In this paper, we discuss how masculine images associated with the James Bond character (i.e. ind... more In this paper, we discuss how masculine images associated with the James Bond character (i.e. independent of any particular actor who portrays him) change over time through mediatized attributes such as use of language and mannerisms. We will especially focus on comparisons between different Bond characters to demonstrate how they accomplish ”sexualization of language in time and space,” in the domain of scripted speech.
This study investigates voluntourism activity directed by a local university in Singapore. The ph... more This study investigates voluntourism activity directed by a local university in Singapore. The phenomenological experience of participating in voluntourism is captured in the form of reflective Ins...
Pinkdot is Singapore’s annual LGBTQ pride event with over 10 years of history. Over the course of... more Pinkdot is Singapore’s annual LGBTQ pride event with over 10 years of history. Over the course of its operations, it has successfully made visible and raised awareness for LGBTQ people and their sociopolitical rights. However, there has always been dissident opinions against the LGBTQ community from political and/or religious parties. One of them is a newly established Christian ministry, TrueLove. While Pinkdot’s mission is to call for greater inclusivity of LGBTQ individuals by accepting non-heteronormative love, TrueLove focuses on relabelling gay, lesbian, and bisexual people as struggling with same sex attraction, and coaxing them towards a more godly life that does not include pursuing their homosexual desires. We have been investigating how these two opposing groups try to reason their views in discourses of love in their websites and promotional materials such as videos, blog posts, and campaign posters. The two parties are similar in how their websites are well maintained with content regarding sexuality and love, e.g., For family, for friends, for love (Pinkdot) and True love never gives up (TrueLove). Although they position the idea of love in a similar manner by appealing to their audiences’ affects, their agendas are completely polarized. As a result, these materials function as the center of multiple public debates on politics, religion, and sexuality. We employ Peterson’s (2016) approach to homophobic discourse analysis based on Systemic Functional Linguistics as well as Goffman’s (1974) work on frame analysis as methodological tools to investigate the ideologies that accompany the two organizations’ multimodal materials about treatment of queer Singaporeans. As part of a larger study, this presentation shows a comparative study on both organizations’ discourses of love found in their promotional videos to understand how love and desire is linguistically constructed. Two individuals with a strikingly similar background, Pauline (Pinkdot 2016) and Tryphena (TrueLove 2019), were selected for analysis. Both are pastors and have identified as a lesbian woman; they talk about their experiences regarding homosexuality, love, and desire. Nonetheless, the findings show that the fundamental definition of love that they use to justify their positions towards homosexuality is nuanced in their presentations
This chapter outlines the benefits of a linguistic landscape studies approach for the broader stu... more This chapter outlines the benefits of a linguistic landscape studies approach for the broader study of language and sexuality. Chinese martial arts films, often described as highly masculine and dominated by male heroes and male characters, are a rich site for the analysis of the social construction of gender and sexuality, particularly in the way they portray an idealized male dominance through Confucian ideologies. These films are thus viewed as a legitimate space, albeit fictional and mediatized, for the application of a linguistic landscape perspective. Based on samples of over 200 films, the analysis argues that features in the linguistic landscapes of these films—among them referential names of landmarks and material constructions of settings and costumes—semiotically mark the gender and sexuality of the martial arts practitioner characters. Most notably, the linguistic landscapes in these films glorify celibacy—or controlled asexuality—as an ideal practice that goes along with ultimate masculinity, as seen in the homosocial rejection of romance and celebration of chastity.
This article introduces the first version of the Corpus of Singapore English Messages (CoSEM), a ... more This article introduces the first version of the Corpus of Singapore English Messages (CoSEM), a 3.6‐million‐word monitor corpus of online text messages collected between 2016 and 2019, compiled and managed by a group of scholars who share an interest in Colloquial Singapore English (CSE) research. The paper explains the motivations behind developing a new corpus for the investigation of CSE. It also documents the process of compiling and organizing CoSEM and describes the corpus's initial structure and composition. We further discuss the social variables used in tagging the data, as well as ethical challenges, advantages, and disadvantages unique to online message datasets. In addition, we present preliminary analyses of two selected CSE features: (1) the Hokkien‐derived expression (bo)jio and (2) sentence‐final adverbs (already, also, only). As CoSEM is an ongoing project, we conclude the article with notes on future directions.
