Heiko Motschenbacher

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• Professor
• Professor (Full) at Western Norway University of Applied Sciences

This study seeks to assess the degree of heteronormativity found in the English textbooks that are currently used in Norwegian schools. For this purpose, gender and sexuality are highlighted as dimensions of inclusion in foreign language education. It is argued that a non-, under-, or misrepresentation of marginalized or minoritized social groups f...

This study conducts a multi-level linguistic analysis of a corpus of 316 boyband names. Grammatical and semantic analyses are harnessed to shed light on the discourses surfacing across such names. The discursive patterns identified are in general related to the negotiation of masculinity as it unfolds within partly clashing norms in relation to thr...

This study focuses on public signage on Wilton Drive in Wilton Manors, Florida-a homonormative space that privileges the representation of the experiences and needs of particular groups of gay men to the exclusion of other sexualities. I use a linguistic landscape methodology to conduct a multimodal critical discourse analysis in which I identify p...

This study deploys a corpus linguistic approach to find authentic language texts for classroom use that can address issues of sexuality and culture. By focusing on articles discussing pop icons, this chapter provides a discerning analysis of textual constructions of sexuality, ethnicity, and fame and shows how these can be used to practice critical...

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.

“Linguistic barrier” (Motschenbacher H ITL Int J Appl Linguist 167(2):159–189, 2016a) is a cover term that captures all language- and communication-related aspects that may pose obstacles to language learning, communicative success or the social inclusion of certain (groups of) individuals, often in educational contexts (see Motschenbacher H (ed) I...

This study investigates British and US gay men's comments on certain types of speech acts in their life narratives. This procedure yields folk linguistic evidence of the relationship between language and sexuality from a pragmatic point of view. At the theoretical level, the concept of "sexual speech act" (SSA) is introduced, distinguishing identit...

This study seeks to shed light on discursive shifts in sexuality-related normativity that are associated with coming out. Subscribing to a queer linguistically informed type of critical discourse studies, it investigates the usage patterns of two labels that are commonly used to denote same-sex sexualities: gay and homosexual. The meanings and usag...

This study focuses on public signage on Wilton Drive in Wilton Manors, Florida – a homonormative space that privileges the representation of the experiences and needs of particular groups of gay men to the exclusion of other sexualities. I use a linguistic landscape methodology to conduct a multimodal critical discourse analysis in which I identify...

There have been linguistic studies on the gendering mechanisms of adjectives and psychological studies on the relationship between personality traits and gender, but the two fields have never entered into a dialogue on these issues. This article seeks to address this gap by presenting an interdisciplinary study that explores the gendering mechanism...

This study investigates the grammatical behavior of English country names based on corpus linguistic evidence. An overview of the basic patterns of definite article use with country names as commonly described in English reference grammars and of the morphological structures of English country names is presented. Against this backdrop, the Corpus o...

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....

Corpus linguistics is, to date, still an underexplored methodology in onomastics. This article seeks to advance the field through a theoretical discussion of onomastic issues from a corpus linguistic point of view. It presents an overview of the linguistic status, meaning and grammar of proper names in order to highlight aspects that lend themselve...

This study presents a contrastive corpus linguistic analysis of language use before and after Stonewall. It uses theoretical insights on normativity from the field of language and sexuality to investigate how the shifting normativities associated with the Stonewall Riots (1969) – widely considered the central event of gay liberation in the Western...

This article presents a case study of the discursive construction of sexual orientation obsessive-compulsive disorder (SO-OCD) as it surfaces in posts to an online mental health forum. SO-OCD is an anxiety disorder that involves having unwanted, intrusive thoughts as a consequence of conflict with normative sexual beliefs. The study focuses on the...

This study seeks to shed light on the discursive effects of a public sexual identity declaration as they surface in the language used to construct the social actor in question. Subscribing to queer linguistically informed critical discourse studies, it builds on and advances the theoretical discussion of coming out in language and sexuality studies...

This article presents an overview of central issues in Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) with a special focus on its application in studies of institutional communication. Although CDA does not represent a monolithic or internally homogeneous academic discipline, the discussion highlights central aspects that commonly surface in CDA-related researc...

As 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 proto...

This handbook is currently in development, with individual articles publishing online in advance of print publication. At this time, we cannot add information about unpublished articles in this handbook, however the table of contents will continue to grow as additional articles pass through the review process and are added to the site. Please note...

Dieser Beitrag argumentiert, dass eine Wiederbelebung der strukturellen Genderlinguistik nur dann sinnvoll erscheint und erreicht werden kann, wenn ihre Analysen die jungeren theoretischen Entwicklungen auf dem Gebiet der linguistischen Genderforschung verinnerlichen. Dies erfordert eine Rekonzeptualisierung (genderisierter) Sprachstrukturen im Lic...

