This page includes descriptions of my recent and ongoing research projects, as well as relevant publications.
“The Right Story”: Discursive Strategies in Gender-Affirming Healthcare Access
Committee: Atiqa Hachimi, Susan Ehrlich, Derek Denis
My doctoral research investigates non-binary transgender patients’ narratives of gender-affirming care visits. Among many things, I show how my participant-collaborators use linguistic practices as a means to navigate and resist gender-normative expectations in the consultation room, and how these practices are shared within trans communities as a form of community care – part of what gets circulated in our care webs not just as valuable for obtaining desired care, but also as interventions on the structure of care access to begin with. The two main strands of this project are orientations to transnormativity and orientations to dysphoria: specifically, how trans people invoke or circumvent transnormative expectations in ways that problematize the notion of transnormativity as it has been applied in queer linguistics so far, as well as how the relationship to dysphoria is much more different and nuanced than medical conceptions.
Though the standards of care for transgender people have improved significantly in the last decade, many policies continue to gatekeep access to gender-affirming medical support, such as hormone therapy or access to surgical procedures, that may provide individuals with greater ease in their embodiment. Research on transgender speakers’ linguistic practices in healthcare interactions (Borba 2019, Speer & McPhillips 2013, inter alia) has shown that practitioners’ prerequisites for granting access to this kind of care remain largely based on criteria presented in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5; American Psychiatric Association 2013). This practice of evaluation has led to an impression within trans communities that accessing gender-affirming care is a test, where patients must 'do' their gender (West & Zimmerman 1987) or present their identity in a particular way. Meeting this expectation may feel especially imperative and dehumanizing for non-binary trans people, as individuals who do not identify as either, or exclusively, masculine or feminine. Presenting a gender positionality outside of the binary has historically meant losing access to care (Garrison 2018), and as a result, non-binary patients often find themselves using different language to describe their experience than they would in other contexts, simply to gain access to the care that they need.
As an intervention in the inequity of doctor-patient communication in this context, my doctoral research analyzes the metalinguistic (‘talk about talk’) observations of non-binary people regarding their gender-affirming healthcare interactions in Ontario to explore the role that language plays in obtaining access to desired care. Rather than considering non-binary patients’ practices as straightforward acts of capitulation to medical expectations, I contend that their performances in these high-risk interactions are a means to contest their marginal status within the healthcare system. Showing how trans experience is far more nuanced than current institutional conceptions is necessary to determine precisely how doctors understand, evaluate, and interact with trans people must undergo a fundamental shift, and the goal of this work is therefore to not only contribute to growing scholarship on the complexity and creativity of linguistic practice within trans communities and how it is impactful in trans people’s lives, but also contribute to identifying and dismantling the barriers that exist for trans people in accessing competent, truly affirming healthcare.
Early analysis indicates that language is a salient concern in these interactions, and interviewees express numerous strategies to simplify or obscure their non-binary identities in their pursuit of care, such as the flexible use of identity labels, vocal pitch modulation, the intensification and historicization of experiences of “suffering” related to gender identity, and avoiding asking questions about their care so as not to compromise doctors’ impressions of their certainty about medical transition. These conversations highlight the ways in which linguistic performances are a crucial part of patients’ establishing recognition as authentically “trans enough” by their doctors; in other words, whether they get the access that they need often depends not just on what they say, but how they say it, and what they strategically omit. For the next phase of the project, I aim to conduct one-on-one interviews with healthcare practitioners: in considering the language ideologies and institutional restraints that are meaningful to community members, it is necessary to also investigate how doctors describe their decision-making processes, which may or may not be consistent with patients’ perceptions. This is especially significant considering that previous research on interactions between trans patients and practitioners has not been informed by conversations with doctors themselves.
To me, this research is much more than its theoretical contributions to the field of trans linguistics, or even sociocultural linguistics more generally. In exploring the ways that trans people use language creatively to engage in their own acts of resistance against institutions that constrain their experiences, it opens up innumerable possibilities for creating material change for trans lives, and for celebrating the many ways that trans people continue to thrive.
Generals paper I: “I’m just making an update video”: Monologic inter-subjectivity and the stylistic use of creaky voice in non-binary transition vlogs.
