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Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies

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Full-Text Articles in Anthropological Linguistics and Sociolinguistics

A Corpus-Based Study Of Register And Collocational Variation In The Semiotics Of Sexuality, Kirk Marshall Wilkins Mar 2014

A Corpus-Based Study Of Register And Collocational Variation In The Semiotics Of Sexuality, Kirk Marshall Wilkins

Kirk Marshall Wilkins

A number of organizations, including GLAAD (2010), have expressed displeasure with the use of the term “homosexual,” noting it features problematic connotations. To analyze how this problematic term is instantiated within language and its recent evolution in comparison to other terminology for the gay community in discourse, a corpus-based study of recent diachronic,register, and disciplinary variation in COCA was undertaken. This study also considered the discourse prosodies that these different terms may establish through their different collocations.Data derived indicated that the discursive evolution in the representation of the gay community is not monolithic, but rather myriad. While there has been …