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Sharing Resources and Indexing Meanings in the Production of Gay
... En ciertos casos, incluso, algunos hombres homosexuales, por ejemplo, pueden no indexar acústicamente su orientación sexual y por tanto no ser diferenciables por su habla de los hombres heterosexuales; mientras que, al contrario, ciertos varones heterosexuales pueden ser percibidos como homosexuales en ciertas ocasiones (p.ej. para el inglés, Borders, 2015;Podesva et al., 2001;Smyth et al., 2003;Smyth y Rogers, 2008; para el francés, Aguirre, 2018; para el italiano y el alemán, Sulpizio et al., 2015). En este sentido, se ha hecho necesario distinguir entre la orientación sexual del hablante y la orientación sexual percibida por el oyente, independientemente de cuál pueda ser la verdadera orientación sexual del individuo (Linville, 1998 Los estudios que, además de la heterosexualidad y la homosexualidad, analizaron otras orientaciones sexuales, identificaron la homosexualidad masculina como la orientación sexual que parece ser percibida con mayor claridad por los oyentes (p. ...
... gender inversion theory, Kite y Deaux, 1987), según la cual la voz de los hablantes no heterosexuales carece de las características prototípicas de su género y adopta las que caracterizan la voz del género opuesto (Smyth y Rogers, 2008). No obstante, la mayor parte de los estudios no han conseguido hallar diferencias estadísticamente significativas para la media de f 0 en función de la orientación sexual de los hablantes masculinos (Gaudio, 1994;Podesva et al., 2001;Smyth et al., 2003). Del total de estudios realizados para el inglés que analizaron la media de f 0 , solo 10 de 19 (52.6%) hallaron diferencias, bien para hablantes homosexuales, bien para hablantes no homosexuales, cuyas voces fueron perceptivamente asociadas al habla con pluma (Tabla 2). ...
... En el caso del español, ninguno de los 4 estudios que incluyeron esta variable en sus análisis encontró diferencias significativas, y los mismos resultados se observaron para los 4 estudios realizados sobre el alemán. Por el contrario, para el checo (Valentova y Havlíček, 2013), el mandarín (Geng et al., 2018) Gaudio, 1994;Linville, 1998;Jacobs et al., 2000;Podesva et al., 2001*;Smyth et al., 2003;Babel y Johnson, 2006;Munson et al., 2006b;Munson y Babel, 2007;Podesva, 2007;Rendall et al., 2008;Zimman, 2010*;Podesva, 2011*;Cartei y Reby, 2012;Levon, 2014;Brown, 2015;Lanning, 2015;Zimman, 2015*;Law, 2016Munson y Babel 2007;Podesva, 2007;Podesva, 2011*;Cartei y Reby, 2012;Levon, 2014;Brown, 2015;Lanning, 2015;Zimman, 2015 En cuanto al rango de f 0 , los resultados fueron aún más dispares, puesto que, de los estudios hechos para el inglés que incluyeron esta variable, solo 3 de 9 (33.3%) encontraron diferencias significativas (Levon, 2007;Podesva, 2007Podesva, , 2011, mientras que, para las demás lenguas solamente se hallaron diferencias en el único estudio que se hizo para el mandarín (Geng et al., 2018) (Tabla 3). ...
Esta revisión recoge 69 estudios sociofonéticos sobre el habla con pluma masculina para poner en perspectiva qué parámetros acústicos caracterizan tanto a los hablantes homosexuales como a aquellos que, independientemente de su orientación sexual, son percibidos como hablantes con pluma. La muestra de estudios seleccionada recoge un total de 13 lenguas, algunas con un gran número de variedades dialectales, como es el caso del inglés o del español. En muchas de estas lenguas se han hallado diferencias significativas en la producción o percepción del habla gay para la frecuencia fundamental, para F1 y F2 de algunas vocales, y para las características espectrales y la duración de algunas fricativas sibilantes. No obstante, la disparidad de resultados no permite identificar un conjunto claro de parámetros asociados al habla con pluma. Los rasgos que caracterizan el habla con pluma en una determinada comunidad de habla pueden no coincidir con los de otra, puesto que la forma en que se construye socialmente la identidad gay varía en cada lugar. Finalmente, se propone analizar el habla con pluma desde una perspectiva multimodal en variedades concretas de diferentes lenguas, entre ellas el español, para minimizar la disparidad de resultados y reflejar más fielmente las interacciones comunicativas cotidianas.
... Although gay speech has been reviewed recently (Bucholtz & Hall, 2004;Cameron & Kulick, 2003;Jacobs, 1996;Kulick, 2000;Munson & Babel, 2007;Queen, 2007;Wong, 2005) and has been investigated within several branches of linguistics, especially phonetics-both in the laboratory (Linville, 1998;Moonwomon-Baird, 1997;Munson, McDonald, Deboe, & White, 2006;Smyth et al., 2003;Waksler, 2001) and in a naturalistic setting (Podesva, 2004(Podesva, , 2006Podesva, Roberts, & Campbell-Kibler, 2002)-this chapter will discuss a variety of linguistic perspectives including: the extent to which gay speech resembles speech patterns of straight women, hypothesized by some to resemble standard speech; lexical and phonetic aspects of gay speech; and the theoretical notion that gay speech is too often linked to gay identity. Within these discussions, the ability for listeners to perceive the sexual orientation of a gay speaker will be a primary interest. ...
... When attempting to describe linguistic features of any particular speech variety, one must consider how language is used to help construct or perform different personae in various settings. Podesva et al.'s (2002) study compared and contrasted the acoustic features of a gay activist and a gay attorney from a radio debate. The acoustic elements in question included: 1) /ae/ and /eI/ duration; 2) /s/ and /l/ duration; 3) fundamental frequency (f0) properties of stressed vowels; 4) onset time of voiceless aspirated stops; and 5) the release of word-final stops. ...
... Contrarily, if the listener is familiar with the speaker's language and is either a bilingual or language learner of that language, it may be desirable to investigate whether or not stigmatized gay-sounding phonetic features in either language influence the ability to perceive sexual orientation. Given that the lengthened /s/ in English is a stigmatized feature of gay speech (Gaudio, 1994;Podesva et al., 2002), would there be an effect for how a native English listener would judge dialects of Spanish, for example? For instance, a future study may wish to play recordings of (1) Spanish speakers from certain parts of Spain who distinguish between the initial sounds in cierra and sierra (cierra = [Tiera] vs. sierra = [siera], respectively); and (2) Spanish speakers from Mexico, for example, who do not distinguish between these sounds (cierra = [siera] and sierra = [siera], respectively). ...