The Oxford Handbook of Language and Sexuality, 2019
This chapter outlines the benefits of a linguistic landscape studies approach for the broader stu... more This chapter outlines the benefits of a linguistic landscape studies approach for the broader study of language and sexuality. Chinese martial arts films, often described as highly masculine and dominated by male heroes and male characters, are a rich site for the analysis of the social construction of gender and sexuality, particularly in the way they portray an idealized male dominance through Confucian ideologies. These films are thus viewed as a legitimate space, albeit fictional and mediatized, for the application of a linguistic landscape perspective. Based on samples of over 200 films, the analysis argues that features in the linguistic landscapes of these films—among them referential names of landmarks and material constructions of settings and costumes—semiotically mark the gender and sexuality of the martial arts practitioner characters. Most notably, the linguistic landscapes in these films glorify celibacy—or controlled asexuality—as an ideal practice that goes along wit...
Workshop 6: Synchronic transfers in Colloquial Singapore English: Case studies based on text mess... more Workshop 6: Synchronic transfers in Colloquial Singapore English: Case studies based on text message data
International Journal of the Sociology of Language
This study investigates changes in Tōhoku dialect speakers’ phonology after their immigration to ... more This study investigates changes in Tōhoku dialect speakers’ phonology after their immigration to Hawaii, specifically concerning intervocalic voicing and alveolar/palatal mergers. Tōhoku dialect is known for its unique phonology compared to other Japanese dialects and, for this reason, it is often stigmatized. Previous studies of second dialect acquisition have suggested that older speakers tend to retain the phonological features of their original dialects during dialect contact situations. The results from adult Japanese plantation immigrants, as expected, suggested that adult Tōhoku dialect speakers demonstrated limitations in acquiring second dialect phonology in their contact with non-Tōhoku dialect speakers. However, there are different degrees of second dialect acquisition between the intervocalic voicing and alveolar/palatal mergers among the Tōhoku dialect immigrants who interacted with non-Tōhoku dialect speakers on a daily basis and those who did not; namely, the former e...
Acknowledgements This special issue presents articles based on presentations at the Sociolingui... more Acknowledgements This special issue presents articles based on presentations at the Sociolinguistics of Globalization conference that was held in Hong Kong in June of 2015. The conference was hosted by the Department of English at the University of Hong Kong. We thank the conference participants for useful feedback. Our sincere thanks also go to Tommaso Milani and Michelle Lazar for their invaluable assistance.
In this paper, we discuss how masculine images associated with the James Bond character (i.e. ind... more In this paper, we discuss how masculine images associated with the James Bond character (i.e. independent of any particular actor who portrays him) change over time through mediatized attributes such as use of language and mannerisms. We will especially focus on comparisons between different Bond characters to demonstrate how they accomplish ”sexualization of language in time and space,” in the domain of scripted speech.
This study investigates voluntourism activity directed by a local university in Singapore. The ph... more This study investigates voluntourism activity directed by a local university in Singapore. The phenomenological experience of participating in voluntourism is captured in the form of reflective Ins...
Pinkdot is Singapore’s annual LGBTQ pride event with over 10 years of history. Over the course of... more Pinkdot is Singapore’s annual LGBTQ pride event with over 10 years of history. Over the course of its operations, it has successfully made visible and raised awareness for LGBTQ people and their sociopolitical rights. However, there has always been dissident opinions against the LGBTQ community from political and/or religious parties. One of them is a newly established Christian ministry, TrueLove. While Pinkdot’s mission is to call for greater inclusivity of LGBTQ individuals by accepting non-heteronormative love, TrueLove focuses on relabelling gay, lesbian, and bisexual people as struggling with same sex attraction, and coaxing them towards a more godly life that does not include pursuing their homosexual desires. We have been investigating how these two opposing groups try to reason their views in discourses of love in their websites and promotional materials such as videos, blog posts, and campaign posters. The two parties are similar in how their websites are well maintained with content regarding sexuality and love, e.g., For family, for friends, for love (Pinkdot) and True love never gives up (TrueLove). Although they position the idea of love in a similar manner by appealing to their audiences’ affects, their agendas are completely polarized. As a result, these materials function as the center of multiple public debates on politics, religion, and sexuality. We employ Peterson’s (2016) approach to homophobic discourse analysis based on Systemic Functional Linguistics as well as Goffman’s (1974) work on frame analysis as methodological tools to investigate the ideologies that accompany the two organizations’ multimodal materials about treatment of queer Singaporeans. As part of a larger study, this presentation shows a comparative study on both organizations’ discourses of love found in their promotional videos to understand how love and desire is linguistically constructed. Two individuals with a strikingly similar background, Pauline (Pinkdot 2016) and Tryphena (TrueLove 2019), were selected for analysis. Both are pastors and have identified as a lesbian woman; they talk about their experiences regarding homosexuality, love, and desire. Nonetheless, the findings show that the fundamental definition of love that they use to justify their positions towards homosexuality is nuanced in their presentations
