Linguistic Research and Queer Identities: Performance and Perception

1. Linguistic Research and Queer Identities:Performance and Perception The past two decades have witnessed a diversity of research aimed at examining the production, perceptions, and interpretations of stylized speech ascribed to the homosexual identity(?). Responses to this research include criticism of methodological approaches as well as the recognition that such linguistic styles may be reflective of socially contextual identities. In this workshop we will examine current scholarship in order to better understand the challenges, implications, and applications of such research. Rather than a lecture, we will work together in order to draw on the knowledge, experiences, and opinions of participants. The objective of this workshop is to raise awareness about linguistic research with this population(?) and identify directions for future study.

2. Linguistic Research and Queer Identities:Performance and Perception • Let’s examine the title – Why did I choose these specific terms and what is implied in the choices? Queer Identity Performance Perception • What do you already know about linguistic research with this specific population? • Think of a specific study, real or hypothetical. What exactly is being researched? • Why is this research important? • Where did this all begin?

3. QUEER • Is there really such a thing as queer identity (or population)? • Why QUEER? • Homosexuality (is that term so easily defined?) • What is a homosexual? How do we as researchers know the sexuality of our participants? • Lesbian? Bisexual? Transgender? Gender Queer? • What is sexuality? • Behavior vs Identity vs Desire (vs Gender vs Sex) • Nature vs Nurture (vs Choice) • Interactions of all of the above? • Is homosexuality an “Identity Category” like ethnicity or gender? • Why or why not? What are the ramifications of your response?

4. IDENTITY Identity • Kulick and Cameron (Language and Sexuality, 2003) argue that “all work on gay and lesbian language, even the most recent, has investigated the relationship between language and sexuality in terms of language and sexual identity…this concept of ‘sexual identity’ by no means exhausts the range of feelings, sensations, knowledges and relations that compose ‘sexuality’. Indeed, an exclusive focus on identity greatly constrains the kinds of questions we can ask about sexuality.. Instead of leading us to inquiry, it compels us to circumscribe it, and to return again and again to predictable (and finally unresolvable) debates about things like whether or not there is such a thing as a ‘gay community’, who is ‘in’ or ‘outside’ that community, and who or what constitutes authentic instantiations of that community. Identity is doubtless one dimension of sexuality. However, limiting an examination of sexuality to ‘sexual identity’ leaves unexamined everything that arguably makes sexuality sexuality; namely, fantasy, repression, pleasure, fear and the unconscious.”

5. IDENTITY or DESIRE? • Kulick’s response…DESIRE! • “By having a clear sense of the limitations of the research on gay and lesbian language, and by pursuing some of its leads and building on some of its insights, future scholarship should be able to move away from the search for the linguistic correlates of contemporary identity categories and turn its attention to the ways in which language is bound up with and conveys desire” (Gay and Lesbian Language, 2000). Ok, more on this later, but first…

6. PERFORMANCE Register/Dialect/Variety – is there a “Gay language”? • Linguistics of Contact (Pratt, 1987) – how language “operates across lines of social differentiation, indexing multiple identities and positions” (in Kulick, 2000). • Does language index sexuality, or does sexuality determine linguistic performance? • Performativity - Livia and Hall (1997), locates gay and lesbian language in the semiotic processes through which it is produced and heard. • Style is “the ongoing construction of identity, built both directly though linguistic (and other) resources, and indirectly through the performance of social acts or activities, and the projection of emotive stances” (Podesva, Roberts, Campbell-Kibler, 2001). • E.g., An attorney changes his linguistic style in a specific social context. • Why? In order to produce a specific performance or simply an unplanned response to context? • Monolithic Styles • Homo-genius speech community (Queen, 1997) • Gay Men’s English (Leap, 1996) • Lesbian Language (Moonwomon, 1995) • Gayspeak (Hayes, 1981)

7. PERCEPTION Do all gay men and women have perceivable accents? • Is perception accurate? • What linguistic features do listeners actually attend to? • Wide pitch range, prosody, frequency, release of final stops, “swoopy” intonation, breathiness, etc. • Numerous studies in the last 20 years (all but one with men): • Levon (2006) – Sociolinguistic perceptions of sexuality; recommends that one voice should be manipulated (various linguistic features) until a listener perceives it to be “gay” rather than gay and straight subjects reading text aloud in order to determine what people listen to when judging sexuality. • Smyth, Jacobs, Rogers (2003) – Various types of text read in polarized performances to examine perceptions of feminine vs. masculine; gay vs. straight sounding; and success of perception by gay and straight listeners; generally successful perception but some caveats. • Renn (2003) – Childhood gender non-conformity (vs. sexual orientation) as successful predictor of gay-sounding speech. • Podesva et al (2001) – Gay vocal sounds may actually index a range of other constructs in addition to homosexuality so difficult to say what gay speech is, especially considering how a gay male can change his performance to suit social context. • Crist (1997) – Duration of onset consonant sounds successful predictor of sexuality in gay male stereotyped speech. • Moonwomon (1997) – LESBIANS! No such thing as lesbian voice! Listeners were unwilling “to acknowledge lesbian presence.” • Gaudio (1994) – Pitch not always an accurate predictor!

8. So, in conclusion… • Fractal recursivity - Polarized extremes are repeated within groups • Isolated readings by self-identified individuals (as straight or gay) for linguistic research are not necessarily representative of the vast variations of homo sexuality. • Inconclusiveness of results; “some gays and lesbians in some circumstances do in fact ‘sound gay’” (Jacobs, 1996). Listeners can in fact successfully recognize stereotypical speech styles. Beyond the stereotype however, we’ve got plenty of nothin’. And we know very little about these issues cross-culturally, across time, across age-groups, with lesbians, with bisexuals, etc. • Still important question & applied cross-disciplines: • The Interacive effect of Homosexual speech and Sexual Orientation on the Stigmatization of Men: Evidence for Expectancy Violation Theory (Gowen & Britt, 2006). • Specific features that are identified may index more than just sexuality; this conclusion then weakens the validity of the research.

9. And what was that about desire? • So what exactly is desire according to Kulick and why is that going to make any difference? • “Shift the ground of inquiry once and for all from identity categories to culturally grounded semiotic practices …desires for recognition, for intimacy, for erotic fulfillment…What are specific to different kinds of people are the precise things they desire and the manner in which particular desires are signaled in culturally codified ways” (Kulick, 2000). • Can one locate desire within the linguistic performances of those who practice specific behaviors? What might this look like? • To conclude, let’s consider Mike Tyson…

10. Gay or Straight?Do we actually know what he desires?Do we actually know his physical sexual behaviors?If you didn’t know who he was, how might the sound of his voice and his physical expression inform your opinion about him?