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Gendered pronoun usage by Spanish and Russian EL2 speakers: Exploring epicene forms
No full textIn the last few years, there has been a focus on gender-inclusive language and particularly epicene pronouns. Epicene pronouns in English are third-person singular pronouns that refer to an indefinite or hypothetical human antecedent, whose gender is unknown or unspecified (Abudalbuh 2012; Everett 2011; Noll et al. 2018; Paterson 2011). The theoretical background lies in Queer Theory (Motschenbacher 2014) that problematizes the use of gender binarism in language (feminine and/or masculine forms).
This paper presents an exploratory study on the usage of epicene pronouns in English as an additional language (EL2) by native speakers of Spanish and Russian. It focuses on the epicene pronoun choices and avoidance strategies used, as well as the speakers’ reasons for their use of epicene pronouns and/or avoidance strategies. Epicene pronouns are the focus as they provide one way for EL2 speakers to be introduced to gender-inclusive language. By looking at both usage and reasons, a better understanding of how language and gender interact in these speakers’ L2 can be uncovered.
To address this focus, this study utilizes a novel methodology that combines elicitation techniques with a stimulated recall based interview. The elicitation techniques are used in two tasks, i) a writing task consisting of three prompt questions and ii) a speaking task consisting of fifteen questions to gather epicene pronoun usage/non-usage in these modes. This develops a context to mimic authentic language use that focuses on the linguistic feature investigated, which otherwise might be underrepresented, without needing an example model (Eisenbeiss 2010; Hughes 2010; Rose, McKinley and Baffow-Djan 2020). This is followed by a semi-structured interview using stimulated recall to gather the participants’ motives to use/non-use epicene pronouns. The data collection for the project will occur in March-April, with the initial findings presented at the Lavender Language conference. These findings will help contribute to the field of queer linguistics and SLA by providing information about how EL2 speakers from Spanish and Russian L1 address, who are often underrepresented in the literature (see Stormbom 2018; 2019; 2020
For family, friends, and love: Discourses of love in Christianity and advocacy in Singapore
No full textPinkdot is Singapore’s annual LGBTQ pride event with over 10 years of history. Over the course of its operations, it has successfully made visible and raised awareness for LGBTQ people and their sociopolitical rights. However, there has always been dissident opinions against the LGBTQ community from political and/or religious parties. One of them is a newly established Christian ministry, TrueLove. While Pinkdot’s mission is to call for greater inclusivity of LGBTQ individuals by accepting non-heteronormative love, TrueLove focuses on relabelling gay, lesbian, and bisexual people as struggling with same sex attraction, and coaxing them towards a more godly life that does not include pursuing their homosexual desires.
We have been investigating how these two opposing groups try to reason their views in discourses of love in their websites and promotional materials such as videos, blog posts, and campaign posters. The two parties are similar in how their websites are well maintained with content regarding sexuality and love, e.g., For family, for friends, for love (Pinkdot) and True love never gives up (TrueLove). Although they position the idea of love in a similar manner by appealing to their audiences’ affects, their agendas are completely polarized. As a result, these materials function as the center of multiple public debates on politics, religion, and sexuality.
We employ Peterson’s (2016) approach to homophobic discourse analysis based on Systemic Functional Linguistics as well as Goffman’s (1974) work on frame analysis as methodological tools to investigate the ideologies that accompany the two organizations’ multimodal materials about treatment of queer Singaporeans. As part of a larger study, this presentation shows a comparative study on both organizations’ discourses of love found in their promotional videos to understand how love and desire is linguistically constructed. Two individuals with a strikingly similar background, Pauline (Pinkdot 2016) and Tryphena (TrueLove 2019), were selected for analysis. Both are pastors and have identified as a lesbian woman; they talk about their experiences regarding homosexuality, love, and desire. Nonetheless, the findings show that the fundamental definition of love that they use to justify their positions towards homosexuality is nuanced in their presentations
Stance, style, and intimacy: Interlocutor-based prosodic variation in a non-binary speaker
No full textRecent research has demonstrated how speakers build stances from combinations of linguistic features and how styles accumulate from stances. However, most sociophonetic studies use generalized analyses of stance that focus solely on the highlighted speaker, glossing over variation based on interlocutor and context. This interlocutor-based variation is particularly relevant to LGBT people, who often adjust styles based on perceived safety and visibility.