This chapter outlines the benefits of a linguistic landscape studies approach for the broader stu... more This chapter outlines the benefits of a linguistic landscape studies approach for the broader study of language and sexuality. Chinese martial arts films, often described as highly masculine and dominated by male heroes and male characters, are a rich site for the analysis of the social construction of gender and sexuality, particularly in the way they portray an idealized male dominance through Confucian ideologies. These films are thus viewed as a legitimate space, albeit fictional and mediatized, for the application of a linguistic landscape perspective. Based on samples of over 200 films, the analysis argues that features in the linguistic landscapes of these films—among them referential names of landmarks and material constructions of settings and costumes—semiotically mark the gender and sexuality of the martial arts practitioner characters. Most notably, the linguistic landscapes in these films glorify celibacy—or controlled asexuality—as an ideal practice that goes along with ultimate masculinity, as seen in the homosocial rejection of romance and celebration of chastity.
This article introduces the first version of the Corpus of Singapore English Messages (CoSEM), a ... more This article introduces the first version of the Corpus of Singapore English Messages (CoSEM), a 3.6‐million‐word monitor corpus of online text messages collected between 2016 and 2019, compiled and managed by a group of scholars who share an interest in Colloquial Singapore English (CSE) research. The paper explains the motivations behind developing a new corpus for the investigation of CSE. It also documents the process of compiling and organizing CoSEM and describes the corpus's initial structure and composition. We further discuss the social variables used in tagging the data, as well as ethical challenges, advantages, and disadvantages unique to online message datasets. In addition, we present preliminary analyses of two selected CSE features: (1) the Hokkien‐derived expression (bo)jio and (2) sentence‐final adverbs (already, also, only). As CoSEM is an ongoing project, we conclude the article with notes on future directions.
The Oxford Handbook of Language and Sexuality, 2019
This chapter outlines the benefits of a linguistic landscape studies approach for the broader stu... more This chapter outlines the benefits of a linguistic landscape studies approach for the broader study of language and sexuality. Chinese martial arts films, often described as highly masculine and dominated by male heroes and male characters, are a rich site for the analysis of the social construction of gender and sexuality, particularly in the way they portray an idealized male dominance through Confucian ideologies. These films are thus viewed as a legitimate space, albeit fictional and mediatized, for the application of a linguistic landscape perspective. Based on samples of over 200 films, the analysis argues that features in the linguistic landscapes of these films—among them referential names of landmarks and material constructions of settings and costumes—semiotically mark the gender and sexuality of the martial arts practitioner characters. Most notably, the linguistic landscapes in these films glorify celibacy—or controlled asexuality—as an ideal practice that goes along wit...
Workshop 6: Synchronic transfers in Colloquial Singapore English: Case studies based on text mess... more Workshop 6: Synchronic transfers in Colloquial Singapore English: Case studies based on text message data
International Journal of the Sociology of Language
This study investigates changes in Tōhoku dialect speakers’ phonology after their immigration to ... more This study investigates changes in Tōhoku dialect speakers’ phonology after their immigration to Hawaii, specifically concerning intervocalic voicing and alveolar/palatal mergers. Tōhoku dialect is known for its unique phonology compared to other Japanese dialects and, for this reason, it is often stigmatized. Previous studies of second dialect acquisition have suggested that older speakers tend to retain the phonological features of their original dialects during dialect contact situations. The results from adult Japanese plantation immigrants, as expected, suggested that adult Tōhoku dialect speakers demonstrated limitations in acquiring second dialect phonology in their contact with non-Tōhoku dialect speakers. However, there are different degrees of second dialect acquisition between the intervocalic voicing and alveolar/palatal mergers among the Tōhoku dialect immigrants who interacted with non-Tōhoku dialect speakers on a daily basis and those who did not; namely, the former e...
