Language, Discourse and Society Research Group seminar

Professor Lucy Jones (University of Nottingham) will present a research paper ‘“Double the trouble”: Analysing LGBTQ+ youth identity through an intersectional lens’.

Join us for this event organized by the School of English’s Language, Discourse and Society research group.

Paper abstract: 
In this paper, I consider the benefits of an intersectional approach for the linguistic analysis of inequality. I bring together developments in intersectionality scholarship with key propositions from sociocultural linguistics to put forward a series of principles for the analysis of marginalised identity construction. In doing so, I present selected data from my recent ethnographic fieldwork with LGBTQ+ youth groups in England. I take a queer linguistics approach to show how four of my participants’ identity constructions reveal their marginalisation in society, using discourse analysis to show how they position themselves in relation to the wider world. All four of the young people featured here are transgender, but their experiences differ in terms of their race, class, citizenship, family circumstances, and sexual identity. I show how these factors inform each participant’s positionality as a young queer person, illustrating through my analysis the principles mentioned above. Ultimately, I argue that, through an intersectional analysis of identity as it’s constructed through language, we can better understand how marginalised speakers’ lives are constrained by external structures of power and oppression.

About our speaker:
Dr Lucy Jones is Associate Professor in Sociolinguistics at the University of Nottingham. She is a discourse analyst and linguistic ethnographer working on a range of topics relevant to language, gender and sexuality. Her published ethnographic research includes normativity and identity construction amongst LGBTQ+ youth and amongst older lesbian women. She also makes use of critical discourse analysis and has published on homophobic discourse in relation to same-sex marriage and HIV prevention, and transphobic discourse in the representation of trans athletes within the news media. Her latest monograph Language and LGBTQ+ Youth: Analysing Marginalised Identities through an Intersectional Lens investigates the role of intersectionality in the identity construction of queer British youth, and is forthcoming with Bloomsbury.

This will be a hybrid event with remote access available via Teams. Please email Prof. Julia Snell at J.Snell@leeds.ac.uk for the link.