... I turn first to the purported features of the 'gay voice' style. Both popular stereotypes and sociolinguistic research (Munson et al. 2006, Munson 2007, Podesva et al. 2002, Podesva 2004, 2006) suggest a set of repeated linguistic features that typify an enregistered 'gay voice' style. As we will see, many of these features have also been identified as indexing types of stance. ...
... Hyperarticulations-especially released /t/ in American English-have been investigated substantially in sociolinguistics beyond work on the 'gay voice' (see, for example, Bucholtz 2001, Podesva, Roberts, andCampbell-Kibler 2002). The association of these hyperarticulations with a broad network of social meanings -or as Eckert (2008) Podesva's studies uses, for example, a highly articulated /t/, especially in his most markedly gay style, which Podesva calls Heath's 'gay diva' style. ...
... MaryBucholtz (2001) discusses released /t/ among white girls in a California high school in terms of a 'nerd girl' style. Finally,Podesva, Roberts, and Campbell- Kibler (2002) andPodesva (2006) crucially show that a more noticeably articulated /t/ is associated with a stereotyped gay style in various ways. The speaker identified as Heath in ...
Taking Elinor Ochs’s (1992) notion of indirect indexicality as a starting point, this chapter explores the significance of stance for studies of sexuality. Stance helps organize identity registers and is thus central in the creation and display of sexuality. After defining stance and reviewing ways in which it has been used in studies of language and sexuality, the chapter analyzes representations of two sexual identity registers: a ‘gay voice’ homosexual identity and a ‘brospeak’ heterosexual identity. The analysis reveals how these representations are based on different configurations of stances that in turn constitute differentially enregistered personae or characterological figures. The chapter concludes with an outline of the ways that the concept of stance may be used in further research, especially with respect to the analysis of sexuality in interaction.
... A number of further authors point out that that there are strong biases towards native speakers within ELT, which involves the representation of culture, methodological preferences, employment policy, and, with particular interest to the present research, ideal models of language (Canagarajah, 1999;Pennycook, 1994;Phillipson, 1992). This ideology is referred to by the term native-speakerism (Holliday, 2005), which refers to an unjustified and unfair favouritism to native speakers of English at the expense of non-native speakers. ...
... Moreover, in L1 these sounds display consistent variation in different situations, serving as markers of style (Coupland, 2007) and speakers often make use of them in signalling their group identity, desired self-image or social affiliation (cf. Eckert, 1989;Podesva, Roberts, & Campbell-Kibler, 2002). ...
The aim of the present research is to investigate Hungarian EFL learners’ comprehension of English speech varieties, and how the learners relate to accents of English on the level of attitudes, using the theoretical framework of English as a lingua franca. The investigation includes two phases: a quantitative questionnaire study with a comprehension task complemented by a qualitative follow-up study. The participants of the first phase consist of 62 secondary school learners of English; 5 learners from the same population participate in the follow-up study. The findings reveal that the RP (received pronunciation) English speech variety recorded for ELT purposes is the most understandable for the learners, while unfamiliar or non-native accents pose a considerable challenge to understanding. Comprehension is influenced by a set of intertwined factors, including proficiency, language awareness and exposure to English speech. The participants are generally more appreciative of native speaker speech varieties, while they judge non-native varieties unfavourably, attaching further meanings and values to accents. The learners’ judgement of speech varieties is related to their identity as well as their personal and cultural affiliations, which also seems to be related to their motivation.
... Moreover, LGBTQIA+ speakers may not use language forms and patterns commonly associated with speakers of the same physical sex. LGBTQIA+ speakers may also not use linguistic forms and patterns commonly associated with speakers of the opposite physical sex (e.g., gay men do not outright imitate straight women in their speech styles; Munson & Babel, 2007), and there are many subvariants with LGBTQIA+ speech styles reflective of an array of subgroups (Podesva et al., 2000). Examination of the language usage of nonbinary speakers (i.e., identifying as neither male nor female), including transgender individuals, within the LGBTQIA+ community shows that stereotypical male and female language forms may be fused while novel linguistic innovations may also be created (see Smakman, 2018, pp. ...
... Barrett (1997Barrett ( , 2010 noted that such vowels rendered with an H*L intonational contour may cause listeners to perceive a lisp. Additionally, gay male speech may feature differences in vowel duration (Podesva et al., 2000) and pitch range . Features of gay male speech may also include overarticulated segments (i.e., vowels, consonants) such as , nasalization, and s-fronting or the stereotypical archetype of gay male speech of lisping (Smyth, in Thorpe, 2014). ...
A note to our readers:
What you are about to read is the result of three-way, organic conversations on queering Australian English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) classrooms undertaken by three practitioner researchers working in Australian higher education. Bri, Julian, and Leonardo embody various gender identities (cis-gender, non-binary), ethnicities (White, Asian, Latino), use a variety of pronouns (she/her, they/them, he/him), and come from diverse disciplinary backgrounds (history, social science, applied linguistics, TESOL). Together, we explore and unpack how our teaching is shaping, and is shaped by, our intersectional identities and lived experiences with an awareness of the great need for LGBTQIA+ inclusive education in Australia.
... Moreover, LGBTQIA+ speakers may not use language forms and patterns commonly associated with speakers of the same physical sex. LGBTQIA+ speakers may also not use linguistic forms and patterns commonly associated with speakers of the opposite physical sex (e.g., gay men do not outright imitate straight women in their speech styles; Munson & Babel, 2007), and there are many subvariants with LGBTQIA+ speech styles reflective of an array of subgroups (Podesva et al., 2000). Examination of the language usage of nonbinary speakers (i.e., identifying as neither male nor female), including transgender individuals, within the LGBTQIA+ community shows that stereotypical male and female language forms may be fused while novel linguistic innovations may also be created (see Smakman, 2018, pp. ...
... Barrett (1997Barrett ( , 2010 noted that such vowels rendered with an H*L intonational contour may cause listeners to perceive a lisp. Additionally, gay male speech may feature differences in vowel duration (Podesva et al., 2000) and pitch range . Features of gay male speech may also include overarticulated segments (i.e., vowels, consonants) such as , nasalization, and s-fronting or the stereotypical archetype of gay male speech of lisping (Smyth, in Thorpe, 2014). ...
Teaching Pride Forward takes queer theory, activism, and practice in new directions.
Allyship is complex and multifaceted. How can you, as an ally in the English language teaching field, work effectively and productively on behalf of your LGBTQ+ students and colleagues? How can you be thoughtful and reflective about your commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and access?
