Defining Desire, Dispelling Defiance: Heteronormative Language in English Language Learner’s Dictionaries

Auteurs-es

  • Janelle Harms Mount Royal University

DOI :

https://doi.org/10.29173/bsuj55

Mots-clés :

critical discourse analysis, English language learner, gender, heteronormativity, hijra, sex, sexuality, two-sex model, queer theory

Résumé

Monolingual learner’s dictionaries (MLDs) strive to use accessible, comprehensive and ostensibly objective language to communicate ideas to those with intermediate to advanced language proficiency. However, it will be argued that MLDs of the English language are not objective, but rather ideological documents in which discursive authority stems from the production of knowledge. In their representations of sex, gender and sexual desires and identities, MLDs venerate reproductive heterosexuality as the correct, normal and ‘natural’ mode of human expression while erasing queer realities and possibilities. As a result, queer English language learners are marginalised as imperfect citizens and are compelled to embody heterosexual culture in both language and behaviour in order to achieve increased legitimacy within the English-speaking nation-state.

Biographie de l'auteur-e

Janelle Harms, Mount Royal University

Student, Department of Sociology

Références

Alexander, M. Jacqui. 1994. “Not Just (Any) Body Can Be a Citizen: The Politics of Law, Sexuality and Postcoloniality in Trinidad and Tobago and the Bahamas.” Feminist Review 48:5-23.

Ball, Matthew B. “Dictionaries and Ideology: The Treatment of Gays, Lesbians and Bisexuals in Lexicographic Works.” Master’s thesis, School of Translation and Interpretation, University of Ottawa, 1998. Accession Order No. AAT MQ36658. Retrieved July 15, 2013 http://www.ruor.uottawa.ca/en/handle/10393/4466

Baxter, James. 1980. “The Dictionary and Vocabulary Behavior: A Single Word or a Handful?” TESOL Quarterly 14(3):325-336.

Bury, Liz. 2013. “Macmillan Dictionary revises definition of marriage to include same-sex couples”. theguardian.com. Retrieved September 7, 2013 http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/aug/21/macmillan-dictionary-revises-definition-gay-marriage

Butler, Judith. 1988. “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution.” Theatre Journal 40(4):519-531.

Butler, Judith. 1990. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge.

Cambridge Learner's Dictionary. N.d. Cambridge University Press. Retrieved December 1, 2012 http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/learner-english

Foucault, Michel. 1990. “Incitement to Discourse.” The History of Sexuality, an Introduction. New York: Vintage, 1:17-35.

Gannon, Shane. 2011. “Exclusion as Language and the Language of Exclusion: Tracing Regimes of Gender through Linguistic Representations of the ‘Eunuch.’” The Journal of the History of Sexuality 20(1):1-27.

GLAAD. N.d. “GLAAD's Transgender Resources.” Retrieved from

http://www.glaad.org/transgender

Goulet, Jean-Guy A. 1996. “The ‘Berdache’/‘Two-spirit’: A Comparison of Anthropological and Native Constructions of Gendered Identities among the Northern Athapaskans.” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 2(4):683-701.

Longman English Dictionary Online. N.d. Pearson ELT. Retrieved December 1, 2012 http://www.ldoceonline.com

Macmillan English Dictionary for Advanced Learners. N.d. Macmillan Publishers Ltd. Retrieved December 1, 2012 http://www.macmillandictionary.com

Merriam-Webster's Learner's Dictionary. N.d. Merriam-Webster, Inc. Retrieved December 1, 2012 http://www.learnersdictionary.com

Morgan, Joe. 2013. “Oxford Dictionary Says Marriage Definition Will Change to Include Gay People.” gaystarnews.com, July 24. Retrieved September 7, 2013 http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/oxford-dictionary-says-marriage-definition-will-change-include-gay-people240713

Nanda, Serena. 1985. “The Hijras of India: Cultural and Individual Dimensions of an Institutionalized Third Gender Role.” Journal of Homosexuality, 11(3/4):35-54.

Nelson, Cynthia D. 2010. “A Gay Immigrant Student's Perspective: Unspeakable Acts in the Language Class.” TESOL Quarterly, 44(3):441-464.

Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. N.d.. Oxford University Press. Retrieved December 1, 2012 http://oald8.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com

Valentine, David. 2006. “‘I Went to Bed with My Own Kind Once’: The Erasure of Desire in the Name of Identity.” Pp. 245-257 in The Language and Sexuality Reader, edited by Deborah Cameron and Don Kulick. New York: Routledge.

Warner, Michael. 1993. “Introduction.” Pp. vii-xxxi in Fear of a Queer Planet: Queer Politics and Social Theory, edited by Michael Warner. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

Téléchargements

Publié-e

2013-12-01

Comment citer

Harms, J. (2013). Defining Desire, Dispelling Defiance: Heteronormative Language in English Language Learner’s Dictionaries. Behavioural Sciences Undergraduate Journal, 1(1), 3–14. https://doi.org/10.29173/bsuj55