E10 Language, sexuality and identity special

Show notes for Episode 10 Welcome to Episode 10 of the Lexis podcast in which Jacky, Dan, Lisa and Matthew talk about: Another bad article about language, which takes a swipe at people who ask for people to respect their pronoun choices. We also talk to Associate Professor in Sociolinguistics at the University of Nottingham, Dr Lucy Jones about language, sexuality, gender and identity. Lucy Jones’ blog: https://queerlinglang.wordpress.com/ Lucy Jones’ University of Nottingham page: https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/english/people/lucy.jones Lucy’s Twitter account: https://twitter.com/jones_lucy Robert Podesva’s study on falsetto and identity: https://web.stanford.edu/~eckert/Courses/l1562018/Readings/Podesva2007.pdf Language in the News Here’s the article by Joanna Williams in The Times that we analysed: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/declaring-your-pronouns-is-pure-narcissism-7rffv2mrz A couple of the bits we talked about are reproduced below: Declaring your pronouns is pure narcissism An identity-obsessed minority with too much time on its hands has lost touch with reality Joanna Williams I’m Joanna, she/her. You probably guessed that from my name and my photo. But declaring one’s pronouns is all the rage and I’d hate to appear out of touch. I’m all for denying biology. I pretend I’m not getting older and can still drink too much without suffering the next day. I pretend I can fit into clothes I bought 20 years ago. But I don’t insist other people confirm my delusions. Demanding to be called they/them rather than he/she is to insist that the rest of the world share in your fantasy. When Jeremy Corbyn spoke at the Pink News awards late last year he began his speech by saying: “My name is Jeremy Corbyn, pronouns he/him.” Surely no one in attendance doubted Corbyn’s manhood, or that men are commonly referred to as “he”. People devise all kinds of ways to signal their political beliefs, particularly when they decide that doing so makes them out to be especially virtuous. Pronoun-declaring is, in truth, a game played by an identity-obsessed minority with far too much time on its hands. Forced attempts at normalising pronoun introductions may be done in the name of inclusivity but they reveal only how hopelessly out of touch those who run our universities, local authorities and political parties have become. They no longer have any idea how normal people talk to each other. Contact us @LexisPodcast. Subscribe: Lexis Podcast | Podcast on Spotify Contributors Matthew Butler Twitter: https://twitter.com/Matthewbutlerwy Lisa Casey blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates) Dan Clayton blog: EngLangBlog & Twitter: EngLangBlog (@EngLangBlog) Jacky Glancey Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey Music: Freenotes