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Introducing Queer Folk Linguistics: A sociocultural approach to language regard
No full textThis research begins with a review of folk linguistic/dialectological work conducted with (gay) Oklahomans, and which developed into a critiquing, adjusting, and reinterpretting the goals of studying non-linguists’ regard towards language, particularly among LGBTQ+ populations. While this approach maintains the interests in language production, perception, and (un)conscious (reactions)responses to language, it views identity-in-interaction as central to understanding the positioning of a speaker towards aspects of language and language-adjacent material. Focus on identity necessarily changes the methodological and theoretical ways that we approach language regard research.
Methodologically, one of the most prominent changes is skepticism in collecting, documenting, and reporting static demographic labels without warranting them; this is accompanied by a commitment to the idea that community or interactive roles play a bigger part in stylistic variation than static labels. Moreover, QFL relies on work in sociocultural linguistics, queer linguistics, and raciolinguistics to inform the ways we interpret identity construction in interaction, using discourse surrounding language, life, and culture. These important contributions to the ways we can understand language regard also necessitate some adjustments to Folk Linguistic theory. Some (but not all) of these changes are: 1) a more central role for implicatures and presuppositions in discourse; 2) recognizing perceived acceptability or social sensitivity among the modes of folk linguistic awareness; and 3) recognizing experiential factors that contribute to such modes of folk linguistic awareness.
Ultimately, this reimagining led to an attempted employment of a Queer Folk Linguistic model in the study of communities of queer drag performers in Oklahoma City. This project, then, reviews the gaps which were highlighted in the earlier dialectological work, then demonstrates the reliability gained in the more careful treatment of identity as it pertains to language regard in discourse. It then hypothesizes that, with more carefully collected and interpreted work, we have a better shot at understanding the potential motivations behind aligning/distancing with groups or people in society and their associated ways of speaking. This, in turn, has the potential of illuminating one of the central questions in 3rd wave sociolinguistics: the meaning behind language variation and change
Sex Positivity and the Maintenance of White Supremacy in Sex Therapy
No full textThis project focuses on the role sex positivity plays in (unconsciously) maintaining white supremacist sociopsychological biases within the field of Sex Therapy. Using discourse analysis, it identifies the maintenance of White Supremacy via language and dialogue through an examination of White Fragility’s six tenets—miseducation, good/bad binary, segregation, internalized superiority, individualism, and universalism—in literature and discourse produced for the 52nd Annual Conference of the American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors, and Therapists (AASECT), titled The Circle of Life: Sex Positivity Through All of Life’s Stages, June 4 – 7, 2020 in Palm Springs, California. This study will serve as a basis for the development of a theoretical model of sex-and-relationship therapy, which acknowledges the racialization of sexuality without perpetuating White Supremacy
A Corpus Linguistic Study of the Coming Out Process through analysis of the Identity & Development Models
No full textThe presentation focuses on a doctoral dissertation study of the LGBTQ coming out process. The study examines the identity and development coming out models through a corpus linguistic lens and answers key research questions. The aim of the study is to identify the keyness and collocations of the two models. The main research questions include the following: In reference to the Cass identity model of identity formation and the D’Augelli lifestyle development model, what are the keywords of the coming out process in the minority development model? What are the most common collocations of the term “coming out” in the Cass identity and D’Augelli lifestyle models? Finally, what are the most common collocations of the term “coming out” in both the Cass identity and D’Augellli lifestyle development models? The methodological approach of this study is “corpus linguistics” utilizing software called Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count. The corpus linguistic study consists of identifying keyness and collocations of the two major identity models. At the time of the presentation, I will have the first of two manuscripts done except for the results and discussion sections. At Oregon State University, we do a manuscript-style dissertation, which consists of two interrelated manuscripts that would be immediately ready to submit to professional journals upon graduation
The Metaphorical Models of Gender Transition
No full textGender transition, like other cultural issues, is both conceptually and politically complicated. As illustrated in a wave of metaphor studies in and out of academia, the models used to inform personal experience have wide-ranging political effects (Lakoff , 2002, 2009; Tibodeau & Boroditsky, 2011, 2013). Because transgender individuals make up a frequently ostracized segment of the American population, experiencing disproportionate discrimination and violence (Kenagy, 2005; Lombardi, Wilchins, Priesing, & Malouf, 2002; Stotzer, 2009), attention toward the transgender conceptual experience is a first step in exploring where this marginalization originates at a societal level. With the rapid increase of computer-mediated discourse, personal descriptions of transition in the form of online blogs constitute a growing portion of discourse on gender and transition, helping to shape the public’s perception of trans identity.