This book explores how allies advocate for equal rights for humans, no matter their sexual orientation or gender identity. With 11 inspirational chapters contributed by educators in varied contexts from around the world, this book offers readers a thoughtful combination of theory, on-the-ground research, advocacy, and practice. The authors cover important, timely topics, such as:
What an ally is and does
Developing responsive practices to engage with LGBTQ+ learners
Acknowledging students’ identities
Future directions for research, practice, and activism We are all learning, together
Teaching Pride Forward will show you how to further diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility for and with LGBTQ+ community members in our field and in the world.
... I turn first to the purported features of the "gay voice" style. Both popular stereotypes and sociolinguistic research (Munson et al. 2006;Munson 2007;Podesva, Roberts, and Campbell-Kibler 2002;Podesva 2006) suggest a set of repeated linguistic features that typify an enregistered "gay voice" style. As we will see, many of these features have also been identified as indexing types of stance. ...
... Since the focus in this chapter is on an enregistered variety, evidence from nonacademic sources is important to the argument. Barbara Johnstone (2013, 2016, for instance, suggests that meaning is created in the metapragmatic imagination through Hyperarticulations-especially released /t/ in American English-have been investigated substantially in sociolinguistics beyond work on the "gay voice" (see, for example, Bucholtz 2001;Podesva, Roberts, and Campbell-Kibler 2002). The association of these hyperarticulations with a broad network of social meanings-or as Penelope Eckert (2008) would call them, an indexical field-suggests an alternate conception of their use in the "gay voice" beyond simply "talking like a woman." ...
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 that the online publication date for this handbook is the date that the first article in the title was published online. For more information, please read the site FAQs.
... For example, Kiesling (forthcoming) discusses how "gay voice" has become enregistered based on certain phonetic traits, such as released [t], although such traits only serve as indexes for one specific gay style within a broad spectrum and are also used by speakers of diverse groups. Similarly, Podesva, Roberts and Campbell-Kibler (2002) have demonstrated that other phonetic traits (e.g. the duration of [s], [l], and certain diphthongs, as well as general pitch and tonal range) tend to be produced more similarly by women and men perceived to be gay as opposed to men perceived to be straight, although again these traits represent a particular style. Both stance and sociophonetic research related to gender and sexuality appeal to the embodiment of speakers and language. ...
... To answer our research question regarding the perception of the diminutive, a written, online questionnaire containing two tasks was implemented. As sociophonetic research has found multiple acoustic cues to prompt gay percepts (Levon 2006, Podesva 2011, Podesva et al. 2002, participants reacted to written quotations rather than audio recordings to avoid potentially skewing results and to isolate the possible effect of the diminutive. ...
Age is an under-analyzed variable in linguistic research concerning gender and sexuality. We consider these three constructs by examining diminutives as an index of gay sexuality in Madrid Spanish across two tasks. Although phonetic cues have received great attention, morphological features (e.g. diminutives) may also index gayness (Mendes 2014). Moreover, despite frequent usage across Spanish-speaking varieties, diminutives are primarily restricted to women and children in north-central Spain (Haensch 2002). In a diminutive reaction task, 53 Madrid residents indicated whether men, women, adults, or children were likely to have uttered diminutivized sentences. Mixed-effects models indicated that the number of diminutives and sentence theme significantly affected perception, and participants’ evaluations in a free response task corroborated that men using diminutives were considered effeminate, gay, and childish. Thus, even with sociophonetic cues removed, morphological phenomena create a gay percept. This study demonstrates how age ideologies inform indexicalization processes related to gender and sexuality.
Keywords: age , diminutives , gender , indexicality , Madrid Spanish , masculinity and sexuality
... Further, students did not recognize any fear of loss of identity due to their achieving a native accent. Podesva et al., 2001) and more research is needed on how accent in a second language (L2) may also be used to show identity. Accent, Identity, and a Fear of Loss? ...
... Mots-clés : identité, accent, prononciation, crainte, ALS, enseignement des langues Many theorists have proposed links between accent and identity. Researchers have shown that accent is tied to identity, not only for the first language (L1) -for example showing links between phonological variation and socio-economic class (Labov, 2006), religion (Levon, 2006), or sexual orientation (Podesva, Roberts, & Campbell-Kibler, 2001) -but also for the second language, reflecting shifts in sense of identity through second language (L2) learning (Cutler, 2014;Marx, 2002;Piller, 2002). Given such links between accent and identity, Daniels (1995) stated that students must fear acquiring a native accent because of the possibility that they might lose part of their identities, and some theorists have questioned whether pronunciation teaching in an L2 is ethical (e.g. ...
Because many theorists propose a connection between accent and identity, some theorists have justifiably been concerned about the ethical ramifications of L2 pronunciation teaching. However, English-as-a-secondlanguage (ESL) students often state a desire to sound like native speakers. With little research into ESL students' perceptions of links between their accents and identities, including whether students fear loss of identity from L2-pronunciation learning, it is difficult to understand how these links affect language learning goals. In this mixed-methods study, ESL university students (N = 78) took a survey of 23 Likert-scale questions, with selected individuals participating in a semi-structured interview. Results show that participants desired a native accent, attributing benefits and positive emotions toward developing a native accent. Further, students did not recognize any fear of loss of identity due to their achieving a native accent. © 2016 The Canadian Modern Language Review/La Revue canadienne des langues vivantes.
... Accents, a person's "dynamic segmental and suprasegmental habits" (Moyer, 2013, p. 11), are particularly prominent and have been called "the face of language" (Levis as cited in Derwing & Munro, 2015). Researchers have shown that accent can be used to display a range of identity aspects in a speaker's first language (L1), such as race (Bailey, 2000), gender (James, 1996), religious affiliation (Levon, 2006), class (Labov, 2006), and sexuality (Podesva, Roberts, and Campbell, 2001). Increasingly, research has also examined how identity may be constructed in a second language or second culture, showing accent continues to play an important role. ...
Although the field of second language (L2) pronunciation teaching has moved toward intelligibility models and goals, several studies have shown that many L2 learners still profess a desire to sound native-like in their L2. This study explores the perspectives of bilinguals who have navigated their accent and identity in two different languages to explore the impact of increasing recognition of links between accent and identity on language-learning goals. Findings show that almost all bilingual participants (97%) recognized links between accent and identity, yet 72% still reported preferring a native accent if they learned a new language today. Intelligibility emerged as a key issue, with those wanting a native accent linking nativeness to increased intelligibility and those rejecting native accents separating the two dimensions (accent and intelligibility) while prioritizing intelligibility.
