In this paper, I consider the impact of prevailing norms surrounding gender and sexuality on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning (LGBTQ+) young people. I introduce a linguistic ethnography project with LGBTQ+ youth in England which uses a queer discourse analytic approach to examine how they construct their identities and to show what this reveals about their marginalisation. Drawing on intersectionality theory (Yuval-Davis 2011), I argue that each young person's unique combination of experiences informs the way that they position themselves in relation to broader structural inequalities. Underpinning the discourse analysis is a sociocultural linguistics approach (Bucholtz and Hall 2005), which facilitates analysis of the links between broader ideological structures and interactional moments of identity construction.
To demonstrate this here, I focus on just one of the 32 participants involved in this project: a 14-year-old South Asian trans girl called Zeba, who was living with a foster family in a different part of the country to her parents at the time that I interviewed her. In my analysis, I discuss the specific intersections that she inhabits and show how these impact on her identity construction. Specifically, I analyse the stances that she takes through her language use and the role of affect within this. I analyse moments from the interview in which Zeba describes feeling forced to adhere to masculine outward signifiers in order to pass safely through airport security, a context in which she already feels vulnerable as an immigrant. Through an intersectional, interactional sociocultural linguistic analysis of identity as it is constructed in moments such as this, I argue, we can better understand how marginalised individuals' lives are constrained by external structures of power and oppression.
In demonstrating how research such as this can inform a queer applied linguistics, I also speak here to the work carried out as part of this project to influence and inform public conversations and policymaking around gender and sexuality in relation to young people in the UK. In particular, I share my experiences developing an awareness-raising social media campaign with participants in my project, as well as a report on the key policy implications of the research which was shared with members of the UK government. I also present my plans to help increase public understanding of language used to talk about the LGBTQ+ community, including pronouns.
References
Bucholtz, Mary, and Kira Hall. 2005. 'Identity and Interaction: A Sociocultural Linguistic Approach'. Discourse Studies 7(4–5):585–614.
Yuval-Davis, Nira. 2011. The Politics of Belonging: Intersectional Contestations. London: SAGE.
