gender and language

[Suzanne Evans]

With regard to sexuality as a possible variable:

>  Much of the work that has
> been done on feminine vs. masculine speech has equated masculinity with
> men, and generalized the use of non-standard features as a solidarity
> building, covert prestige item for men. This does not necessarily hold up
> for gay (queer) men and women.

I agree. A consideration of gay men and women certainly complicates the
picture. There is a definite lack of linguistic research in this area (see,
for a good summary:  Jacobs, Greg. 1996. Lesbian and Gay Male Language Use:
A Critical Review of the Literature. American Speech 71:49-71.)

However, much depends on how one defines the subjects of one's study as
gay(queer). We have to rely on speakers' self-identifications, yet as Zwicky
points out in "Queerly Phrased", these are not always reliable. This is due,
in part, to the continuum of sexual self-identification that encompasses not
only gay/straight, but bisexual and many other shades of sexuality.
Reliability is also influenced by differing applications of terminology
(this seems, he suggests, to be a particular problem with the catch-all
"bisexual").

Suzanne

______________________

Department of Linguistics
University of Pennsylvania

e-mail: suzanne at babel.ling.upenn.edu