considered one of the most “authentic” media representations of Blackness. Based on an analysis of the entire series, the article argues that this authenticity effect is partly due to the show’s complex African American characters, who reflect a range of gendered and sexual subjectivities. The analysis focuses on three queer Black characters on The Wire who are represented as both “authentically queer” in their social worlds and “authentically Black” in their language. However, the semiotic authenticity of the series is linked to its reification of familiar stereotypes of Blackness, especially hyperviolence and hypermasculinity. Thus, these characters both contest and complicate traditional representations of queerness and gender while reinforcing problematic representations of Blackness for its largely white, affluent target audience.

In June and July 2013, the UK House of Lords debated, and ultimately accepted, a Bill to legalise same-sex marriage. Following the model of Baker’s (2004) work on a set of earlier Lords debates relating to homosexuality, this study uses a corpus-based keywords analysis to assess the main lexical differences between those arguing in favour and those arguing against a change to the marriage laws. In so doing, it sheds light on the ways in which discourses relating to homosexuality are constructed and accessed by the Lords. In general, it is shown that supporters of reform take advantage of their hegemonic liberal position to construct a simple line of argument in contrast to the opponents, who are forced to use more subtle and elaborate lines of reasoning by the limited discursive space available to those espousing anti-LGBT sentiments.

The traditional family has always been the preserve of heterosexual couples based on and reinforced by a series of (hetero)normative behaviours. The context of same-gender adoption allows for a reworking of the construct of the modern family and the negotiation of parenting identities moving beyond the traditional system based on gender binarism ( Wagner 2014 ). However, despite legal equality in the areas of adoption and marriage, LGBT people continue to face moral judgement about whether they are suitable parents. Using the insights and methods of membership categorisation analysis ( Sacks 1992 , Stokoe 2003a , 2003b , 2012 ), this paper unpacks the ways in which the more conservative parts of the UK’s society construct same-gender parenting as a transgression of the established norms while relying on heteronormative assumptions about categories within the membership categorisation device ‘family’ ( Sacks 1992 ). The paper shows that the gendered meaning ‘locked into place’ ( Baker 2000 ) in those categories is a source of prejudice and a tool to maintain the established heteronormative order.

Although queer linguistics has long acknowledged the playful use of potentially impolite utterances by LGBT people to build in-group solidarity these practices have not been analyzed from a sociopragmatic approach, nor have they been mentioned in the general pragmatics literature. Responding to these two gaps, the present study examines the functional use of the interactional practice ‘reading’ in the backstage talk of four drag queen performers. By employing a mock impoliteness analytical framework ( Haugh & Bousfield 2012 ) this study shows how these utterances, which could potentially be evaluated as genuine impoliteness outside of the appropriate context, are positively evaluated by in-group members who recognize the importance of “building a thick skin” to face a hostile environment from LGBT and non-LGBT people. This study also seeks to draw attention to the use of backstage talk, and supplemental interview data, to uncover drag queen cultural practices through language use.

This article examines the phonetic characteristics of speech performed in straight and gay styles by French males. Analysis considers features shown in other languages or in antecedent literature to be associated with perceptions of sexual identity: segmental quality (vowels, /s/, liquids), suprasegmental features (pitch, duration), and a number of language-specific variables. Results suggest that straight performances are characterized by decreased segmental duration and gay performances by differential use of vowel space, especially F2, nasal vowel duration, and fundamental frequency. A closing section provides comparison of these results to previous study and to other languages, while also addressing epistemological concerns raised by questions of identity, performance, and linguistic form.

Recent work in language and sexuality has emphasized globalization and multilingualism as important areas of investigation ( Bucholtz & Hall 2006 , Leap & Boellstorff 2003 , Murray 2014 ). Concomitantly, other scholars have employed the construct of sexual fluidity as a metaphor for linguistic fluidity ( Otsuji & Pennycook 2010 , Pennycook & Otsuji 2015 ). Few studies, however, have examined how sexual and linguistic fluidity intersect in individual experience. This paper examines metalinguistic discourse in three fictional novels involving bisexual, bilingual characters in order to understand how talk about language informs representations of sexualities. In these texts bilingualism functions in constructing access to queer communities, authenticity, belonging, and emotional control for bisexual characters. Further, sexual and linguistic fluidity are portrayed as lifespan processes embedded in specific time periods. Such understandings point to a need for historical approaches to fluidity that capture longer timescales and multiple dimensions of linguistic and sexual desire, practice, and identity.