This article studies the use of compliments in a transnational European media context: Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) press conferences. It focuses on how complimenting behaviour relates to the discursive construction of gender and sexuality in this context. As a background to the study, central findings concerning the form, function and sociolingui...

Prompted by the increased visibility of inclusive pedagogies, the present article discusses the concept of “inclusion” in relation to foreign language teaching from a linguistic perspective. The foreign language classroom constitutes a special environment that poses specific language-related challenges to inclusive education. In an effort to face t...

This article attempts to counter the contemporary marginalisation of structural gender linguistics within the field of language and gender. It argues that, in order to make structural gender linguistics compatible with recent developments in the field, it is necessary to initiate a conceptual shift from treating language structures as stable parts...

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 rec...

This study uses corpus linguistic methods to investigate how the situatedness of pop song lyrics may affect their linguistic make-up. For this purpose, I compare a corpus of Eurovision lyrics (ESC-ENG) to a general pop lyrics corpus (G-Charts) which is used as a reference corpus. This is done to detect specificities of the Eurovision lyrics, which...

As the preceding analyses have shown, the ESC represents a popular culture media event that engages in the re-negotiation of identity-related normativities in the light of (what is perceived as being compatible with) Europeanness . In this final chapter, central language-based discursive mechanisms of identity construction that have been documented...

In keeping with the profile of Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, this volume presents and discusses issues that are central to aspects of social inequality, power, dominance and status as expressed in discourse in its broadest sense. The volume aggregates research efforts of the past years, and it constitutes a point of departure for future studies....

The present article explores how the concept of normativity can be used as a starting point for research on language and sexuality, such as Queer Linguistics. Recent language and sexuality research has demonstrated the prominent role that normativity plays in the discursive construction of identities and behaviours, but the theorisation of normativ...

This volume complements earlier work on English as a lingua franca (ELF) by providing an in-depth study of the phenomenon from a decidedly European perspective. Distancing itself from more traditional approaches to the study of English in Europe (linguistic imperialism and "Euro-English"), the study is theoretically grounded in more recent approach...

This introductory essay to the Discourse & Society special issue on Queer Linguistic Approaches to Discourse discusses the theoretical underpinnings of the connection between discourse studies and Queer Theory within Queer Linguistics – a strand of research that has recently gained great momentum. It outlines basic issues in Queer Theory and their...

This article provides an ethnographically-based, in-depth discourse analysis of linguistic constructions of non-heteronormativity at Eurovision Song Contest press conferences. Contexts of high national salience have been found to largely support or even promote heteronormative discourses. The present study, by contrast, sets out to look at the cons...

The present study focuses on word order patterns in English personal binomials and argues that conjunct order in this binomial type is partly subject to other factors than those shown in earlier research on binomials in general. On the theoretical level, mixed-gender personal binomials are discussed as linguistic instantiations of dominance and dif...

The present paper aims to reinvigorate discussions of language policy within language, gender and sexuality studies. It provides initial considerations of a poststructuralist, non-heteronormative language policy for German and English—two languages whose structural make-up differs fundamentally with respect to gender representation. Gendered struct...

This study intends to shed light on the internal linguistic hybridity of English as a European lingua franca. Based on typological considerations relating to Europeanness, it explores the heterogeneity exhibited by relativisation practices in European ELF talk. An overview of central theoretical aspects in research on the status of English in Europ...

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 Ling...

This comprehensive, state-of-the-art bibliography documents the most recent research activity in the vibrant field of language, gender and sexuality. It provides experts in the field and students in tertiary education with access to language-centred resources on gender and sexuality and is, therefore, an ideal research companion. The main part of t...

This article provides an overview of the young discipline of Queer Linguistics and discusses how it may be fruitfully applied in sociolinguistics as a contribution to critical heteronormativity research. After locating Queer Linguistics historically as a reaction to earlier essentialist approaches in the field of language and sexuality, its theoret...

This study illustrates how body-part vocabulary can contribute to linguistic gender construction. As a starting point, gendering mechanisms pertinent to body-part terms are delineated. On a theoretical plane, the study is indebted to poststructuralism and the notion of performativity in identity construction. Gender performativity via body-part voc...

Der folgende Beitrag beschäftigt sich mit werbesprachlicher Genderstilisierung. Anhand von Untersuchungsmaterial einer Studie zu sprachlichen Genderperformanzen in den geschlechtlich positionierten Lifestylemagazinen Cosmopolitan und Men's Health (britische und US Ausgaben) wird demonstriert, dass kommerzielle Geschlechterbilder auch sprachlich sta...

This article argues for a stronger re-integration of structural linguistic analysis into contemporary language and gender research by demonstrating its usefulness for poststructuralist discussions of gender. Aiming at a deconstruction of the binarisms “female” vs. “male” and “grammatical gender language” vs. “natural gender language,” it deals with...

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 ster...