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The formula "gender ideology" has recently gained political traction in several countries. This chapter investigates its conspiracist discursive infrastructure by probing two corpora of far-right media from Brazil and the US. Analysis... more
The formula "gender ideology" has recently gained political traction in several countries. This chapter investigates its conspiracist discursive infrastructure by probing two corpora of far-right media from Brazil and the US. Analysis indicates that "gender ideology" is framed within semantic realms of manipulation, puppeteering, falseness, and danger. It also suggests that anti-gender rhetoric acts as an all-encompassing narrative whereby a cohort of inchoate but ideologically interlinked conspiracy theories are lumped together in a seemingly coherent whole. Comparing datasets from two countries empirically illustrates how anti-gender rhetoric crosses transnational borders and adapts to local specifics along the way.
Mobilizations against gender equality and sexual diversity have gained political traction globally despite their hyperbolic modes of action and conspiracist rhetoric. These anti-gender campaigns rally around “gender ideology,” a trope... more
Mobilizations against gender equality and sexual diversity have gained political traction globally despite their hyperbolic modes of action and conspiracist rhetoric. These anti-gender campaigns rally around “gender ideology,” a trope used to anathemize feminist and LGBTIQ+ activism/scholarship. This paper argues that anti-genderism is a register – a conventionalized aggregate of expressive forms and enactable person-types – of which “gender ideology” is the most famous shibboleth. The paper shows how inchoate collections of words, modes of action, and images of people (i.e. signs) have been enregistered into the cohesive but heterogeneous whole of anti-genderism through semiotic processes of clasping, relaying, and grafting (Gal, 2018; 2019). The paper offers a sociolinguistic analysis of anti-genderism to understand the challenges it poses to the enfranchisement of women, queer, trans, and nonbinary people.
This article analyses linguistic guerrilla wars being waged over the issue of gender in contemporary Brazil. It focuses on two phenomena: on the one hand, Dilma Rousseff’s use of the title presidenta, a strategy that feminizes a word and... more
This article analyses linguistic guerrilla wars being waged over the issue of gender in contemporary Brazil. It focuses on two phenomena: on the one hand, Dilma Rousseff’s use of the title presidenta, a strategy that feminizes a word and a political office that have historically been masculine; and on the other hand, the use of the letter x as a neutral gender ending, a strategy that breaks with the cisheteropatriarchal, binary grammatical system of the Portuguese language and that has become visible in the public space over recent years. In the case of Brazil, these phenomena allow us to see how the ‘x da questaõ’ or ‘the [cru]x of the matter’, is no more than the construction of moral panic over the political potency of the concept of gender.
The aim of this article is to unveil how cisnormativity is institutionalised in a Brazilian gender clinic, creating an emotionally charged local regime of doctor/ patient interactions. Our interest is not only in illustrating how the... more
The aim of this article is to unveil how cisnormativity is institutionalised in a Brazilian gender clinic, creating an emotionally charged local regime of doctor/ patient interactions. Our interest is not only in illustrating how the clinic’s institutionalised normatitivies about transbodies are the result of the crystallisation of particular transnational medical discourses, but also in showing how such a normative framework creates specific conditions for trans people’s acts of resistance. In order to capture this dual perspective on norms and resistance to them, we draw upon three important but somewhat neglected perspectives in sociolinguistic and discourse analytical research, which may bring some fresh insights to the study of language and discrimination more broadly: Hannah Arendt’s (1994) reflections on the ‘banality of evil’; Michel de Certeau’s (1984) ideas about the no less banal ways in which social actors speak back to power via a plethora of ‘tactics of resistance’; an...
A partir de um estudo etnografico realizado entre 2003 e 2004 em uma comunidade de travestis que se prostituem em uma regiao urbana do Rio Grande do Sul, o presente artigo  traz  a  baila  uma  discussao  sobre  a  identidade  travesti.... more
A partir de um estudo etnografico realizado entre 2003 e 2004 em uma comunidade de travestis que se prostituem em uma regiao urbana do Rio Grande do Sul, o presente artigo  traz  a  baila  uma  discussao  sobre  a  identidade  travesti.  Mais  precisamente, analisa-se a construcao discursiva da transmasculinidade, ou seja, a “masculinidade” travesti. Essa “masculinidade” especifica e o efeito de posicionamentos interacionais adotados  em  narrativas  orais  contadas  pelas  informantes  nas  quais  caracteristicas ideologicamente  tidas  como  femininas  e  masculinas  sao  sobrepostas  e,  assim,  as travestis posicionam-se nas fronteiras dos generos. Para essa discussao, duas narrativas sobre  violencia  e  sobre  sexualidade  sao  analisadas  sob  o  prisma  da  teoria  da performatividade para demonstrar o carater fragmentado, fluido e sempre em devir da travestilidade.
