Liz Morrish

Queering the Discourse of Diversity

In this article, we use corpus linguistic methods to examine why lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) subjects are poorly recognized within diversity statements of U.K. and U.S. research universities. While universities position diversity as a marketable signifier, we argue that queerness is rendered invisible, lest its manifestation bring universities into disrepute. “Sexual orientation” appears as a “private” or “lifestyle” choice,” and universities do not see it as part of their mission to enable students or employees to realize difference. We wish to propose that the language used in diversity statements should acknowledge notions of real inclusion and empowerment of those queers who work within them.

‘Business-facing motors for economic development’: an appraisal analysis of visions and values in the marketised UK university

Universities in 2011 find that they must justify their existence in economic terms, not intellectual ones. To this end, mission statements locate the university in an environment of increasing competitiveness and commodification. In this paper, we take a sample of 10 mission statements from the UK research-intensive Russell Group and the business-focused University Alliance. We use appraisal analysis to explore how the evaluative language used in the statement embodies the value of the universities. In the statements examined, we find that differences between the mission groups are realised most notably through appraisal markers of judgement and appreciation. We find a greater emphasis on markers of value in the University Alliance statements. We suggest that these newer universities are required to discursively echo the governments call for universities to ‘add value’ to graduates. The Russell Group, encoding greater use of markers of appreciation: reaction, is perhaps more influenced by the call to demonstrate ‘impact’.

A Feminist's Response to the Technologization of Discourse in British Universities

Norman Fairclough has coined the term ‘technologization of discourse’. This he defines as the ‘calculated intervention to shift discursive practices as part of the engineering of social change’. This process can be seen at work in British universities in the late 1990s. This article was conceived out of a need to critique, from a feminist perspective, managerialism and the damaging discourse it has radiated in British universities. It explores some of the consequences of the corporatization of the universities, and the effect of emerging hegemonic discourse on the subjectivity of academic professionals. Possibilities for resistance are also discussed. An understanding of feminist theory brings with it an invitation to critique the everyday practice of institutions and their power. Feminist theory has also provided a model for coalition-building with other marginalized figures in the academy. It reminds us that we must all adopt strategies of resistance by confounding the rhetorical privileging of exclusionary language, and of reworking the meanings of language used to oppress.

Discourse and Identity in a Corpus of Lesbian Erotica

This article uses corpus linguistic methodologies to explore representations of lesbian desires and identities in a corpus of lesbian erotica from the 1980s and 1990s. We provide a critical examination of the ways in which “lesbian gender,” power, and desire are represented, (re-)produced, and enacted, often in ways that challenge hegemonic discourses of gender and sexuality. By examining word frequencies and collocations, we critically analyze some of the themes, processes, and patterns of representation in the texts. Although rooted in linguistics, we hope this article provides an accessible, interdisciplinary, and timely contribution toward developing understandings of discursive practices surrounding gender and sexuality.

Analysing Evaluation in Coming Out Narratives

The experience of coming out is often experienced and perceived as a life-changing event of major significance by those identifying as lesbian, gay and bisexual.1 When speakers or writers produce discourse which functions to reflect on life-changing experiences, linguistic markers of evaluation tend to be very dense throughout the text. This chapter identifies and classifies some of the linguistic markers of evaluation in an electronic corpus of coming out narratives. This relates to one of the wider concerns of this book which focuses upon exploring the uses of linguistic tools and methodologies within the study of language and sexual identity. Examining evaluation markers can help us to identify the narrators’ attitudes and feelings towards the event they are reflecting upon. Linguistic evaluation markers can also be used to indicate social and political ideologies present in the discourse produced by the narrator. Analysis of coming out narratives shows how speakers/writers engage in constructing a social identity rather than simply reflecting on their experiences of sexual desire. Thus, we continue to develop and support our argument that social relationships and contexts of interaction play a crucial role in the discovery and construction of sexuality.

The Language of Shame, Risk and Concealment

This volume is an investigation of the relationship between language and sexual identity. In the two previous chapters we have explored the construction of sexual identity through conversation and through narrative. In this chapter we pursue a philosophical enquiry into how, discursively, an individual may establish that identity, rationalise it to themselves, contest it and sometimes even retreat from it. We start with the proposal from Althusser (1971) that individuals are interpellated by ideology, and indirectly by discourse — our subjectivity is constituted when we recognise ourselves in a discourse. The corollary of this is that we are socially constituted subjects, and our intelligibility depends on having others around us who recognise our being in discourse as well. In this way, our subjectivity becomes legitimate within the society in which we are located. This may be read as a depressing truth by the lesbian or gay subject, in the knowledge that there will be some individuals who exist outside of prevailing norms and discourses, who may have a resistant stance towards prevailing ideologies of gender or sexuality. Butler predicts that there will be limits to one’s agency in establishing identity and ponders this conundrum in her 2004 work Undoing Gender, ‘As a result, the ‘I’ that I am finds itself at once constituted by norms and dependent on them but also endeavours to live in ways that maintain a critical and transformative relation to them’ (Butler, 2004:3). This chapter uncovers some of the paradoxes and contradictions that establishing the ‘I’ demands.

Sexual Identity and Gender: Discursive Constructions of ‘Butch’ and ‘Femme’ in Film

This chapter continues our examination of representations of sexuality in media discourse. In this chapter, we examine how butch-femme identities and relationships, as particular forms of lesbian identities and relationships, are represented and constructed in fictional film texts. In particular, we focus on the role that language plays in this process of representation and identity construction. The findings presented in this chapter share much in common with those presented in the preceding one. Specifically, the deployment of resources associated with gender and power to create erotic and socially powerful effects are evident in both the corpus of lesbian erotica and in the film texts to be presented here.

Camp Codes and Subtle Outing: How the British Broadsheet Press Learned Gay Slang

As stated in the Introduction to this book, language and sexual identity is not merely the provenance of language usage by LGBTQ identified people. This area of enquiry must also address itself to the question of how this constituency is represented in discourse. This chapter takes as its focus the portrayal of two male British politicians who have been depicted in the press as gay. Their treatment, and how they are perceived, has repercussions for our understanding of homophobia, notions of a gay ‘code’, and the issue of intentionality in discourse about sexual identity.

Examining Lesbian Conversations as Discourses of Identity and Resistance

As outlined in the Introduction, throughout this book, we pay particular attention to a specific method of linguistic analysis in each chapter in addition to discussing the principal theme of language and sexual identity — in this chapter, the method in question is functional discourse analysis as a means of exploring conversational structure. We also draw on Bucholtz and Hall’s (2004) tactics of intersubjectivity framework, which was outlined in the Introduction, when considering the content of the conversational data. As with all chapters, this one is broadly situated within a community of practice approach which is used to account for how social identities can be temporarily constructed and unified in relation to social context. We wish to illustrate here how the deployment and function of discourse strategies can change depending on which aspects of their identities the speakers wish to foreground in any given context.