... In the current paper, we take a similar approach to Gratton (2016) though our focus here is on how gay men style-shift across two different variables -pitch and /s/ -which are often considered stereotypical features of 'gay voice' . Though 'gay voice' is often described as a homogenous style, as Podesva et al. (2002) point out, this assumption is highly problematic as it homogenizes the diversity within the gay community and is all at once too specific and too general. Kiesling (2019: 18) explains how such conceptualizations about gay voice are a result of 'enregisterment' (Agha 2007) in the wider speech community that occurs through repeated circulation of the stereotype in media and popular culture. ...
It is well documented that gay people adopt behavioural strategies to navigate the heteronormative expectations and norms of social space. These practices are likely to be particularly pronounced in socially conservative countries which have seen less progress for LGBTQ+ rights. This study examines how two gay men (Rui and Kenni) stylistically negotiate their sexual identities in a socially conservative country – Singapore – by analyzing the variation in two phonetic variables that have been linked to gender and sexuality: Pitch and /s/. We show that both speakers style-shift across queer-friendly and heteronormative environments though the rate and degree of shifting is influenced both by the situated social meanings of the features and the interactional context. Concluding, we argue that research should consider how minoritised individuals are required to style-shift in order to adhere to the hegemonic norms and expectations of society.
... There is research that has extended the exploration of gendered language beyond traditional binary concepts. The study of Podesva and Roberts offers insights into the linguistic behaviors of trans people and reveals how language changes can accompany gender transitions, showing how language serves as a tool for expressing and reinforcing gender identity [26]. These findings underscore the importance of language in reflecting personal journeys of self-discovery and transformation. ...
... For example, studies on the release of /t/ in American English have shown how indexicality helps to understand its various social meanings (that forms an indexical field) and how specific indexical meanings are conveyed in different communities (e.g. Benor, 2001;Bucholtz, 2001;Podesva et al., 2002). ...
... The linkage between a pre-existing linguistic form and meaning can be made and remade to construct new personae (Hebdige, 1979). This can be demonstrated in the use of /t/ release in three distinct social personae: "Nerd Girls" (Bucholtz, 2001), "Orthodox Jewish Boys" (Benor, 2001) and "Gay Professionals" (Podesva, 2007;Podesva et al., 2002). ...
... Vaikka voidaankin olettaa, että monet kielenkäyttötavat saattavat olla jaettuja joissakin yhteisöissä, nykykäsityksen mukaan mitään yhtenäistä vähemmistö-, homo-tai lesbokieltä ei voida olettaa, vaan kielenkäytössä on runsaasti yksilöllistä ja tilanteista vaihtelua (ks. Kulick 2000: 257;Podesva, Roberts & Campbell-Kibler 2002;Podesva 2007). Neljänneksi vaiheeksi Cameron ja Kulick (2003: 78) esittävätkin tutkimusta, joka keskittyy siihen, miten identiteettejä rakennetaan kielen avulla. ...
... The distributions of TT raising across each task, collapsed across speakers, is presented in a boxplot in Figure 2.7. Eckert (2008) and Podesva et al. (2006) attribute some prestige and formality to fully articulated and audible coronal stops such that they index social meanings of a high level of competence and education. Therefore, TT raising is a prime candidate as a variable where we would expect style shifting and the highest degree of TT raising in the Wordlist context. ...
This dissertation is situated in broad debates about the architecture of the phonological grammar, and the sensitivity of gradient phonetic parameters to morphological structure. It takes, as its primary case study, a linguistic variable that is of prevailing interest to sociolinguists and phonologists alike: English Coronal Stop Deletion (old~ol'; CSD). While CSD is robustly sensitive to the morphological class of words in which coronal stops are contained, its alignment with the small class of other morphology--phonetics interactions is not straightforward. I approach this problem from several angles, incorporating diverse methodologies. In the first place, I provide new articulatory evidence suggesting that CSD does indeed have its primary locus in the gradient phonetics, demonstrating that the magnitude of tongue tip raising to a coronal stop constriction is gradiently conditioned by morphology. Moreover, this variation is typologically distinct from the majority of other examples of phonetic phenomena conditioned by morphology, which primarily concern durational parameters. In the rest of the dissertation, I problematise CSD's status as exceptional in this way, probing how well explanations for other morphology-sensitive phonetic phenomena (i.e. effects of prosody and word predictability) account for CSD patterns. In two perception experiments, listeners do not show perceptual sensitivity to the covert tongue tip raising observed in articulation, but do reflect an association between morphological complexity and increased duration. Finally, a large-scale corpus study shows only measures of word frequency that are relative to a word’s larger morphological paradigm predict CSD patterns accurately. This suggests that morphological structure was a key missing element in predictability accounts of the variable. Ultimately, surface CSD may amount to the confluence of more than one type of morphologically conditioned phonetic phenomenon. This dissertation sets the stage for continued progress towards an account integrating these different factors, and generates new puzzles in the asymmetry between production and perception for variable phonology and phonetics.
... While reckoning with an accent that they may not be able to fully control, language learners must navigate their identity in a new language and possibly a new culture (Yates 2017). This chapter explores the features of accent can be used to denote dimensions of identity, such as gender (James 1996), race (Bailey 2000), religious affiliation (Levon 2006), and sexuality (Podesva, Roberts, and Campbell-Kibler 2001). ...
What impact do accents have on our lives as we interact with one another? Are accents more than simple sets of phonetic features that allow us to differentiate from one dialect, variety or style, to the other? What power relationships are at work when we speak with what those around us perceive as an 'accent'? In the 12 chapters of this volume, an international group of sociolinguists, applied linguists, anthropologists, and scholars in media studies, develop an innovative approach that we describe as the ‘pragmatics of accents’. In this volume, we present a variety of languages and go beyond the traditional structural description of accents. From ideologies in national contexts, to L2 education, to accent discrimination in the media and the workplace, this volume embraces a new perspective that focuses on the use of accents as symbolic resources, and emphasizes the importance of context in the human experience of accents.
... Third-wave sociolinguistics is "a theoretical perspective that puts the meanings of variation, in all its dynamism and indeterminacy, at the centre of analysis" (Eckert 2018:xi). Hence, many thirdwave sociolinguistic studies (e.g., Podesva et al. 2002, Podesva 2007, Zhang 2005, Vickers and Goble 2014, Moore and Podesva 2009, Eckert 2000, D'Onofrio 2019, Walker et al. 2019) provide a finer-grained exploration of the semiotic potentials and "indexical mutabilites" (Eckert 2012:94) of linguistic variables. These studies focus on the ideological constructions of linguistic variables in "situated discursive practices" (Zhang 2008:202). ...