This thirty-year retrospective on language, gender and sexuality research, launched in anticipation of the thirtieth anniversary of the 1992 Berkeley Women and Language Conference, showcases essays by luminaries who presented papers at... more
This thirty-year retrospective on language, gender and sexuality research, launched in anticipation of the thirtieth anniversary of the 1992 Berkeley Women and Language Conference, showcases essays by luminaries who presented papers at the conference as well as allied scholars who have taken the field in new directions. Revitalising a tradition set out by the First Berkeley Women and Language Conference in 1985, the four biennial Berkeley conferences held in the 1990s led to the establishment of the International Gender and Language Association and subsequently of the journal Gender and Language, contributing to the field’s institutionalisation and its current panglobal character. Retrospective essays addressing the themes of Politics, Practice, Intersectionality and Place will be published across four issues of the journal in 2021. In this third issue on the theme of intersectionality, Mel Y. Chen revisits the melancholy they experienced in their training as a linguist pursuing tra...
Bamberg, Michael; Anna De Fina; & Deborah Schiffrin (2007). Selves and identities in narrative and discourse. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Baynham, Mike (2015). Identity brought about or brought along? Narrative as a privileged site for... more
Bamberg, Michael; Anna De Fina; & Deborah Schiffrin (2007). Selves and identities in narrative and discourse. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Baynham, Mike (2015). Identity brought about or brought along? Narrative as a privileged site for researching intercultural identities. In Karen Risager & Fred Dervin (eds.), Researching identity and interculturality, 67–88. London: Routledge. ———, & Anna De Fina (2005). Dislocations/relocations: Narratives of displacement. London: Routledge. De Fina, Anna, & Alexandra Georgakopoulou (2012). Analyzing narrative: Discourse and sociolinguistic perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kendi, Ibram X. (2016). Stamped from the beginning: The definitive history of racist ideas in America. New York: Nation Books.
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Drawing on multimodal analysis of graffiti in male public restrooms at the Faculdade de Letras of the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, this paper investigates how notions of place and gendered/sexualized subjects are discursively... more
Drawing on multimodal analysis of graffiti in male public restrooms at the Faculdade de Letras of the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, this paper investigates how notions of place and gendered/sexualized subjects are discursively (re)constructed in interactions with the materiality and historicity of the public realm. The analysis focuses on the indexicalities of public signage and the ways they (in)form understandings of and access to certain spaces. By investigating the fragmented history of entextualizations of these toilet graffiti as well as the indexicalities of their lexical, graphic, and co(n)textual aspects, we argue that places can be queered since they are semiotically constructed and discursively performed. The paper illustrates how static assumptions about place, gender, and sexuality can be disrupted and ressignified which highlights the pornoheterotopic character of these public restrooms in which semiotic processes that (de)regulate gender and sexual dissidenc...
It is within this wider debate that conflates gender with far-right resentment that this issue of Anglistica AION pursues its aims. The contributions all contend a common denominator: the need to remain vigilant and steadfast when dealing... more
It is within this wider debate that conflates gender with far-right resentment that this issue of Anglistica AION pursues its aims. The contributions all contend a common denominator: the need to remain vigilant and steadfast when dealing with the far-right crusade against gender equality. In all the case studies in this issue, the essence of far-right resistance is embodied by a political agenda that aims to preserve heterocisnormative family ethics, traditional gender values, and the naturalised hierarchies of the conventional roles of men and women. It is against this background that the scholars whose work makes up this edited publication have approached the far-right centrality of gendered arguments and gendered policies. Through various well-established approaches in sociolinguistics (such as Corpus Linguistics, Critical Discourse Analysis, Linguistic Anthropology to name but a few), each contribution analyses the importance of gender within far-right rhetoric, yielding subject matter that is both insightful and original.
Jair Bolsonaro, the unapologetically homophobic and ultraconservative Brazilian president, managed to emerge from the margins of the political system and gained electoral momentum during the impeachment hearing against Dilma Rousseff in... more
Jair Bolsonaro, the unapologetically homophobic and
ultraconservative Brazilian president, managed to emerge from
the margins of the political system and gained electoral
momentum during the impeachment hearing against Dilma
Rousseff in 2016. The hearing, which ultimately demoted the first
female president of the country, epitomizes the current affective
polarization of Brazil in which sexual dissidence plays an
important role. This paper discusses the politics of discourse,
affect and sexuality which has drawn Bolsonaro and his far-right
ideologies into greater political relief. To do so, I will focus on the
scene in which Jean Wyllys, a human rights activist and the only
openly gay congressmember at the time, spat on Bolsonaro.
