Week 9 - Language and Sexuality (Essay topic) Flashcards
What is gendered behaviour?
What is gender?
Behaviour independent of biological sex
Socially acquired behaviour
Who spoke about heterosexuality?
When?
Key point
- Cameron and Kullick 2003
Heterosexuality arises from natural attraction between pre-existing opposites
It is a political institution
Who spoke about telephone sex?
When, key points?
Hall 1995
- Study of telephone sex workers
- Serving heterosexual males
- Use language to construct male-orientated story
- Use colour terms, adjectives, different pitches
Who spoke about Japanese hostesses?
When, key points?
Allison 1994
- Gender asymmetry; women expected to converse, men not
- Hostesses flatter males as heterosexuals
- ‘Breast talk’ banter to allow men to relate to each other in non-hierarchal way
Gay/Lesbian Speech
- Gender inappropriate/gender deviant?
- Research shaped by wider exception of homosexuality
- Investigated by Zwicky 1997, do lesbians/women and gays/men talk differently?
Homosexuality timeline from 1920-1990s
1920s - Homosexuality criminal in UK and USA
1950s - Activist struggles, gay scholars
1967 - Decriminalised
1970s - Oppressed minority identity, ‘gayspeak’
1990s - Highlighting diversity within homosexual world, queer movement
What was the language/slang used by homosexuals?
Who, date?
Baker 2002
Polari
- Used by gays and lesbians in London and UK
- Words relating to appearance, body and clothes
- Some words still used eg. drag to describe clothes
What are the so-called characteristics of gay male’s voice?
Who, when?
- Wide pitch range
- Breathiness
- Lengthening of fricatives
- Not all gay men have the voice and not everyone who has the voice is gay
Cameron and Kulick 2003
What changes happened to research?
When?
1990s
- More emphasis on particularising groups within research
- Queer theory
- Local diversity and complexity emphasised
Who had dilemmas with researching gay and lesbian language?
When and key points?
Zwicky 1997
- Circular dilemma
- Not all lesbians/gays will speak the same
- How to choose participants, only ‘out’ gays?
- Great variation in population
- Tempting to choose most obvious gays
- What characteristics should be analysed?
Who spoke about gender as a performance?
When, key points?
Judith Butler 1990
- Gender and sexuality are performed
- Performance related to reiteration of gender norms
- For Man to Female trans, recall refined front to perform femme self
- Inappropriate performances eg. women wearing no makeup, men overly emotional
How are homosexuals portrayed in the media?
Name, date, key points?
- In an acceptable way for heterosexual audiences
- Reinforcing traditional values family, monogamy and stability
- Used to be effeminate, now can be gay and masculine
- Predominantly white, well muscled, attractive and high earning
- Queer, gay and queen used interchangeably
Avila-Saadevra 2009
Who spoke about gay dating ads?
When, key points?
Lesbians: Personality over appearance, characterising type of woman eg. dyke, girly lesbian
Gays: Appearance over personality, ‘visual’ display
Thorne and Coupland 1998
Who spoke about the coming out continuum?
When, key points?
Chirrey 2003
- Coming out = type of speech act
- One end is being direct
- The middle reference to being gay
- The other end being indirect
Reading 1 (Ch….)
Who, when and key points?
Chirrey 2003
- Coming out is a momentous act (Plummer 1995)
- Investigates coming out as performative act
- New facet of identity disclosed