Food-market speech is an under-researched area of third-wave variationist sociolinguistic studies. This study addresses the gap by exploring food-market speech styles and hawker personae. Combining descriptive auditory analysis and online questionnaire data, I demonstrate that situated discursive practices of prosodic variables construct both persuasive and aggressive speech styles, and they are stereotypically associated with female and male hawker personae. Furthermore, this paper also explores the ideological construal of hawking as authentic market-ness, further revealing the semiotic saliency and social significance of food-market hawking as not only the language of a speech community but the language of market.
... Language exists in contexts. It has been claimed that "we distinguish between linguistically conveyed meanings relating directly to the immediate context of the discourse of participants, and those involving the construction of personal or stylistic identities" (Podesva, Roberts & Kibler, 2001). In studying the language of gays, we are interested in the discourses they produce in different conversational and interactive situations. ...
... Also, it would be useful to include a fuller range of sexual minority groups and to pay closer attention to variations within the LGBT community. As pointed out by Podesva, Roberts, and Campbell-Kibler (2002), labeling linguistic features as "gay speech" erases the multitude of differences in this varied community composed of many subcultures. Thus, there may well be distinct speech patterns associated with specific subcultures, which, moreover, tend to mutate over time (Eckert, 2012). ...
Listeners rely on vocal features when guessing others’ sexual orientation. What is less clear is whether speakers modulate their voice to emphasize or to conceal their sexual orientation. We hypothesized that gay individuals adapt their voices to the social context, either emphasizing or disguising their sexual orientation. In Study 1 (n = 20 speakers, n = 383 Italian listeners and n = 373 British listeners), using a simulated conversation paradigm, we found that gay speakers modulated their voices depending on the interlocutor, sounding more gay when speaking to a person with whom they have had an easy (vs. difficult or no) coming out. Although straight speakers were always clearly perceived as heterosexual, their voice perception also varied depending on the interlocutor. Study 2 (n = 14 speakers and n = 309 listeners), comparing the voices of young YouTubers before and after their public coming out, showed a voice modulation as a function of coming out. The voices of gay YouTubers sounded more gay after coming out, whereas those of age-matched straight control male speakers sounded increasingly heterosexual over time. Combining experimental and archival methods, this research suggests that gay speakers modulate their voices flexibly depending on their relation with the interlocutor and as a consequence of their public coming out.
... A burgeoning body of scholarship is beginning to explore how this relationship plays out in a variety of cultural contexts. Among the phenomena of interest to scholars are institutionalized discourses of heterosexuality and heteronormativity (e.g., Eckert 2002, Kiesling 2002, Morrish 1997; sexual harassment, sexual violence, and homophobia (e.g., Armstrong 1997, Ehrlich 2001, Herring 1999; the interaction of sexuality, gender, and racialization (e.g., Bucholtz 1999a, Gaudio 2001, Mendoza-Denton 1995; sexual jokes, teasing, and insults (e.g., Eder 1993, Hall 1997Limón [1989, Pujolar 2000; sexual lexicons and labels (e.g., Braun & Kitzinger 2001, McConnell-Ginet 2002, Murphy 1997, Wong 2002; the linguistic construction of romance and eroticism (e.g., Ahearn 2001, Patthey-Chavez et al. 1996, Talbot 1997; sexuality and political economy (e.g., Hall 1995, McElhinny 2002; discourses of reproduction (e.g., Freed 1999, Ginsburg 1987) and sexual health (e.g., Lambert 2001, Stulberg 1996; kinship and family organization (e.g., Hall 1996, Kendall & Magenau 1998; transgender identities and their negotiation of dominant binary sexual systems (e.g., Besnier 2003, Gaudio 1997, Hall & O'Donovan 1996, Kulick 1997; and the linguistic indexing of normative and nonnormative sexual subjectivities, both within and across ideological boundaries of sexual identity (e.g., Cameron 1997, Coates & Jordan 1997, Podesva et al. 2002, Queen 1997. As this partial list suggests, language and sexuality scholarship is necessarily broad in the topics it encompasses and the theories and methods it brings to bear upon them. ...
... Hoy en día, los fenómenos de interés entre los académicos varían, por citar algunos ejemplos, entre heterosexualidad y heteronormatividad (Eckert, 2002); acoso sexual, violencia sexual y homofobia (Ehrlich, 2001); la interacción entre sexualidad, género y raza (Bucholtz, 1999); léxico sexual y etiquetamientos (Mc-Connell-Ginet, 2002;Wong, 2002); y la indexicalidad lingüística de las subjetividades sexuales normativas y no normativas, dentro y más allá de los límites de la identidad sexual (Bucholtz -Hall, 2005;Cameron, 1997;Coates, 2004;Deuchar, 1998;Podesva et al., 2002). En América Latina y España son relativamente pocos los estudios dedicados al tema; entre los más destacados se encuentran 33 los de Celaya (1998), Cornejo Espejo (2009), Foster (2008, Pertusa (2005), Pertusa y Torres (2003). ...
La relación entre lengua y sexualidad recién ha comenzado a cobrar importancia dentro de los estudios socioculturales. Este trabajo explora las distintas pistas lingüísticas encriptadas en el cuento La búsqueda de Elizabeth, de Marta Pessarrodona (1982), para desenmascarar la velada identidad sexual del personaje central. Un análisis referente al proceso de reconocimiento, búsqueda y aceptación de una identidad sexual no canónica de la protagonista validará los cuatro principios propuestos por Bucholtz y Hall (2005): afloramiento, indexicalidad, relacionalidad y parcialidad.
... Most studies on (t) realisation have focused on the non-standard variants of (t), such as deletion (e.g., Patrick 1991, Guy and Boberg 1997, Schuppler et al. 2009), glottal variants (e.g., Trudgill 1988, Milroy et al. 1994, Docherty et al. 1997, Marshall 2003, Foulkes et al. 2005, taps and flaps (e.g., Fukaya and Byrd 2005), and palatal variants (e.g., Lahiri andEvers 1991, Zsiga 1995). However, a growing body of work (e.g., Bucholtz 1996, Docherty and Foulkes 1999, Benor 2001, Podesva et al. 2002, Eckert 2003, Podesva 2008, Eckert 2008 presents strong evidence that released (t) should also itself be viewed as a stylistic feature. If this is true (as this paper takes it to be), it means that rather than being analysed in terms of the presence or absence of other variants, released (t) should be considered a sociolinguistic variant in its own right, with its own linguistic and non-linguistic contexts. ...