Wyllys’ misdemeanor caused a commotion in the country and was
recontextualized in several venues such as memes, social media,
op-eds, YouTube parodies etc. This paper investigates the intense
circulation of Wyllys’ actions and how it responds to and takes
issue with the larger affective scenario of the country. I analyze
the socio-semiotic life of Wyllys’ spit by tracking its textual
trajectory with a view to discussing the performativity of disgust
and the forging of political (in)sensibilities with regards to gender
and sexuality in contemporary Brazil.
This study investigates Southern Brazilian travestis' manipulation of gender identity through the manipulation of the Portuguese grammatical gender system. We argue that the embodiment of feminine features onto biologically male... more
This study investigates Southern Brazilian travestis' manipulation of gender identity through the manipulation of the Portuguese grammatical gender system. We argue that the embodiment of feminine features onto biologically male bodies enables travestis to wander through various ideologies about masculinity and femininity and incorporate these ideologies in their linguistic construction of identity. Travestis use masculine forms to refer to themselves or other travestis when: (1) producing narratives about the time before their body transformations took place; (2) reporting speech produced by others when talking about travestis; (3) talking about themselves within their family relationships; and, perhaps the most unveiling category, (4) distinguishing themselves from 'other' travestis they do not identify with – a face-saving strategy. Thus, the study shows how southern Brazilian travestis use the grammatical gender system in Portuguese as a linguistic resource to manipu...
This study investigates Southern Brazilian travestis' manipulation of gender identity through the manipulation of the Portuguese grammatical gender system. We argue that the embodiment of feminine features onto biologically male... more
This study investigates Southern Brazilian travestis' manipulation of gender identity through the manipulation of the Portuguese grammatical gender system. We argue that the embodiment of feminine features onto biologically male bodies enables travestis to wander through various ideologies about masculinity and femininity and incorporate these ideologies in their linguistic construction of identity. Travestis use masculine forms to refer to themselves or other travestis when: (1) producing narratives about the time before their body transformations took place; (2) reporting speech produced by others when talking about travestis; (3) talking about themselves within their family relationships; and, perhaps the most unveiling category, (4) distinguishing themselves from 'other' travestis they do not identify with – a face-saving strategy. Thus, the study shows how southern Brazilian travestis use the grammatical gender system in Portuguese as a linguistic resource to manipu...
Published ahead of print in Global Discourse. See link below for full paper:

https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bup/gd/pre-prints/content-rgld20210037
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This editorial introduces issue 15(1) of the journal Gender and Language by reflecting on the theorization of power in language, gender, and sexuality research over the last thirty years. Drawing on the recent work of Argentine... more
This editorial introduces issue 15(1) of the journal Gender and Language by reflecting on the theorization of power in language, gender, and sexuality research over the last thirty years. Drawing on the recent work of Argentine theoretician and activist Verónica Gago, the editorial calls for more attention to the role of feminist "potencia" in challenging the interrelated practices of misogyny, homophobia, and transphobia. The issue features papers by Joyhanna Yoo Garza on gender and racialized appropriations in K-pop, Stephen Turton on deadnaming practices at Urban Dictionary, and Maeve Eberhardt on “raucous feminisms" in Broad City. The issue also includes the first installment of its "Thirty-year Retrospective on Language, Gender and Sexuality Research,” with essays by Robin Tolmach Lakoff, Susan Gal, Alice F. Freed, Sally McConnell-Ginet, and Norma Mendoza-Denton. In addition, Amy Kyratzis pays homage to the groundbreaking work of Susan Ervin-Tripp (1927-2018).
Brazilian democracy moves like a pendulum: from time to time its limits are expanded or retracted (Avritzer 2019). After a virulent dictatorial period, re-democratization was strengthened in the first decade of the 21 st century. Public... more
Brazilian democracy moves like a pendulum: from time to time its limits are expanded or retracted (Avritzer 2019). After a virulent dictatorial period, re-democratization was strengthened in the first decade of the 21 st century. Public policies for the enfranchisement of the LGBT+ population were particularly important in this process. The rise of bolsonarism has been pushing the democratic pendulum back to its extreme opposite. This, however, does not go unchallenged. Against this backdrop, we analyze the online circulation of a poster for a lecture about a "transgender epidemic", which was due to take place the Legislative Assembly of Porto Alegre in March 2020. Such textual disputes may help us reconceptualize the current state of Brazilian democracy as a friction between distinct scalar projects (Carr and Lempert, 2016). The textual trajectories we analyze suggest that the back and forth movement of democracy is not linear as Avritzer (2019) seems to assume. The illiberal retraction of recent years coexists with values forged in periods of democratic expansion, which explains the fact that the lecture was canceled due to online protests. Such resistance suggests that de-democratizing scalar projects are neither homogeneous nor totalizing, which allows new political collectivities to contest attempts to disenfranchise them.
