Talk at the Lavender Languages & Linguistics 24. University of Nottingham (April 30th, 2017) In this paper, I aim to bring together queer approaches and lexicography, i.e. a critical heteronormativity research within the field of theoretical lexicography and practical dictionary making. I will draw the attention to the queering potential of lexicography and focus on dictionaries, which commonly enjoy the status of “objective”, often unquestioned authorities. My analysis will show how heteronormative discourses are reflected in dictionaries and will critically question the lexicographer’s normative work and role. I will shed light on oppositions and contradictions in the field of dictionaries and dictionary making. I will elaborate on how expectations and claims made towards dictionaries, both by dictionary users and by lexicographers, can be mutually dependent but partially also contradict each other. The argumentation will show how these claims and expectations are influenced and determined by norms. These norms can be of lexicographic or linguistic nature, as for example good practices in lexicography, spelling and grammar rules, and many more. Though often neglected and hardly ever explicitly mentioned, social norms also play a highly influential role in the processes of dictionary making. In this sense, I outline the influence of heteronormative power structures and refute the dictionaries’ alleged objectivity. In my analysis, I will pay attention to the role dictionaries play as reference works and as authoritative sources in the production of knowledge and power. Power and authority do not only influence lexicographical decisions but are also produced by the dictionaries themselves. My theoretical reflections are supported by practical examples taken from existing dictionaries.

The aim of this minireview is to analyse the existing Czech research in the field of Queer Linguistics with the use of the meta-linguistic perspective. After a short introduction of Queer Theory ideas and ideas of Queer Linguistics focusing on the terms queer and heteronormativity, the author deals with the Czech denomination of this field. Against the backdrop of the state of Czech Gender Linguistics, additional circumstances of the current state of Czech Queer Linguistics are presented. Those include (apart from the unavailability of relevant literature in Czech libraries) a limited number of experts dealing with the topic, offering queer-linguistic lectures and seminars at Czech universities. In the next part of the article, the existing publications dealing with various topics from the field of Czech Queer Linguistics are analysed. In the final part of the article, some topics which may extend the publication basis of the field are outlined as they also may help to reflect the current social topics in the Czech Republic.

This paper discusses Queer Theory definitions and methods. It explores some key Queer research study examples in education including policy research, curriculum and textbook analysis, studies of classroom talk, student surveys and other study types. It provides some key questions that can be used in basic Queer reading strategies and linguistics (for policy, curriculum and classroom talk analysis); Butler’s most well-known concept of performativity; and the potential usefulness of less widely applied concepts including overplay, transference and erasure (as well as other approaches). The paper finally considers the value of key critiques of Queer Theory and the way the theory questions the privileging of certain models of time and space, including the Anthropocene age itself.

Part of a special issue of Discourse & Society on queer linguistics, this commentary argues that the concept of indexicality, as theorized across diverse fields in sociocultural linguistics, has the potential to offer a much richer account of subjectivity than found in dominant strands of queer theory. While queer theory valorizes practice over identity, viewing the latter as fixed and necessarily allied with normativity, research on language and social interaction suggests that an analytic distinction between practice and identity is untenable. The indexical processes that work to produce social meaning are multi-layered and always shifting across time and space, even within systems of heteronormativity. It is this semiotic evolution that should become the cornerstone of a (new) queer linguistics.

Romani LGBTIQ people experience specific non-normative (queer) intersectionalities within mainstream, Romani and LGBTIQ communities. Yet, their lived experiences are understudied, leading to invisibility and inadequate awareness of needs. Guided by the research question ‘What are the experiences of Romani LGBTIQ people in and beyond Europe?’, this qualitative research is concerned with investigating and highlighting the experiences of Romani LGBTIQ people; and unpacking, uncovering and exploring the strategies deployed by Romani LGBTIQ people when negotiating multiple ethnic, sexual and gender identities and identifications, oppression, (in)visibility, exclusion, as well as inclusion, recognition, and belonging (or lack thereof) with, in and/or to mainstream societies, as well as Romani and LGBTIQ communities. The fieldwork for this research was undertaken between summer 2015 and autumn 2016. Data was collected in 14 interviews, 2 focus groups and at 2 conferences where participant observation was undertaken. Thematic analysis sensitive to queer theoretical concepts, and to queer assemblages in particular, was used to identify key themes. This thesis proposes to employ queer intersectionalities to help us understand identities and identifications as rhizomic, fluid assemblages that are not anchored in the notion of fixed ‘groupness’; and to identify and interrogate the workings of interlocking axes of inequality whilst not assuming the supremacy of one axis over the other. The research found that Romani LGBTIQ people experience intersectional stigmatisation as both Roma and LGBTIQ due the interlocking negative social valuation of Romani ethnicity, non-heteronormative sexuality and/or non-cis-normative gender identity. Antigypsyism is a key aspect of the lived experiences of many Romani LGBTIQ people that often eclipses other forms of oppression; but not the only one. These specific queer intersectionalities are inextricably linked to various degrees of ethnicised/racialised, sexed, gendered and queer intersectional (in)visibilities, including hyper-visibility. Romani LGBTIQ people (re)negotiate the boundaries of various degrees of (in)visibilities delineating difference and sameness in the notional spaces of ‘the closet’ and/or passing that are constituted and reconstituted through social contexts and relationships, including through families and/or communities where both inclusion and exclusion are present. The dimension of gender, particularly with respect to femininity associated with some ‘passive’ gay men (receivers) and (trans)womanhood, is key to the specific queer intersectionalities experienced especially by Romani lesbian women, some gay men, and trans and intersex people. Some Romani LGBTIQ people seek to create commonality, and indeed, strategic sameness: a relational use of identities and identifications whereby connections are created across marked essentialist difference for strategic purposes; a positionality resisting norms and binaries that does not read through assimilation, conformity and/or normalisation and enables the queer bearer to deploy sameness in order to do away with social norms, orthodoxies and dualisms. Queer non belonging by identification and disidentification is a transgressive, subversive non/counter-normative positionality assumed by some Romani LGBTIQ people assume that enables re-conceptualisations of identities and identifications by identifying with aspects of ethnic/racial, sexual/gender and other identities that are empowering while disidentifying with those aspects that are hostile, restrictive and/or oppressive. Espousing a marked (stigmatised) category of identification can be understood as a strategically subversive act undermining key hegemonic systems of oppression: white-normativity, heteronormativity, cis-normativity and patriarchy. The research addresses a significant gap in knowledge by shedding light on an area of inquiry which remains understudied. The lived experiences investigated are regionally diverse, allowing the research to highlight commonly shared experiences of queer intersectionalities. The investigation contributes to queer(y)(ing) Romani Studies by challenging dominant essentialist, homogenising conceptualisations of Romani identities; and to ongoing discussions about the under-development of sexuality within intersectionality, and the under-development of intersectionality within queer theorising. This investigation may benefit service providers, civil society organisations, community initiatives and institutions in the area of application and policy recommendations and may potentially feed into larger national and transnational policy frameworks.

BA thesis submitted to the University of Turku, Finland. In this paper I asses a magazine article using methods from Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and queer linguistics.

This chapter highlights the role of the concept of normativity in language and sexuality studies. It is argued that normativity has played a central role in this field, even if as a largely undertheorized concept. The theoretical discussion of normativity is advanced by conceptualizing norms as discursive formations and by distinguishing prescriptive from descriptive norms as well as normative mechanisms on the social micro-level from those on the social macro-level. Central patterns that are involved in the discursive construction of various sexual normativity types are outlined, namely heteronormativity (i.e., the notion that a particular version of