Elderspeak refers to a speech style used when talking to the elderly. The aim of this study was to find out whether a higher rate of standard phonetic variants of phonemes is a feature of elderspeak. To test this, the (t) release in the speech of the radio presenter Kirsty Young was analysed, comparing her speech towards younger and older guests. A significant correlation was found between her rate of (t) release and the age of the guests. After analysing the results, an alternative account of elderspeak is presented as well as possible avenues of future research.
... However, voice-related stereotypes may vary across languages implying that different acoustic cues are used in different languages to express (and to interpret) SO (see Zimman, 2013). Moreover, inter-linguistic variability may be grounded in cultural differences as the construal of gender and SO varies greatly across cultures (Podesva, Roberts, & Campbell-Kibler, 2001). Therefore, by conducting a multi-linguistic investigation we can make comparisons across languages and extend our findings to languages other than English. ...
We investigated auditory gaydar (i.e., the ability to recognize sexual orientation) in female speakers, addressing three related issues: whether auditory gaydar is (1) accurate, (2) language-dependent (i.e., occurs only in some languages, but not in others), and (3) ingroup-specific (i.e., occurs only when listeners judge speakers of their own language, but not when they judge foreign language speakers). In three experiments, we asked Italian, Portuguese, and German participants (total N = 466) to listen to voices of Italian, Portuguese, and German women, and to rate their sexual orientation. Our results showed that auditory gaydar was not accurate; listeners were not able to identify speakers’ sexual orientation correctly. The same pattern emerged consistently across all three languages and when listeners rated foreign-language speakers.
... Rather, some variants can become disproportionately salient or enregistered (Eckert, 2012;Podesva, Roberts, & Campbell-Kibler, 2001;Podesva, 2007;Foulkes & Hay, 2015;Levon, 2014;Jaeger & Weatherholtz, 2016). These deviations between objective informativity and subjective salience remain to be explained and speci ed in more detail, ...
One of the persistent puzzles in understanding human speech perception is how listeners cope with talker variability. One thing that might help listeners is structure in talker variability: rather than varying randomly, talkers of the same gender, dialect, age, etc. tend to produce language in similar ways. Listeners are sensitive to this covariation between linguistic variation and socio-indexical variables. In this paper I present new techniques based on ideal observer models to quantify (1) the amount and type of structure in talker variation (informativity of a grouping variable), and (2) how useful such structure can be for robust speech recognition in the face of talker variability (the utility of a grouping variable). I demonstrate these techniques in two phonetic domains—word-initial stop voicing and vowel identity—and show that these domains have different amounts and types of talker variability, consistent with previous, impressionistic findings. An R package (phondisttools) accompanies this paper, and the source and data are available from osf.io/zv6e3.
... Ωστόσο, επισημαίνω ότι, όταν μιλούν οι άνθρωποι κάνουν πολλά περισσότερα από το να τοποθετούνται στο δίπολο στρέιτ-γκέυ (βλ. Coates (2013) για την ετεροκανονικότητα με βάση τις αντωνυμίες αλλά και Podesva & Roberts & Campbell-Kibler 2006). ...
... I also documented participants' linguistic behavior not only during the recorded conversations but also in different scenarios: at work, with family and friends, with strangers on the street, and so forth. Cross-situational observation of speakers' patterns of language use allows us to abstract individual idiosyncrasies, and how sets of linguistic variables group together to signal different kinds of identities (Podesva, Roberts, & Campbell-Kibler, 2002). ...
This volume provides a sample of the most recent studies on Spanish-English codeswitching both in the Caribbean and among bilinguals in the United States. In thirteen chapters, it brings together the work of leading scholars representing diverse disciplinary perspectives within linguistics, including psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, theoretical linguistics, and applied linguistics, as well as various methodological approaches, such as the collection of naturalistic oral and written data, the use of reading comprehension tasks, the elicitation of acceptability judgments, and computational methods. The volume surpasses the limits of different fields in order to enable a rich characterization of the cognitive, linguistic, and socio-pragmatic factors that affect codeswitching, therefore, leading interested students, professors, and researchers to a better understanding of the regularities governing Spanish-English codeswitches, the representation and processing of codeswitches in the bilingual brain, the interaction between bilinguals’ languages and their mutual influence during linguistic expression.
... These phases are exemplified in Figure 1, which shows a wideband spectrogram of [k] in the word like. Sociophonetic research has been unequally distributed across these phases, focusing on onsets, where formant transitions provide cues to the presence or absence of an oral gesture (e.g., Milroy, Milroy, Hartley, and Walshaw 1994, Foulkes, Docherty, and Watt 2005, Eddington and Taylor 2009, and releases, which can vary both in whether they are observable in the acoustic or auditory signals (e.g., Podesva, Campbell-Kibler, and Roberts 2002, Benor 2004, Levon 2006, Drager 2009) and in terms of their strength when present (Podesva 2006). While some work has investigated variation in manner of articulation, with stops alternating with fricative or approximant realizations (Lavoie 2001, Drager 2011, little work has considered the possibility that social factors may condition how the stop closure itself is realized. ...
This paper examines social influences on the realization of voiced stops in inland California. We analyzed sociolinguistic interviews with 62 white residents from Redding, Merced, and Bakersfield (which mark the northern, middle, and southern points of California’s Central Valley), balanced for sex, class, age, and whether a speaker earns their livelihood off the land. We follow Jaciewicz, Fox, and Lyle (2009) in examining the extent of voicing during stop closures (duration of voicing during closure relative to total duration of closure), and also adopt a novel measure of the magnitude of voicing, which captures the intensity of a stop closure relative to the following vowel. Mixed effects linear regression models were constructed for both voicing measures, with a number of linguistic and social predictors considered in addition to random effects. Results show that the extent of voicing measure was insufficiently sensitive to differentiate speakers, as nearly everyone exhibited voicing throughout the closure. The voicing intensity measure, however, was shown to reveal significant effects of place of articulation, closure duration, and ties to the land. Most importantly, speakers who earn their livelihood off the land exhibit significantly stronger voiced stops than those who do not. We argue that even though strongly voiced stops likely entered California during a large-scale in-migration of Southerners during the Dust Bowl (Jaciewicz et al. 2009 report more extensive voicing among women from the South compared to the Midwest), they have since taken on locally significant indexicalities reflecting the values and ideals of land-oriented communities throughout the Central Valley (and do not simply mean “Southern”). Our findings also raise questions about where the linguistic limits of socially structured variation lie, given the systematic social patterning observed here for low-level phonetic details (i.e., voicing intensity) that likely operate far below the level of consciousness.