Este artigo apresenta o conceito de falantxs transviadxs, que oferece possibilidades analíticas para entendermos como pessoas em suas práticas locais negociam sentidos para quem são vis-à-vis normas que limitam o que podem/devem fazer e... more
Este artigo apresenta o conceito de falantxs transviadxs, que oferece possibilidades analíticas para entendermos como pessoas em suas práticas locais negociam sentidos para quem são vis-à-vis normas que limitam o que podem/devem fazer e como podem/devem falar/escrever, circunscrevendo as fronteiras entre o normal/ideal e o abjeto/monstruoso. O artigo propõe uma perspectiva analítica queer guiada pelos conceitos de indexicalidade e corporificação. Revisito dados gerados em uma pesquisa etnográfica sobre prevenção de infecções sexualmente transmissíveis entre travestis com o intuito de entender como performances transviadas (i.e. aquelas que reviram e misturam múltiplos repertórios linguísticos e bagunçam regimes de ordenação do comportamento generificado) emergem e a que propósitos servem localmente.
This editorial introduces the 14(4) issue of Gender and Language with a reflection on crisis, refusal, collective action, and hope in the time of COVID-19, focusing on challenges faced by women as well as queer, transgender, and nonbinary... more
This editorial introduces the 14(4) issue of Gender and Language with a reflection on crisis, refusal, collective action, and hope in the time of COVID-19, focusing on challenges faced by women as well as queer, transgender, and nonbinary people of all genders.  Defining hope as the affective infrastructure of refusal, the discussion describes how collective action surrounding a series of sexual assault cases at the National University of Singapore led to substantive policy changes. The issue features articles by Adrienne Ronee Washington, Hadar Netz & Ron Kuzar, Eliana Regina Crestani Tortola & Larissa Michelle Lara, and Jeremy Calder.
Jair Bolsonaro, the unapologetically homophobic and ultraconservative Brazilian president, managed to emerge from the margins of the political system and gained electoral momentum during the impeachment hearing against Dilma Rousseff in... more
Jair Bolsonaro, the unapologetically homophobic and ultraconservative Brazilian president, managed to emerge from the margins of the political system and gained electoral momentum during the impeachment hearing against Dilma Rousseff in 2016. The hearing, which ultimately demoted the first female president of the country, epitomizes the current affective polarization of Brazil in which sexual dissidence plays an important role. This paper discusses the politics of discourse, affect and sexuality which has drawn Bolsonaro and his far-right ideologies into greater political relief. To do so, I will focus on the scene in which Jean Wyllys, a human rights activist and the only openly gay congressmember at the time, spat on Bolsonaro. Wyllys’ misdemeanor caused a commotion in the country and was recontextualized in several venues such as memes, social media, op-eds, YouTube parodies etc. This paper investigates the intense circulation of Wyllys’ actions and how it responds to and takes issue with the larger affective scenario of the country. I analyze the socio-semiotic life of Wyllys’ spit by tracking its textual trajectory with a view to discussing the performativity of disgust and the forging of political (in)sensibilities with regards to gender and sexuality in contemporary Brazil.
This paper investigates the linguistic landscape of "Little Africa" in Rio de Janeiro. A crucible of African culture and a reminder of Rio's vitriolic colonial past, the area is located near Porto Maravilha, the remodelled Olympic... more
This paper investigates the linguistic landscape of "Little Africa" in Rio de Janeiro. A crucible of African culture and a reminder of Rio's vitriolic colonial past, the area is located near Porto Maravilha, the remodelled Olympic neighbourhood. We probe the official and non-official linguistic landscape of this space in order to investigate memorialisation practices. While the official linguistic landscape forges regimes of forgetfulness that attempt to down-scale (erase even!) the horrors of colonialism and its racist modern tentacles, unofficial signage (i.e. graffiti and other grassroots semiotic aggregates) mobilise politics of remembrance which pays homage to enslaved Africans, their important role in the city's history and contemporary forms of resistance.
This essay, authored by the co-editors of the journal Gender and Language for their 2020 debut issue 14.1, analyzes the transnational uptake of the Chilean feminist protest "Un violator en tu camino" ('A Rapist In Your Path') as a... more
This essay, authored by the co-editors of the journal Gender and Language for their 2020 debut issue 14.1, analyzes the transnational uptake of the Chilean feminist protest "Un violator en tu camino" ('A Rapist In Your Path') as a response to neo-nationalist discourses framing "gender" as the enemy. Introducing articles by Deborah Chirrey, Deyanira Rojas-Sosa, Grace Diabah, and Emma Putland, the essay considers how research on language, gender, and sexuality continues to matter in our current age of mediatized 21st century politics.