Committee: Jessamyn Schertz, Atiqa Hachimi, Susan Ehrlich
This study analyzes stylistic use of creaky voice in a sample of YouTube ‘transition vlogs,’ monologic video self-recordings of a White, American, non-binary transgender individual throughout their gender-affirming medical transition. The approach is both quantitative and discourse-analytic, involving an inspection of the larger narrative context(s) in which these creaky performances are embedded. Consistent with previous studies that identified a connection between creak and suppressed affect (Levon 2016, Mendoza-Denton 2011, Zimman 2015, 2017), clustering of pervasive creak in autobiographical narratives highlights the ways in which creak is employed as part of the vlogger’s pre-empting of challenges to their authenticity and part of their claims to it, all while avoiding outward displays of emotion “in the here and now” (Zimman 2015). Creak provides additional socio-indexical saliency for the accreted stances in each video (specifically, a “call out” stance and a “laid-back expert” stance) beyond what is achieved through the content of their discourse alone: the distance, “coolness,” and “low emotional energy” (Pennock-Speck 2005) linked to creak assists in the authentication of the unique expertise that comes from lived experience, by demonstrating emotional and expressive control.
Generals paper II: Brutoglossia: Indexicalities of class, race, and masculinity in craft beer discourse.
Committee: Atiqa Hachimi, Alejandro Paz, Derek Denis
In his seminal paper Indexical orders and the dialectics of sociolinguistic life, Silverstein (2003) laid the foundation for relating the micro-social to the macro-social of sociolinguistic phenomena. To illustrate the context-creating and context-entailing nature of indexicality (i.e., how indexical signs both depend on and act to constitute the interactional context itself), Silverstein proposed the register of oinoglossia (or wine talk), where the use of specialized terminology and the ritual of “tasting” develops a particular discursive genre, “the mastery of which distinguishes professional and serious avocational tasters from all others” (Silverstein 2003: 223). This paper argues for a closely related discursive genre, brutoglossia: (craft) beer talk. Drawing on a constructed corpus of brewery and craft beer descriptions from the Greater Toronto Area, I argue that the appropriation of wine terminology and tasting practices (re)configures an historically working-class beverage – and its brewers and drinkers – into something ‘classy.’ In addition to its ubiquitous presence in this relatively novel context, ‘specialist’ lexical components of wine discourse (such as that used in sensory and gustatory descriptions) provide the higher order of indexicality through which the emergent technical beer terminology is to be interpreted (cf. Jaffe 2016). This intertextuality (Briggs & Bauman 1992, Fairclough 1992) between these two discursive genres – oinoglossia on one hand, and brutoglossia on the other – is transformative. Once the beverage of the blue-collar masses, the so-called ‘craft beer revolution’ newly enregisters beer as a material symbol of White, upper-middle class experience. Pursuing a discourse-analytic approach embedded within the disciplines of sociocultural linguistics and linguistic anthropology, I show how Toronto breweries construct craft beer as something technical, specialized, and requiring knowledge and refinement of methods, while simultaneously maintaining its status as wholesome, egalitarian, and ‘down to earth.’ Taken together, these descriptions, both of the breweries and the beers themselves, can be read as fields of indexicalities, mapping linguistic and semiotic variables associated with a particular social object: beer.
The morphosyntax of singular they (with Elizabeth Cowper).
This project focuses on both sociocultural and morphosyntactic analysis of the non-binary usage of singular they; that is, they as used to refer to individuals whose gender identity is not, or is not exclusively, masculine or feminine. Despite they’s widespread usage, not all speakers judge this most recent innovation to be grammatical, even if they do not object to singular they in quantified (2), generic (3), or otherwise gender non-specific (4) contexts and would produce such examples natively.
(1) When Arthur arrives, please ask them to fill out this form.
(2) If anyone comes to the door, tell them to go away.
(3) The perfect student always finishes their homework.
(4) I heard they hired a new teacher. I wonder which grade they’ll be assigned to.
We argue that resistance to this new use of they can, at least in part, be attributed to speakers’ level of participation in a grammatical change in progress. Further, we propose that this change can be categorized into three distinct stages, with they’s most recent broadening – that is, as a non-binary pronoun of reference – dovetailing with wider socio-cultural changes (as well as featural changes beyond the pronominal system) that underscore the difficulty in separating grammatical and social judgements. We endeavour to demonstrate that linguists from all disciplines – both theoretical and applied – are especially well-suited to leverage theoretical insights to advocate for trans-affirming language practice.
Language innovation in German transgender communities (with Katharina Pabst).
The purpose of this study is to investigate what alternatives to gendered language (such as gender neutral pronouns and titles, instead of gendered forms like sie, er, Frau, Herr, etc.) are in circulation in German trans communities, and how the use of gender-neutral terms allows trans German speakers to express their identity. Our goal is both to raise awareness about existing linguistic creativity in the German trans community (including an investigation of the prevalence of English borrowings, which is often anecdotally reported), as well as create an educational resource for instructors of the German language.
