Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T02:25:45.015Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

10 - Language, Gender and Sexuality, and Performativity

from Part Two - Knowledges and Domains

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 September 2023

By
William L. Leap
Edited by
Cecilia McCallum ,
Silvia Posocco  and
Martin Fotta
Cecilia McCallum
Affiliation:
Universidade Federal da Bahia, Brazil
Silvia Posocco
Affiliation:
Birkbeck College, University of London
Martin Fotta
Affiliation:
Institute of Ethnology, Czech Academy of Sciences
Get access

Summary

Performative inquiry – studies of doing and its consequences for being – is a prominent feature of research projects in exploring gender and sexuality, especially when gender and sexuality are closely tied to linguistic practices. Moreover, because performativity of doing unfolds in specific social and temporal contexts, performative inquiry shows how gender and sexuality become inflected variously in relation to intersectionalities and inequalities, and how language use connected to gender and sexuality becomes inflected in similar terms, as well. Performative inquiry is also concerned with assumptions about normative (or ideological) assumptions that regulate “commonsense” distinctions between valued and not-so-valued practices of doing and being. This chapter’s case studies and discussion show how gender and sexuality are shaped by performative practices and how language use is entailed within these gendered and sexual performative formations.

Keywords

performativitygendersexualityqueerideologyintersectionalitiesdisidentificationrefusalagency
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook for the Anthropology of Gender and Sexuality , pp. 260 - 282
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ahearn, L. (2012). Conclusion: language, power and agency. In Living Language: An Introduction to Linguistic Anthropology. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 259–91.Google Scholar
Althusser, L. (1971). Ideology and ideological state apparatus (Notes toward an investigation). In Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays. New York: Monthly Review Press, pp. 127–86.Google Scholar
Austin, J. L. (1962). How to Do Things with Words. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Baker, P., and Balirano, G., eds. (2018). Queering Masculinities in Language and Culture. London: Palgrave-Macmillan.Google Scholar
Baker, S. J. (1939). Fighting for Life. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Bullock, P. (2016). Transcript: Billy Bush conversation with Donald Trump, www.nytimes.com/2016/10/08/us/donald-trump-tape-transcript.html (accessed January 29, 2019).Google Scholar
Butler, J. (1990). Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Butler, J. (1991). Imitation and gender insubordination. In Fuss, D., ed., Inside/Out: Lesbian Theories, Gay Theories. New York: Routledge, pp. 13–31.Google Scholar
Butler, J. (1997). Introduction. In The Psychic Life of Power. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, pp. 11–30.Google Scholar
Campbell, B., and Haynes, N., eds. (2020). Constructing the digital self in the global south. Journal of Language and Sexuality, 9(1), 1–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cashman, H. (2018). Queer, Latinx, and Bilingual: Narrative Resources in the Negotiation of Identities. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Crenshaw, K. (1991). Mapping the margins: intersectionality, identity politics and violence against women of color. Stanford Law Review, 43(6), 1241–99.Google Scholar
Dinshaw, C. (2012). How Soon Is Now? Medieval Texts, Amateur Readers and the Queerness of Time. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Duggan, L. (2003). The Twilight of Equality? Neoliberalism, Cultural Politics and the Attack on Democracy. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Eng, D. L., with Halberstam, J., and Muñoz, J. (2005). Introduction: what’s queer about queer studies now? Social Text, 84–5, 1–18.Google Scholar
Ferguson, R. A. (2004). Aberrations in Black. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Flannery, R. (1946). Men’s and women’s speech in Gros Ventre. International Journal of American Linguistics, 12, 133–5.Google Scholar
Gerdes, K. (2015). Performativity. TransGender Quarterly, 1(1–2), 148–50.Google Scholar
Goldberg, J., and Menon, M. (2005). Queering history. PMLA, 120(5), 1608–17.Google Scholar
Gramling, D. (2016). The Invention of Monolingualism. London: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar
Halberstam, J. (1998). An introduction to female masculinity: masculinity without men. In Female Masculinity: Masculinity without Men. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, pp. 1–44.Google Scholar
Halberstam, J. (2005). Queer temporality and post-modern geographies. In In a Queer Time and Place: Transgender Bodies, Subcultural Lives. New York: New York University Press, pp. 1–22.Google Scholar
Hall, K. (1999). Performativity. Journal of Anthropological Linguistics, 9(1–2), 184–7.Google Scholar
Haynes, N. (2020). “Overloaded like a Bolivian truck”: discursive constructions of gender, race, and nationalism in northern Chilean memes. Journal of Language and Sexuality, 9(1), 69–92.Google Scholar
Henry, T. (2020). Introduction: queer Korea: toward a field of engagement. In Henry, T., ed., Queer Korea. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, pp. 1–53.Google Scholar