This chapter explores the silence dimension of aloneness in the early stages of the lifespan and in relation to the social dimension of sexuality – it specifically examines the silences experienced by young people in school in relation to... more
This chapter explores the silence dimension of aloneness in the early stages of the lifespan and in relation to the social dimension of sexuality – it specifically examines the silences experienced by young people in school in relation to sexuality. The discussion draws on our research experience at UK and Brazilian schools and thus provides a transnational perspective. Both in the UK and Brazil, frictions between acknowledging sexual diversity in schools and its silencing in policymaking and public discourses constitute a fertile ground for critical scrutiny. This chapter provides an overview of research from the disciplines of linguistics and discourse analysis which has explored silence in relation to sexuality identities and considers how these disciplinary insights have helped to develop a broader understanding of how silence functions in relation to identity. In particular, the chapter pays close attention to how silence around non-normative sexuality identities is enforced in school contexts.
The field of language and gender is methodologically diverse, encompassing approaches that include conversation analysis, corpus linguistics, critical discourse analysis, discursive psychology, linguistic anthropology, and variationist... more
The field of language and gender is methodologically diverse, encompassing approaches that include conversation analysis, corpus linguistics, critical discourse analysis, discursive psychology, linguistic anthropology, and variationist sociolinguistics. Within this diversity, ethnography has long been a key method for interrogating the social semiotic complexities of gender, securing the field's close partnership with linguistic anthropology. This historical review outlines the prominent role played by linguistic anthropology in the theorization of gender by highlighting its enduring methodological and conceptual contributions, while also outlining the ways that interdisciplinary scholarship in language and gender has shaped the course of linguistic anthropology.
Mais do que descrever como pessoas LGBT falam ou escrevem, a Linguística Queer investiga o papel da linguagem em conferir ou retirar legitimidade a múltiplas formas de vivenciar a sexualidade. A ser publicada em 2020 pela editora Cortez,... more
Mais do que descrever como pessoas LGBT falam ou escrevem, a Linguística Queer investiga o papel da linguagem em conferir ou retirar legitimidade a múltiplas formas de vivenciar a sexualidade. A ser publicada em 2020 pela editora Cortez, esta coletânea congrega pesquisadores que têm questionado certos pressupostos dos estudos da linguagem através de práticas teórico-metodológicas inovadoras cujo objetivo é entender dinâmicas de reiteração e contestação de normas excludentes e hierarquizantes. Os capítulos mostram que o estudo de práticas linguísticas a partir de uma perspectiva queer traz ganhos (epistemológicos, metodológicos e políticos) para diversas áreas tais como a sociolinguística, a linguística aplicada, a linguística textual, a análise da conversa, a análise crítica do discurso, a morfologia entre outras. Tais ganhos podem nos ajudar a repensar o lugar do linguístico no social (e do social no linguístico) e produzir pesquisas politicamente responsivas às demandas de um mundo que ainda precisa aprender a lidar com a diferença.
Published on the International Gender and Language Association Blog, this essay analyzes the transnational uptake of the Chilean feminist protest "Un violator en tu camino" ('A Rapist In Your Path') as a response to neo-nationalist... more
Published on the International Gender and Language Association Blog, this essay analyzes the transnational uptake of the Chilean feminist protest "Un violator en tu camino" ('A Rapist In Your Path') as a response to neo-nationalist discourses framing "gender" as the enemy. Authored by the new co-editors of the journal Gender and Language, the essay considers how research on language, gender, and sexuality continues to matter in our current age of mediatized 21st century politics. A fuller version of the essay was published in Gender and Language 14.1 (2020) under the title "Feminist Refusal Meets Enmity."
This paper analyses the role language and gender have played in the construction of animosity among various constituencies during a political crisis in Brazil. To do so, it investigates a language ideological debate about the innovative... more
This paper analyses the role language and gender have played in the construction of animosity among various constituencies during a political crisis in Brazil. To do so, it investigates a language ideological debate about the innovative use of the letter X as a gender morpheme-an inclusive alternative against Portuguese binary grammatical gender system. The data include op-eds, blog posts, news articles and in-depth semi-structured interviews with stakehold-ers in the debate. The analyses track the emergence of competing metadiscur-sive and metapragmatic regimes about grammar, gender and politics. On a macro-sociological level, this language ideological work helps shape politics of enmity which characterise the current state of democracy in Brazil and elsewhere. However, it also points to the emergence of situated counterdiscourses of solidarity which help individuals face an otherwise debilitating social context.
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Drawing on multimodal analysis of graffiti in male public restrooms at the Faculdade de Letras of the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, this paper investigates how notions of place and gendered/sexualized subjects are discursively... more
Drawing on multimodal analysis of graffiti in male public restrooms at the Faculdade de Letras of the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, this paper investigates how notions of place and gendered/sexualized subjects are discursively (re)constructed in interactions with the materiality and his-toricity of the public realm. The analysis focuses on the indexicalities of public signage and the ways they (in)form understandings of and access to certain spaces. By investigating the fragmented history of entextualizations of these toilet graffiti as well as the indexicalities of their lexical, graphic, and co(n)textual aspects, we argue that places can be queered since they are semiotically constructed and discursively performed. The paper illustrates how static assumptions about place, gender, and sexuality can be disrupted and ressignified which highlights the pornoheterotopic character of these public restrooms in which semiotic processes that (de)regulate gender and sexual dissidence are emplaced.
