Queer and Trans Dialectology: Exploring the Intersectionality of Regionality: 1 (American Speech, 98)

In this special issue, the authors examine how place, region, and community shape contemporary dialectology. Contributors draw on the complex intersections of gender, sexuality, and other categories of identity to more fully examine the concept of regionality, the linguistic differences associated with particular geographic locations. The authors demonstrate how queer and trans people linguistically negotiate and attend to different locations and contexts using examples such as the intersectional identity construction of Oklahoma City Drag Queens; the influence of English in new designations of nonbinary gender identities and sexual orientations in Quebec French; and queer language differentiation in Jewish-English-speaking communities. Given the general underrepresentation of queer and trans subject areas in dialectology, the issue’s focus on linguistics in relation to region and sexuality contributes an intersectional perspective on community and identity in the sociolinguistic field.

Contributors: Mireille Elchacar, Grace Elizabeth C. Dy, Kira Hall, Lindsey Hippe, Tyler Kibbey, Bryce McCleary, Ellen Perleberg

Bryce McCleary is a lecturer at Rice University.

Tyler Kibbey is a Doctoral Research Fellow at Humboldt University in Berlin.