Hopper, P. (1998). Emergent grammar. In Tomasello, M., ed., The New Psychology of Language. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, pp. 155–75.Google Scholar
Katz, J. (2001). The man-monster. In Love Stories: Sex between Men before Homosexuality. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 77–90.Google Scholar
Lait, J., and Mortimer, L. (1951). Washington Confidential. New York: Crown Publishers.Google Scholar
Lane, N. (2019). The Black Queer Work of Ratchet: Race, Gender, Sexuality, and the (Anti)Politics of Respectability. London: Palgrave-Macmillan.Google Scholar
Leap, W. (2007). Performative effect in three gay English texts. In Livia, A. and Hall, K., eds., Queerly Phrased: Language, Gender and Sexuality. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 310–24.Google Scholar
Leap, W. (2015). Queer linguistics as critical discourse analysis. In Tannen, D., Hamilton, H., and Schifrin, D., eds., The Handbook of Discourse Analysis. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 661–80.Google Scholar
Leap, W. (2016). Language, sexuality, heteroglossia and intersectionality. In Bonvillain, N., ed., The Routledge Handbook of Linguistic Anthropology. New York: Routledge, pp. 117–90.Google Scholar
Leap, W. (2020). Language before Stonewall. London: Palgrave-Macmillan.Google Scholar
Livia, A., and Hall, K. (1997). “It’s a girl”: bringing performativity back to linguistics. In Livia, A. and Hall, K., eds., Queerly Phrased: Language, Gender and Sexuality. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 3–18.Google Scholar
Loughery, J. (1998). The Other Side of Silence. New York: Henry Holt.Google Scholar
Malinowski, B. 1935. Coral Gardens and Their Magic. London: Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar
McIlvenny, P. (2002). Critical reflections on performativity and the “un/doing” of gender and sexuality in talk. In McIlvenny, P., ed., Talking Gender and Sexuality. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 111–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mendoza-Denton, N. (2008). Homegirls: Language and Cultural Practice among Latina Youth Gangs. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Menon, M. (2015). Universalism and partition: a queer theory. Differences, 26 (1), 117–40.Google Scholar
Milani, T., ed. (2015). Language and Masculinities. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Motschenbacher, H. (2010). Language, Gender and Sexual Identity: Poststructural Perspectives. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Motschenbacher, H. (2013). Taking queer linguistics further: sociolinguistics and critical heteronormativity research. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 212, 149–79.Google Scholar
Muñoz, J. (1999). Disidentifications: Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Nash, J. (2008). Rethinking intersectionality. Feminist Review, 98, 1–15.Google Scholar
Newton, E. (1972). Mother Camp. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Newton, E. (1984). The mythic mannish lesbian: Radclyffe Hall and the new woman. Signs, 9(4), 557–75.Google Scholar
Pêcheux, M. (1982 [1975]). The subject-form of discourse in the subjective appropriation of scientific knowledges and political practice. In Semantics and Ideology, trans. Harbans Nagpal. New York: St. Martin’s Press, pp. 155–69.Google Scholar
Pennycook, A. (2004). Performativity and language studies. Critical Inquiry in Language Studies: An International Journal, 1(1), 1–19.Google Scholar
Provencher, D. (2017). QMF: Queer Maghrebi French. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.Google Scholar
Ritchie, J. (2010). How do you say “come out of the closet” in Arabic? Queer activism and the politics of visibility in Israel-Palestine. GLQ, 16(4), 557–75.Google Scholar
Russell, E. (2019). The Discursive Ecology of Homophobia. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
Sapir, E. (1916). Time Perspective in Aboriginal American Culture Change: A Study in Method. Ottawa: Canada Department of Mines, Geological Survey, Memoir 90, Anthropological Series 13.Google Scholar
Sedgwick, E. (1993a). Queer and now. In Tendencies. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, pp. 1–20.Google Scholar
Sedgwick, E. (1993b). Queer performativity: Henry James’ The Art of the Novel. GLQ, 1(1), 1–16.Google Scholar
Snorton, C. R. (2017). Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Sontag, S. (1964). Notes on “camp.” Partisan Review, 31(4), 515–30.Google Scholar
Spillers, H. (1987). Mama’s baby, Papa’s maybe: an American grammar book. Diacritics, 17(2), 64–81.Google Scholar
Taylor, A. (1982). “Male” and “female” speech in Gros Ventre. Anthropological Linguistics, 24(3), 301–7.Google Scholar
Williams, R. (1977). Language. In Marxism and Literature. London: Oxford University Press, pp. 21–44.Google Scholar
Williams, W. (1986). The Spirit and the Flesh: Sexual Diversity in American Indian Culture. Boston: Beacon.Google Scholar
Yuval-Davis, N. (2006). Intersectionality and feminist politics. European Journal of Women’s Studies, 13(3), 193–209.Google Scholar
Zimman, L. 2014. The discursive construction of sex: remaking and reclaiming the gendered body in talk about genitals among trans men. In Zimman, L., Davis, J. L., and Raclaw, J., eds., Queer Excursions: Retheorizing Binaries in Language, Gender and Sexuality. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 13–34.Google Scholar
Zimman, L., Davis, J. L., and Raclaw, J., eds. (2014). Queer Excursions: Retheorizing Binaries in Language, Gender and Sexuality. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×