This study tests the generalizability of stance analyses by focusing on interlocutor-based variation. I examine the production of a specific stance by a single speaker in conversation with four interlocutors: in particular, a young non-binary Canadian’s use of pitch, voice quality, and timing to create intimacy with their girlfriend, brother, friend, and interviewer. The speaker recorded thirteen social interactions with their phone, then joined the researcher for an interview. From the resulting 5.5 hours of data, I highlight intonational phrases (IPs) where the speaker and the interlocutor created intimacy using cues including alignment with the interlocutor, positive descriptions of the interlocutor, confidential questions and revelations, invitations to share experiences, and feedback showing attentive listening. For each speaker-interlocutor pair, I code each participant’s first 30 IPs after the initial 10 minutes for voice quality, intonation, average pitch, and utterance length.
Although the speaker draws on the same linguistic resources to create intimacy, they draw more on particular resources with different interlocutors. For example, with the interviewer, they use a lot of creaky voice and frequent feedback. With their five-year-old brother, they use higher, dynamic pitch and shorter utterances. In addition, analyzing the speech of the speaker and interlocutors together reveals patterns of pitch accommodation.
This study highlights the need to ground the study of stance in social interaction, embracing interplay between conversation participations. The findings challenge generalizable coding schemes for stance, suggesting that interlocutor-based variation makes it difficult to share schemes between speakers, let alone data sets. Finally, it contributes a non-binary voice to conversations about LGBT style-shifting, and provides sociophonetic groundwork for understanding queer and trans intimacies
Sexed trajectories: Reading an intersex woman’s buggery trial in early modern Scotland
No full textThis paper advances the research agendas of queer historical linguistics (Leap 2020) and embodied sociocultural linguistics (Bucholtz and Hall 2016) by offering a case study of the discursive interface between sexed embodiment and sexual behaviour in early modern Britain. In 1653, eighteen-year-old Margaret Raine was indicted before a court in Edinburgh for committing buggery with a mare—or possibly with a stallion. Upon surgical examination, Raine was pronounced to be not a woman but a hermaphrodite—or possibly a man. Conflicting accounts of Raine’s sex (and, in turn, that of the horse) arose as reports of her trial spread from legal records to news periodicals, and even into early English dictionaries grappling with the question of how to define the ‘natural’ limits of sexual acts and anatomies. By addressing Raine with the anachronistic term intersex, this paper expands historical work into using intersex as a critical lens through which to scrutinize the social and institutional policing of the body—intersex itself being ‘a sign constantly under erasure, whose significance always carries the trace of an agenda from somewhere else’ (Holmes 2009: 2). Drawing on tools from discourse analysis and queer theory—Blommaert’s (2005) concept of text trajectories and Butler’s (1993) interpretation of the bodily schema—this paper investigates how Raine’s personhood was discursively transformed across an array of early modern text types
Gay intimacy unplugged: The evolution of gay male representation on television
No full textThis research interrogates how contemporary televisual narratives featuring gay male relationships have evolved with a more open cultural landscape. There has been a history of gay men featured in intimate relationships throughout the history of television. It often meant a relegated form of intimacy against a heterosexual backdrop or even the position of being othered in reference to the contraction of HIV/AIDS. This served in a progressive, but also problematic way through the introduction of the potential for two men to be intimate with one another and then also relegating that position to limited stereotypes.