... Moving away from homogeneous accounts of gay men's speech, Podesva et al. (2002) consider the construction of a different kind of gay identity in their analysis of activist style. Their approach places a greater emphasis on speaker autonomy than theories of audience design, describing style as "the ongoing construction of identity, built both directly through linguistic (and other) resources, and indirectly through the performance of social acts or activities, and the projection of emotive stances" (2002:176). ...
Studies of intraspeaker variation and the linguistic indexing of sexual identity have formed an important part of recent research in variationist sociolinguistics. This study investigates patterns of word-final stop release in the speech of a flamboyantly gay television host, Graham Norton. The results indicate a significant correlation between the rate of released word-final stops and the sexual orientation of an absent referee, as defined by Bell (1984, 2001), with a higher proportion of released stops for gay-identified referees. We argue that this pattern demonstrates the linguistic indexing of an ingroup identity, which Norton shares with referees who identify as gay. In this way, the variable of word-final stop release can be considered a ‘building block’ (Barrett 2002:33) in the construction of Norton's sexual identity.
... For a queer learner, becoming a member of queer communities of practice means, following Lave and Wenger (1991), acquiring cultural capital such as queer beliefs, ideologies and knowledge, as well as the linguistic repertoire to express ideas and concepts important to queer communities (such as gay, straight, transgender and transsexual) and the discursive practices to position contingently as queer in discourse when needed or desired (such as the use of certain lexical items, speech patterns, grammatical forms, and conversational styles; e.g. Abe 2006;Barrett 1997;Coates and Jordan 1997;Podesva, Roberts, and Campbell-Kibler 2006). In this article, after an analysis of the learner's positioning in classroom discourse, we attempt to situate her classroom participation in the context of her cultural investment. ...
This case study examines the classroom participation of a Korean queer (transgender) learner of English as a second language at a language institute for international adult students in the United States. To understand the dynamics of this learner’s participation, we focus on how she constructed gender identity and learner identity in interaction. Our analysis indicates that although the class content was not designed to elicit biographic information from students, this learner agentively managed her gender identity expression, which, at times, was met with challenge by her peers. As a second language learner, she self-positioned both as a lazy student and an effective language user – contradictory positionings that might be explained by the disconnection between the class content and the cultural capital that she sought to gain. Our study extends research on investment in second language learning by examining identity positioning in actual discourses and by linking classroom interaction and the learner’s experiences outside of the classroom. The analysis can also inform researchers and teachers about the complexities and nuances of gender identity construction and negotiation in classroom discourse.
[Link to full text http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/qw2iWheVEZPznAGXDgcc/full (first 50 downloads free from publisher)]
Glottalization in English has a rich history of research, most of it focusing on the origin and change in the feature over time. The current study also explores these issues but with the advantage of two samples of speech: one from the 1930s and one from the 1990s. This time depth allows us to see the possible origin of this feature in an isolated rural area and its change over time as the regional demographics change. We present arguments that the phonetic and social factors surrounding glottalization interacted to produce a new form (glottal replacement) with newly evolving social meanings.
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 that the online publication date for this handbook is the date that the first article in the title was published online. For more information, please read the site FAQs.
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 that the online publication date for this handbook is the date that the first article in the title was published online. For more information, please read the site FAQs.
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 that the online publication date for this handbook is the date that the first article in the title was published online. For more information, please read the site FAQs.
Different researches in the field of sociolinguistics consider the gender/sex variant as a relevant aspect of social stratification. In this chapter, we aim to discuss how to approach the issue of social gender and sexuality, combining sociolinguistic research and social theory of gender and sexuality. The main question that we must address concerns mainly the elaboration of linguistics corpora and the analysis of speech and writing data concerning the implementation of periphrastic future in Brazilian Portuguese and the use of superlative for gay man in Brazilian gay community, willing to validate our socially verifiable hypotheses about the influence of gender and sexuality in the processes of linguistic variation and change.KeywordsGenderSexualityLinguistic variation and changePeriphrastic futureSuperlatives
Recent work has demonstrated an ongoing change across varieties of English in which /s/ retracts before consonants, particularly before /tɹ/ clusters (e.g., Lawrence, 2000; Shapiro, 1995; Stuart-Smith et al., 2019). Much of this work has focused on the social and linguistic distributions of /stɹ/ within single communities, without an examination of the broader sibilant space (e.g., /s/ and /ʃ/). Meanwhile, analyses across multiple corpora have shown that /s/ and /ʃ/ also show within-community variability, beyond /stɹ/ contexts (Stuart-Smith et al., 2019, 2020). Intersecting these approaches, this paper explores sibilant variation and change across /stɹ/, /s/, and /ʃ/ using a corpus of Washington D.C. African American Language (AAL). Results indicate that /stɹ/-retraction is a stable variant in this variety of AAL and /s/ and /ʃ/ show evidence of socially stratified variation and change. Overall, this paper demonstrates the need to examine the sibilant space more holistically when examining changes in /stɹ/.
The 'third wave' of variation study, spearheaded by the sociolinguist Penelope Eckert, places its focus on social meaning, or the inferences that can be drawn about speakers based on how they talk. While social meaning has always been a concern of modern sociolinguistics, its aims and assumptions have not been explicitly spelled out until now. This pioneering book provides a comprehensive overview of the central tenets of variation study, examining several components of dialects, and considering language use in a wide variety of cultural and linguistic contexts. Each chapter, written by a leader in the field, posits a unique theoretical claim about social meaning and presents new empirical data to shed light on the topic at hand. The volume makes a case for why attending to social meaning is vital to the study of variation while also providing a foundation from which variationists can productively engage with social meaning.