This paper investigates the geopolitical dynamics of hate and hope during the 2016 impeachment process against Dilma Rousseff, the first female president of Brazil. To do so, it engages with recent theoretical and analytical developments... more
This paper investigates the geopolitical dynamics of hate and hope during the 2016 impeachment process against Dilma Rousseff, the first female president of Brazil. To do so, it engages with recent theoretical and analytical developments in the fields of linguistic landscapes (i.e. the view of public signage as performatively constitutive of certain understandings of place and its relation with people and vice-versa), citizenship studies (i.e. the recognition that citizenship is not simply a quasi-abstract legal status but involves situated social, political and symbolic acts through which individuals are locally made into citizens), and queer studies (i.e. the analytical tenet of attending to the role of affect in people’s construction of themselves as political beings). The analysis of an archive of images from demonstrations for and against Ms. Rousseff’s demotion unpacks the semiotic politics of affect during the impeachment process and points to the reconfiguration of political and affective regimes in contemporary Brazil. In this scenario, I argue that attending to public signage in times of political turmoil offers an analytical avenue to unearth how individuals semiotically disrupt oppressive social orders by reclaiming place, reimagining selves and others, reconfiguring the present, and redesigning futures.
Can the transsexual subject speak in their own terms? This is the question this article addresses. Grounded on a Foucauldian genealogical approach to discourse analysis and on Goffmanian-inspired interactional analysis, it investigates... more
Can the transsexual subject speak in their own terms? This is the question this article addresses. Grounded on a Foucauldian genealogical approach to discourse analysis and on Goffmanian-inspired interactional analysis, it investigates how knowledge systems that pathologise transsexuality as a mental disorder get gradually embodied (and spoken) in consultations at a Brazilian gender identity clinic. The analysis follows the interactional history a trans woman had with the clinic’s psychologist and traces the intertextual links that connect various consultations in time. This series of encounters constitutes a socialisation trajectory
during which the trans client is led to speak a language that is not hers in order to frame an identity performance within the diagnostic criteria for the identification of “true transsexuals”. The article, thus, contributes to three areas
for the study of transgender and language: (1) it investigates how transsexual people are led to speak a language that is not their own (the problems of agency
and trans-autonomy); (2) it points to the centrality of studying how others speak to transsexual people – a gap identified by Don Kulick but which remains underinvestigated; and (3) it highlights the importance of language use for the design of trans-positive and trans-affirmative healthcare practices.
Sex work has long been of interest to a variety of fields, among them anthropology, sociology, public health, and feminist theory, to name but a few. However, with very few exceptions, sociolinguistics seems to have ignored the fact that... more
Sex work has long been of interest to a variety of fields, among them anthropology, sociology, public health, and feminist theory, to name but a few. However, with very few exceptions, sociolinguistics seems to have ignored the fact that commercial sex, as an intersubjective business transaction, is primarily negotiated in embodied linguistic interaction. By reviewing publications in distinct social scientific areas that directly or
indirectly discuss the role of language in the sex industry, this chapter critically assesses the analytical affordances and methodological challenges for a sociolinguistics of sex work. It does so by discussing the “tricks” played by sex work, as a power-infused context of language use in which issues of agency (or lack thereof) are paramount, on sociolinguistic theory and methods. The chapter concludes that the study of language in commercial sex venues is sociolinguistically promising and epistemologically timely.

Keywords: sex work, sociolinguistics, language, embodiment, power, agency, linguistic interaction
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Paper Presented at the 9th International Language and Gender Association - IGALA 9. City University of Hong Kong, May 2016.
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Sumário do livro Discursos transviados: por uma linguística queer a ser lançado pela Editora Cortez em 2020.
Mais do que descrever como pessoas LGBT falam ou escrevem, a Linguística Queer investiga o papel da linguagem em conferir ou retirar legitimidade a múltiplas formas de vivenciar a sexualidade. Com previsão de lanamento em setembro de 2020... more
Mais do que descrever como pessoas LGBT falam ou escrevem, a Linguística Queer investiga o papel da linguagem em conferir ou retirar legitimidade a múltiplas formas de vivenciar a sexualidade. Com previsão de lanamento em setembro de 2020 pela editora Cortez, esta coletânea congrega pesquisadores que têm questionado certos pressupostos dos estudos da linguagem através de práticas teórico-metodológicas inovadoras cujo objetivo é entender dinâmicas de reiteração e contestação de normas excludentes e hierarquizantes. Os capítulos mostram que o estudo de práticas linguísticas a partir de uma perspectiva queer traz ganhos (epistemológicos, metodológicos e políticos) para diversas áreas tais como a sociolinguística, a linguística aplicada, a linguística textual, a análise da conversa, a análise crítica do discurso, a morfologia entre outras. Tais ganhos podem nos ajudar a repensar o lugar do linguístico no social (e do social no linguístico) e produzir pesquisas politicamente responsivas às demandas de um mundo que ainda precisa aprender a lidar com a diferença.