The texts selected for analysis are televisual narratives featuring representations of gay male intimacy on television are the following: How to Get away with Murder (ABC, 2004-present), Looking (HBO, 2014-15), Eastsiders (YouTube, 2012-present), Tales of the City (Netflix, 2019-present), Schitt’s Creek (2015-present) and Queer Eye (Netflix, 2018-present). Each one represents different platform for television in the US market. It should be noted that a couple of these texts are widely popular internationally, but still represent a US centered context. The context will be centered in comparison with popular representation that came before in examination of more diverse forms of gay male intimacy now available to a wide audience today
On Destitution, Dereliction, Depreciation and Dispossession
No full textIn this talk, I want to work with you on producing a new vocabulary for transformative change in an era of stalemate, compromise, and environmental decline. The old methods of voting and building, making, and developing that have been sold to us as routes to happiness and freedom stand revealed as methods to consolidate the power of financial elites and white property owners. In this era, and on the other side of a tense and strange election, we must surely be ready for new angles on power, change and what I will call world un-making
Going Berserk, Running Amok, and the Extraordinary Capabilities and Invulnerability of Battle Trance
Get PDFBattle trance, which evolved from instinctive defensive and offensive behaviors for close combat, involves socially transgressive processes like becoming-intense and becoming-animal that produce non-ordinary psychophysical states useful in fighting. Berserkergang (going berserk) is one of the best attested types of battle trance and the latest in a long history of Indo-European ecstatic warrior cults, but the state has been identified cross-culturally in consecrated holy amok warriors and in juramentado. Colonial interpretations for centuries have tended to denigrate such fighting styles, even though they involve discipline, spiritual dedication, and altruistic self-sacrifice, especially by falsely attributing such states to intoxication or insanity. The features of berserkergang are considered signs of spiritual attainment in various traditions up to the present day, and the techniques for achieving berserkergang remain in use in battle, spiritual disciplines, and martial arts. Research is validating even some of the most extraordinary features of battle trance, pointing to unrealized potentials with promising benefits for human performance and healing
Tripping in the Moment: The Spiritual Journey of Baba Ram Dass
Get PDFRam Dass, the iconic, countercultural, spiritual seeker, brought the wisdom of the East to those of us in the West through his many books and frequent, charismatic dharma talks. This view of his spiritual journey describes the transformation of Richard Alpert, clinical psychologist and product of the Western milieu’s often-shackling conventional expectations, into Ram Dass, the free, embodied soul who, through explication and example, and with witnessing attention, tries to guide us all to the always present abode of loving awareness. Ram Dass’s idea of self in existence was transformed: first, from a psychological object of clinical study, to a shared experience of co-discovery, and finally, to the witnessing soul who, with full attention, came to recognize the self in, and as continuous, moment to moment spiritual transformation
Positive Psychological Transformation: A Mixed Methods Investigation Into Catalysts and Processes of Meaningful Change
Get PDFThis mixed methods study investigated the experience of positive psychological transformation, including its catalysts, dynamics, supportive factors, and outcomes. The first phase of the study was a 13-item survey (N=130) that revealed trends and associations in participants’ experiences of transformation. The most significant correlation was between “expressing myself” and change stabilization (p \u3c .01). Forty-four percent of participants reported trauma or emotional distress as the main catalyst of their transformation. Each of the other three main catalysts (dissonance, adaptation, and inspiration) drew approximately 18% of responses. Connecting with nature (71%), introspection (65%), solitude (63%) and empathy (61%) were commonly reported supportive factors. Common changes related to participants’ way of interacting with others (77%), perception (75%), and emotional patterns (70%). The process of transformation differed substantially depending on multiple factors including the catalyst and demographic categories. Additionally, the survey revealed a trend of moving away from organized religion toward a sense of being spiritual but not religious. The second phase of the study consisted of interviews with a portion of the participants who reported trauma as the main catalyst of their transformation (n = 26) and was focused on the experience of posttraumatic growth. Thematic analysis revealed that transformation is typically initiated by a series of traumatic events and that the process of transformation can involve impaired well-being/functioning before elevated well-being/functioning. The results of thematic analysis were consistent with existing data on posttraumatic growth
