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13 - Homophobic Space–Times

Lexicogrammatical and Discourse–Semantic Aspects of the Softscapes of Hate

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 June 2022

By
David Peterson
Edited by
Natalia Knoblock
Natalia Knoblock
Affiliation:
Saginaw Valley State University, Michigan
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Summary

This chapter explores how speakers use MOOD^RESIDUE clause features and discourse–semantic resources to configure space-times homophobically, focusing on mass-media reported statements from Wyoming (USA) residents in response to the 2005 release of Brokeback Mountain. Using Systemic–Functional grammatical analysis, both interpersonal and representational lexicogrammatical features are examined, identifying: who is ‘in’ the lexicogrammatical/semantic space (speaker, addressee, non–interactants); speech function (proposition/proposal) and the interlocutors’ assigned roles (giving/receiving, offering/accepting, demanding/giving); clause participants’ location within free, bound, and embedded clauses; and clause participants– semantic content, querying the extent to which they index normative gender–sexuality or non-normative gender–sexuality. Mapping these features onto the MOOD^RESIDUE structure reveals how speakers seek to delimit the possibilities of negotiating or contesting their configurations of space and time by locating homophobic ideations within bound and embedded clauses, with an additional preference of placing such ideations with the Residue, thereby further curtailing negotiability.

Keywords

homophobic language useInterpersonal grammarRepresentational grammarnormativityspace-times
Type
Chapter
Information
The Grammar of Hate
Morphosyntactic Features of Hateful, Aggressive, and Dehumanizing Discourse
 , pp. 262 - 287
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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