Provas de leitura e revisão (miolo) do livro publicado em 2016 pela Fiocruz. Relate resultados de pesquisa etnográfica sobre o processo transexualizador do SUS. A atenção recai em como se dá o atendimento clínico a pessoas transexuais via... more
Provas de leitura e revisão (miolo) do livro publicado em 2016 pela Fiocruz. Relate resultados de pesquisa etnográfica sobre o processo transexualizador do SUS. A atenção recai em como se dá o atendimento clínico a pessoas transexuais via uma perspectiva interdisciplinar de estudos da interação.
Queering Paradigms IVa: Insurgências queer ao Sul do equador, junto com o volume Queering Paradigms IV: South-North Dialogues on Queer Epistemologies, Embodiments and Activisms (Lewis et al. 2014), divulga de forma multilíngue pesquisas... more
Queering Paradigms IVa: Insurgências queer ao Sul do equador, junto com o volume Queering Paradigms IV: South-North Dialogues on Queer Epistemologies, Embodiments and Activisms (Lewis et al. 2014), divulga de forma multilíngue pesquisas apresentadas no 4° Congresso Internacional Queering Paradigms (QP4), sediado no Rio de Janeiro, Brasil. Ambos os volumes compartilham o objetivo de analisar o status quo e os desafios para o futuro dos Estudos Queer a partir de uma perspectiva inter/multidisciplinar, concentrando-se sobre as relações entre os eixos Sul-Norte. O presente livro oferece capítulos escritos em português e espanhol, línguas subalternas na academia global, visando a privilegiar vozes e conhecimentos do Sul. Os trabalhos reunidos neste volume insurgem contra a colonização epistemológica dos corpos que habitam o Sul global e apontam para os problemas que surgem quando a(s) Teoria(s) Queer do Norte são aplicadas sem adaptação a outros contextos. Além de violências epistemológicas, a falta de atenção ao que acontece ao sul do equador pode levar a uma paralização do debate queer. O convite que esses capítulos fazem é um desafio a olhar para onde não se costuma olhar e ouvir as vozes que não se costuma ouvir, de forma a devolver ao queer seu potencial de contestação. Q u e e r i n g P a r a d i g m s i va ISBN 978-1-78707-192-6
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Cet article vise à analyser le contexte de guérilla linguistique autour du genre dans le Brésil contemporain. Deux phénomènes nous intéressent : d’une part, l’utilisation du titre de presidenta par Dilma Rousseff, une stratégie de... more
Cet article vise à analyser le contexte de guérilla linguistique autour du genre dans le Brésil contemporain. Deux phénomènes nous intéressent : d’une part, l’utilisation du titre de presidenta par Dilma Rousseff, une stratégie de féminisation d’un terme et d’une position politique historiquement masculine ; puis l’utilisation de la lettre x comme terminaison de genre neutre, une stratégie de rupture du système linguistique hétérocispatriarcal et binaire du portugais qui est devenu visible dans l’espace public ces dernières années. Ces phénomènes nous permettent d’entrevoir que « le x de la question », dans le cas du Brésil, n’est que l’expression d’une panique morale vis-à-vis de la puissance politique du concept de genre.
This second issue of the 2021 four-part Theme Series "Thirty-year Retrospective on Language, Gender and Sexuality Research" features seven essays focused on the theme of practice by prominent scholars in the field. Deborah Tannen,... more
This second issue of the 2021 four-part Theme Series "Thirty-year Retrospective on Language, Gender and Sexuality Research"  features seven essays focused on the theme of practice by prominent scholars in the field. Deborah Tannen, Penelope Eckert, Marjorie Harness Goodwin, and Elinor Ochs & Tamar Kremer-Sadlik show how the field’s attention to the micro-details of situated, highly contextualised interaction offers a privileged vantage point for seeing how gender, power and other dimensions of social life emerge as mundane daily actions unfold. Shigeko Okamoto and Marcyliena H. Morgan respectively review how research on the language practices of Japanese women and African American women have been formative to the field while also describing the critical necessity of more attention to these areas moving forward. The theme series also pays tribute to significant scholars present at the 1992 Berkeley conference who are no longer with us; in this issue, Heidi E. Hamilton pays homage to the groundbreaking work of Deborah Schiffrin.
