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Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - "I am I"
T2 - Self-constructed transgender identities in internet-mediated forum communication
AU - Webster, L.
PY - 2019/3/1
Y1 - 2019/3/1
N2 - This article analyses identity constructions and representations of self-identifying transgender individuals on a web-based forum. Although the forum is aimed towards all transgender users, the primary user-group are transfeminine users (intending on) undergoing medico-surgical interventions to align their physiology and identity. The data for this analysis are initial text posts from the forum board used for introductions (i.e. new users of the forum introducing themselves). The article assumes that introductions are the context in which one asserts key identity features; hence, this board is the most pertinent for analysing identity construction. In this article, I use a combination of corpus linguistics and Critical Discourse Studies tools to analyse the use of pronouns and gender-indexical nouns in identity constructions and the representation of social categorisations. This article is an attempt to demonstrate that transgender is not a collective homogeneous identity, and that gender-sex incongruence may not be a salient identity feature for some forum-users. I also examine the ideologies (re)produced in the local forum-communication discourse, and the evaluation of hegemonic practices within transgender discourse and wider gender discourse to further demonstrate the heterogeneity of transgender identity.
AB - This article analyses identity constructions and representations of self-identifying transgender individuals on a web-based forum. Although the forum is aimed towards all transgender users, the primary user-group are transfeminine users (intending on) undergoing medico-surgical interventions to align their physiology and identity. The data for this analysis are initial text posts from the forum board used for introductions (i.e. new users of the forum introducing themselves). The article assumes that introductions are the context in which one asserts key identity features; hence, this board is the most pertinent for analysing identity construction. In this article, I use a combination of corpus linguistics and Critical Discourse Studies tools to analyse the use of pronouns and gender-indexical nouns in identity constructions and the representation of social categorisations. This article is an attempt to demonstrate that transgender is not a collective homogeneous identity, and that gender-sex incongruence may not be a salient identity feature for some forum-users. I also examine the ideologies (re)produced in the local forum-communication discourse, and the evaluation of hegemonic practices within transgender discourse and wider gender discourse to further demonstrate the heterogeneity of transgender identity.
KW - critical discourse analysis
KW - identity
KW - internet-mediated communication
KW - social categorisation
KW - transgender
U2 - 10.1515/ijsl-2018-2015
DO - 10.1515/ijsl-2018-2015
M3 - Journal article
VL - 2019
SP - 129
EP - 146
JO - International Journal of the Sociology of Language
JF - International Journal of the Sociology of Language
SN - 0165-2516
IS - 256
ER -