In this paper, I show how the conceptual models of gender and transition derive, in part, from a set of repeated metaphors. The model includes several metaphors that share spatial features in their source domains: transition is a journey; the body is a physical barrier between internal and external self (the divided-self metaphor); and a process of belabored decision-making (often communicated through the metaphor decision-making is weighing). In addition to language data, I use public video blogs to examine how co-speech gesture aligns with spoken and written narrative to support a spatially based representation of gender identity. Repeated gestural patterns include inward facing palms used to mime fictive category boundaries, gestural mapping of motion across metaphorical gender regions, manual deictic reference to interior and exterior self, and distancing from past gender assignment signaled through emblematic scare quotes. The data examined in this study confirm the important role gesture plays in supplementing the instantiation of the metaphorical models that organize transgender speakers’ experience with and discussion of gender and transition.
The metaphorical construction of gender categories manifests in newer commonly used phraseology for gender identity: non-binary, non-conforming, agender, etc. In a final portion of the presentation, I discuss the language of “contestation” and lay out some of the conceptual consequences of this emerging lexicon in relationship to gender inclusivity and advocacy
The Good the Bad and the Ugly: Amigas Latinas’ Pláticas as a Site of Transformative Knowledge Production
No full textAmigas Latinas was a Chicago-based Latina lesbian organization that ran from 1995 to 2015. It provided community, advocacy and education for Chicago queer Latinas. The organization developed from a small support group to a multifaceted nonprofit that offered a wide range of programs and services for Latina LGBTQ women. Regardless of how big the organization grew pláticas (or monthly informal brunch and guided discussions) were the bread and butter event that held the group together. In this paper I provide a history and analysis of the monthly pláticas across the 20 year existence of Amgias Latinas. I argue that pláticas represented a transformative practice that provided the women community, intellectual growth, politicization, and healing. Gonzalez and Portillos (2011) define pláticas as intimate conversations and intellectual dialogue. The plática is a useful tool to unbury and advance Latina/o intellectual knowledge, cultural knowledge, and civic participation. Fierros and Bernal (2016) identify five principles of a plática methodology: it grounded in Latina feminist theory, and recognizes participants in a plática as co-constructing knowledge producers; the methodology is grounded in everyday lived realities. Pláticas are also seen as places of healing through the sharing of embodied knowledge. Finally a plática methodology is grounded in reciprocal relationships and reflexivity. The pláticas developed organically according the needs of the community. The Amigas Latinas leadership created a series of pláticas to help women deal with social and cultural issues in a productive way. Leaders of pláticas included Latina lesbians who were members of the organization as well as queer friendly women and men who worked on issues such as substance abuse and domestic violence. These pláticas addressed significant issues within the community and provided tools to deal with a range of challenges particular to the Latina lesbian and bisexual community. Especially at a time when spaces to confront these issues were not readily available to Latinas, these monthly pláticas were a transformative space that allowed for growth, testing of new ideas and healing from difficult situations
Connecting to Sacred Lands
No full textOne Word Sawalmem is a project that uses film and media content co-created by young native people, strategic partnerships and education initiatives to empower the youth climate movement with ancestral insight and inspiration. Natasha Deganello Giraudi and Michael Pom Preston, of the Winnmem Wintu tribe, co-direct the film in which he shares his story of personal transformation related to a single untranslatable word from his language — a word offered to humanity as medicine to heal our relationship with the Earth. Sawalmem, sacred water, is how the Winnemem Wintu tribe has always been in relationship with water. Coming from Northern California, where water is abundant, the tribe decided it was time to share the meaning of Sawalmem to help change the misconception of water as resource to water as sacred life giver.
Join us for an online screening of One Word Sawalmem and Q&A on Thursday, March 18
Meditation-Induced After Death Communication: A Contemporary Modality for Grief Therapy
Get PDFMeditation-induced after death communication (MI-ADC) was introduced as a potential modality for grief therapy. Traditional and contemporary approaches were compared in order to evaluate effective paradigms and theories of bereavement. The Continuing Bonds theory of attachment emerged as an adaptive framework for grief therapy, especially with attention to meaning-making and the strength of continued bonds. Considerations were implemented from research in psychomanteum, mediumship, and induced after death communication. Specifically, visual stimuli and timing of after death communications were emphasized. The discussion was encouraging for the conceptualization of MI-ADC as an effective construct and as an inquiry for empirical research
Parapsychology and Transpersonal Psychology in Dialogue: Could These Two Movements Be Brought into Better Alignment?
Get PDFParapsychology and transpersonal psychology were founded independently and have evolved separately as two distinct movements, although there is considerable overlap in both their content and in the interests of a number of scholars who are active in both areas. Harris Friedman, Co-President of the Association of Transpersonal Psychology, and Dean Radin, President of the Parapsychological Association, engaged in an informal discussion on the salient commonalities and differences between the two movements, focusing on exploring ways that the two could be brought into better alignment, such as including more transpersonal approaches within parapsychological studies and vice versa. Stanley Krippner, whose seminal work straddles both areas, chaired the panel, introducing and serving as a discussant for Friedman’s and Radin’s views, as well as in presenting his own views on the relationship between parapsychology and transpersonal psychology