The thirty-year retrospective on language, gender and sexuality research, launched in anticipation of the thirtieth anniversary of the 1992 Berkeley Women and Language Conference, showcases essays by luminaries who presented papers at the... more
The thirty-year retrospective on language, gender and sexuality research, launched in anticipation of the thirtieth anniversary of the 1992 Berkeley Women and Language Conference, showcases essays by luminaries who presented papers at the conference as well as allied scholars who have taken the field in new directions. Revitalising a tradition set out by the First Berkeley Women and Language Conference in 1985, the four biennial Berkeley conferences held in the 1990s led to the establishment of the International Gender and Language Association and subsequently of the journal Gender and Language, contributing to the field’s institutionalisation and its current pan-global character. Retrospective essays addressing the themes of Politics, Practice, Intersectionality and Place will be published across four issues of the journal in 2021. In this inaugural issue on politics, Robin Lakoff, Susan Gal and Alice Freed analyse the current political scenario from their feminist linguistic lenses, while Sally McConnell-Ginet and Norma Mendoza-Denton share more personal views of the politics involved in doing research on language, gender and sexuality. The theme series also pays tribute to significant scholars present at the 1992 Berkeley conference who are no longer with us; in this issue, Amy Kyratzis pays homage to the groundbreaking work of Susan Ervin-Tripp.
This third issue of the 2021 four-part Theme Series "Thirty-year Retrospective on Language, Gender and Sexuality Research" features seven essays focused on the theme of intersectionality by prominent scholars in the field. Mel Y. Chen... more
This third issue of the 2021 four-part Theme Series "Thirty-year Retrospective on Language, Gender and Sexuality Research" features seven essays focused on the theme of intersectionality by prominent scholars in the field. Mel Y. Chen revisits the melancholy they experienced in their training as a linguist pursuing transdisciplinarity in the 1990s to highlight the broader role played by affective politics in scholarship, while Michèle Foster narrates key incidents in her life that shaped her work giving voice to Black women’s linguistic knowledge and practices. Mary Bucholtz and deandre miles-hercules, Lal Zimman and Susan Ehrlich offer incisive critiques of the field’s limits, drawing on their own positionalities to move the study of language, gender and sexuality beyond its whiteness and cis-centredness. Tommaso M. Milani thinks through the affective loading of the term ‘queer’ to set out the importance of anger and discomfort in building broader, intersectional alliances in the struggle for social justice. The theme series also pays tribute to significant scholars present at the 1992 Berkeley conference who are no longer with us; in this issue, María Dolores Gonzales offers a moving personal account of the life, work and activism of Chicana sociolinguist D. Letticia Galindo.
This fourth and final issue of the 2021 four-part Theme Series "Thirty-year Retrospective on Language, Gender and Sexuality Research" shows how studies of language, gender and sexuality may be enlivened by seriously engaging with the... more
This fourth and final issue of the 2021 four-part Theme Series "Thirty-year Retrospective on Language, Gender and Sexuality Research" shows  how  studies  of  language,  gender and sexuality may be enlivened by seriously engaging with the notion of place – understood as one’s geographical location, locus of enunciation and/or position within the field. Bonnie S. McElhinny and María Amelia Viteri scrutinise lingering effects of colonialism and advocate for hope as a central affective dimension of decolonial practice. Drawing upon Black feminisms, Busi Makoni discusses the embodiment of refusal to racialised forms of patriarchy and Sonja L. Lanehart underlines the importance of bringing African American Women’s Language more centrally into the field’s remit. The next three essays move their foci  to  specific  regions:  Pia  Pichler  reflects  on  the  entanglement  of  place,  race  and  intersectionality  in  the  UK;  Janet  S.  Shibamoto-Smith  warns  against  the  dangers  of  reifying  essentialised  categories  in  Japanese  language  and  gender  research;  Fatima  Sadiqi  criticises  the  underrepresentation  of  North  Africa  in  the field by reviewing the emergence and resilience of feminist linguistics in the region.  The  two  final  essays  highlight  the  importance  of  sociolinguistic  activism  and  the  urgent  need  of  moving  beyond  the  field’s  Global  North  emphasis.  Amiena Peck discusses the power of digital activism and the way it has reignited her  passion  for  engaged  scholarship.  Ana  Cristina  Ostermann  advocates  for  micro-interactional analysis as a method for illuminating Southern epistemologies of gender and sexuality. The theme series also pays tribute to significant scholars  present  at  the  1992  Berkeley  Women  and  Language  Conference  who  are no longer with us; in this issue, Rusty Barrett and Robin Queen offer a lively account of the life and work of linguist and novelist Anna Livia. Read the entire issue at https://journal.equinoxpub.com/GL