This thesis focuses on sociohistorical transformations of Gayle, a linguistic variety consisting of an often-improvised lexical repertoire superimposed upon either Afrikaans or English in South Africa. Based on six months of fieldwork in Cape Town, this thesis draws on rich (meta)linguistic data drawn from participant-observation, as well as individual and group interviews within the coloured community. I critique an 'anti-language' (Halliday 1976) perspective, wherein Gayle is seen as uniquely anchored to a closed community for which it serves as an exclusive, ingroup code. Rather, I suggest that Gayle is best understood when approached as the register of a community of practice (Eckert & McConnell-Ginet 2003). My interviews expose the historical and 'enregistered' association of Gayle with the racialized, gendered and sexualized ‘characterological figure’ (Agha 2007) of the effeminate coloured gay man or 'moffie'. This association serves as a backdrop to contemporary anxieties about the ways in which Gayle is mapped onto speakers’ social identities and perhaps shows the respondent’s consciousness that these formulations ‘erase’ (Irvine and Gal 2000) non-canonical users of Gayle. Moving beyond lexical description, I suggest overlaps between the semantic and pragmatic features of the variety, both strategically deployed to invoke evanescent characteristics and social attributes in interaction (cf. Butler 1990). Just as elements of the Gayle repertoire do not code for fixed semantic meanings – but are rather contingent, discursive achievements – Gayle does not 'code for' static social identities. Instead, it achieves group belonging in interaction through legitimate use and mutual comprehension of creative linguistic 'deviations' and 'subversions'.
https://umontreal.on.worldcat.org/oclc/1198158670
One of the notable modern languages today is the gay lingo, a language established by the gay community. Gay people came to create their own words or neologisms to shield themselves from the harm of social stigma. This research provides a view of gay words formed through morphological processes and how they function in a sentence. This study specifically explored on neologisms in gay language through a qualitative approach – this was done by collecting new words from the gay community. The findings indicate that gay neologisms were mostly created through affixation and clipping wherein an original word is clipped and have a new component and meaning. It is also found out that there are existing words used in gay lingo that have different meanings. It is highly recommended to further analyze other morphological functions in the gay lingo.
While recent work in sociophonetics has focused on the speech of gay men ( Gaudio 1994 ; Podesva 2007 ; Podesva, Roberts & Campbell-Kibler 2002 ), lesbian women ( Camp 2009 ; Van Borsel Vandaele & Corthals 2013 ), and transgender people ( Zimman 2017a ), the speech styles of asexual individuals remain understudied. This study analyzes an interview with a graysexual and homoromantic cisgender student at a research university in California, examining the segmental and prosodic characteristics of three voices he uses to construct and position his graysexual identity: a questioning voice, a judgmental voice, and a non-desiring voice. The analysis finds that the questioning voice is characterized by decreased speech rate, high F 0 , and modal phonation; the judgmental voice, by low F 0 ; and the non-desiring voice, by low F 0 , narrow F 0 range, low intensity, reduced gesture, flat facial expression, and a centralized vowel space. The results emphasize the importance of stylistic reticence to the construction of graysexuality.
This study investigates the perception of the variation of neutral tone, a phonetic feature in China’s official language, Putonghua . Specifically, I explore whether native listeners perceive social meanings such as standardness, regional-ness, status and/or solidarity presumably associated with the low-use, standard use, and high-use of neutral tone, and how gender influences the perception of these meanings. Based on the results of a matched-guise test, I argue that the high use of neutral tone, through its link with Beijing dialect, is possibly competing with the standard, though the latter maintains a higher level of positive meanings. I also note that the low use of neutral tone – associated with Southern China and non-Mandarin varieties – carries more negative meanings. The overall gender differences show that gender prejudice towards women still exists in China. This study enriches our understanding of sociolinguistics in China and calls for more research on language variation in China.
Research on language and gender encompasses a variety of methods and focuses on many aspects of linguistic structure. This review traces the historical development of the field, explicating some of the major debates, including the need to move from a reductive focus on difference and dichotomous views of gender to more performative notions of identity. It explains how the field has come to include language, gender, and sexuality and how queer theory and speaker agency have influenced research in the field.
Il lavoro mira alla reinterpretazione di due casi di possessione registrati, fra la fine degli anni ’50 e la prima metà degli anni ’70 del Novecento, in Puglia e in Campania. Si tratta di due casi variamente studiati in chiave etno-antropologica, non ancora indagati riguardo a un aspetto saliente nella vicenda delle due donne: la costruzione e l’espressione dell’identità di genere. I fenomeni di possessione, molto diversi fra loro, sono quello di Michela Margiotta, donna di Ruffano (LE) affetta da tarantismo, conosciuta nella letteratura antropologica come Anna la tarantata, e quello di Giuseppina Gonnella, santona di Serradarce (SA), nota nel quadro più generale del culto extra-canonico del glorioso Alberto. L’analisi mira a far emergere come le due donne siano in grado di manipolare strumenti linguistici ed extralinguistici per muoversi all’interno di un orizzonte di significato e guadagnare nuovi spazi di rappresentazione della femminilità.
The main aim of this chapter is to propose that identity-centred studies of language and sexuality have affirmed the need for context-centred research, and to illustrate how identity-centred research allows the workings of desire to be examined within the domains of lived social and cultural experience. In the first part of the chapter, we chart the development of our main theoretical arguments by reviewing the primary critique offered by proponents of what we term ‘desire-centred research’ regarding identity-centred studies of language and sexuality. We will explain how the primary interest in identity-centred studies was not a simplistic documentation of language/identity bi-uniqueness.2 The concern was much more complex: tracing how speakers’ use of language ‘at the site’ conveys context- and culture-specific messages about sexual identity and other topics related to sexuality within the social moment, and thereby, demonstrating how certain linguistic practices convey messages about sexuality within that cultural setting. Important to note, audience-centred, interpolative, performative dimensions of these messages, and the linguistic practices conveying them, were acknowledged and explored in these earlier studies, and these iterative themes continue to be addressed in recent, identity-centred research, even as the scope of this work has broadened to incorporate new lines of inquiry — including connections between language and desire.
Sociolinguistic styles tie linguistic resources together into clusters and link them to social contexts of times, groups, places, and activities. Perceptions of masculinity and sexual orientation represent a well-studied area on sociolinguistic perception, offering many variables with potentially relevant social meanings. This study examines social perceptions of guises created by intersecting three masculinity- relevant variables: pitch, /s/-fronting or backing, and (ING). First, 110 online respondents provided descriptions and naturalness ratings of speech samples that were digitially modified to include the different variants; next, 175 respondents rated the speakers on six-point scales based on the terms "smart," "knowledgeable," "masculine," "gay," "friendly," "laid-back," "country," "educated," and "confident." The results showed that /s/-fronting carries strong social meaning across multiple speakers and other linguistic cues, making speakers sound less masculine, more gay and less competent. As documented elsewhere, use of the (ING) variants -ing and -in made speakers sound more or less competent, respectively. The combination of /s/-fronting and (ING), and, independently, /s/-backing, showed more complex effects, shifting relationships between multiple percepts. Taken together, these results provide some support for style-based sociolinguistic models, but also underline the need for more sophisticated statistical treatments of covariation in social perception.
Beyond the Lavender Lexicon: Authenticity, Imagination, and Appropriation in Lesbian and Gay Languages. William L. Leap. ed. Luxembourg: Gordon and Breach, 1995. 360 pp.
Word's Out: Gay Men's English. William L. Leap. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996. 181 pp.