Acknowledgements This special issue presents articles based on presentations at the Sociolingui... more Acknowledgements This special issue presents articles based on presentations at the Sociolinguistics of Globalization conference that was held in Hong Kong in June of 2015. The conference was hosted by the Department of English at the University of Hong Kong. We thank the conference participants for useful feedback. Our sincere thanks also go to Tommaso Milani and Michelle Lazar for their invaluable assistance.
The thirty-year retrospective on language, gender and sexuality research, launched in anticipatio... more The thirty-year retrospective on language, gender and sexuality research, launched in anticipation of the thirtieth anniversary of the 1992 Berkeley Women and Language Conference, showcases essays by luminaries who presented papers at the conference as well as allied scholars who have taken the field in new directions. Revitalising a tradition set out by the First Berkeley Women and Language Conference in 1985, the four biennial Berkeley conferences held in the 1990s led to the establishment of the International Gender and Language Association and subsequently of the journal Gender and Language, contributing to the field’s institutionalisation and its current pan-global character. Retrospective essays addressing the themes of Politics, Practice, Intersectionality and Place will be published across four issues of the journal in 2021. In this inaugural issue on politics, Robin Lakoff, Susan Gal and Alice Freed analyse the current political scenario from their feminist linguistic lenses, while Sally McConnell-Ginet and Norma Mendoza-Denton share more personal views of the politics involved in doing research on language, gender and sexuality. The theme series also pays tribute to significant scholars present at the 1992 Berkeley conference who are no longer with us; in this issue, Amy Kyratzis pays homage to the groundbreaking work of Susan Ervin-Tripp.
This second issue of the 2021 four-part Theme Series "Thirty-year Retrospective on Language, Gend... more This second issue of the 2021 four-part Theme Series "Thirty-year Retrospective on Language, Gender and Sexuality Research" features seven essays focused on the theme of practice by prominent scholars in the field. Deborah Tannen, Penelope Eckert, Marjorie Harness Goodwin, and Elinor Ochs & Tamar Kremer-Sadlik show how the field’s attention to the micro-details of situated, highly contextualised interaction offers a privileged vantage point for seeing how gender, power and other dimensions of social life emerge as mundane daily actions unfold. Shigeko Okamoto and Marcyliena H. Morgan respectively review how research on the language practices of Japanese women and African American women have been formative to the field while also describing the critical necessity of more attention to these areas moving forward. The theme series also pays tribute to significant scholars present at the 1992 Berkeley conference who are no longer with us; in this issue, Heidi E. Hamilton pays homage to the groundbreaking work of Deborah Schiffrin.
This fourth and final issue of the 2021 four-part Theme Series "Thirty-year Retrospective on Lang... more This fourth and final issue of the 2021 four-part Theme Series "Thirty-year Retrospective on Language, Gender and Sexuality Research" shows how studies of language, gender and sexuality may be enlivened by seriously engaging with the notion of place – understood as one’s geographical location, locus of enunciation and/or position within the field. Bonnie S. McElhinny and María Amelia Viteri scrutinise lingering effects of colonialism and advocate for hope as a central affective dimension of decolonial practice. Drawing upon Black feminisms, Busi Makoni discusses the embodiment of refusal to racialised forms of patriarchy and Sonja L. Lanehart underlines the importance of bringing African American Women’s Language more centrally into the field’s remit. The next three essays move their foci to specific regions: Pia Pichler reflects on the entanglement of place, race and intersectionality in the UK; Janet S. Shibamoto-Smith warns against the dangers of reifying essentialised categories in Japanese language and gender research; Fatima Sadiqi criticises the underrepresentation of North Africa in the field by reviewing the emergence and resilience of feminist linguistics in the region. The two final essays highlight the importance of sociolinguistic activism and the urgent need of moving beyond the field’s Global North emphasis. Amiena Peck discusses the power of digital activism and the way it has reignited her passion for engaged scholarship. Ana Cristina Ostermann advocates for micro-interactional analysis as a method for illuminating Southern epistemologies of gender and sexuality. The theme series also pays tribute to significant scholars present at the 1992 Berkeley Women and Language Conference who are no longer with us; in this issue, Rusty Barrett and Robin Queen offer a lively account of the life and work of linguist and novelist Anna Livia. Read the entire issue at https://journal.equinoxpub.com/GL
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Papers by Mie Hiramoto