Stylization of the 'anti-craft': the linguistic landscape of macro beer
Building on my second Generals Paper research, this project considers the linguistic landscape of the 'anti-craft beer' movement, initiated by larger beer conglomerates seeking to capitalize on persistent derision of craft beer culture. Considering advertising campaigns from large beer corporations, such as Budweiser’s 2015 Superbowl ad that claims themselves to be “proudly a Macro Beer” (Budweiser 2015), I analyze the the ways in which industrial beer and its consumers are stylized, with an attention to the extant literature on brands and branding (Agha 2015; Manning 2010, 2012; Nakassis 2013, inter alia).
Preliminary investigation indicates that discourses of authenticity figure prominently, but with ‘locality’ (a core value of the craft beer industry) exchanged for ‘historicity,’ and the value of long establishment (especially if it dates pre-prohibition), ‘tried-and-true’ methods as opposed to innovation, and an implied hypermasculinity of large machinery staking a central place in marketing strategy. Craft beer, and the tasting rituals of craft beer consumption, are subtextually constructed as pretentious and unmasculine, capitalizing on the covert prestige of working-class physical masculinity and further entrenching craft beer as an elite commodity.
Below are select lists of recent publications and presentations; for a complete list, see my CV.
2022. Konnelly, L., Bjorkman, B., & Airton, L. Towards an engaged linguistics: Nonbinary pronouns as a site of linguistic advocacy. Journal of Language and Sexuality.
2022. Konnelly, L. Transmedicalism and “trans enough”: linguistic strategies in talk about gender dysphoria. Gender and Language.
2021. Konnelly, L. Both, and: Transmedicalism and resistance in non-binary narratives of gender-affirming care. Toronto Working Papers in Linguistics.
2021. Konnelly, L. Nuance and normativity in trans linguistic research. Journal of Language and Sexuality.
2020. Konnelly, L. Brutoglossia: Democracy, authenticity, and the enregisterment of connoisseurship in ‘craft beer talk’. Journal of Language and Communication.
2021. Gadanidis, T., Kiss, A., Konnelly, L., Pabst, K., Schlegl, L., Umbal, P. & Tagliamonte, S. Integrating qualitative and quantitative analyses of stance: A case study of English that/zero variation. Language in Society.
2020. Sanders, N., Umbal, P., & Konnelly, L. Methods for increasing equity, diversity, and inclusion in linguistics pedagogy. Canadian Journal of Linguistics.
2020. Konnelly, L. The woman in the background: Representation of gendered nouns in CNN and FOX media discourse. Journal of English Language and Linguistics 48(3), 233–257.
2020. Konnelly L., & Cowper, E. Gender diversity and morphosyntax: an account of singular they. Glossa 5(1), 1–19.
May 2022). Konnelly, L. Normativity and semantic authority in a virtual transmedicalist community. Paper presented at Lavender Languages and Linguistics Conference (LavLang) 28. Università degli Studi di Catania.
January 2022. Konnelly, L. & Crowley, A. Critique and Possibility in Trans Linguistics. Paper presented at the Linguistic Society of America Annual General Meeting. Washington, D.C.
June 2021. Konnelly, L., Umbal, P., & Sanders, N. The Diverse Names Database: A Tool for Creating More Equitable, Diverse, and Inclusive Linguistic Example Sentences. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Canadian Linguistics Association (CLA), Congress for the Social Sciences and Humanities 2021. York University.
May 2021. Crowley, A. & Konnelly, L. The ‘transgender couple’: transnormativity, trans separatism, and the discourse of t4t. Paper accepted for presentation at Lavender Languages and Linguistics Conference (LavLang) 27. California Institute of Integral Studies. Rescheduled to May 2021 due to COVID-19.
May 2020. Sanders, N., Umbal, P., & Konnelly, L. Methods for Increasing Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in Linguistics Pedagogy. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Canadian Linguistics Association (CLA), Congress for the Social Sciences and Humanities 2020. Western University.
March 2020. Crowley, A. & Konnelly, L. The ‘transgender couple’: transnormativity, trans separatism, and the discourse of t4t. Paper accepted for presentation at Lavender Languages and Linguistics Conference (LavLang) 28. California Institute of Integral Studies. Rescheduled to 2021 due to COVID-19.
October 2019. Konnelly, L. Brutoglossia: democracy, authenticity, and the enregisterment of connoisseurship in ‘craft beer talk’. Poster presented at NWAV48. University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon.
February 2019. Konnelly, L. Linguistic Innovation and Advocacy in Trans and Gender-Diverse Communities: the Morphosyntax of Singular they. Invited guest speaker, Department of Language Studies LIN Brown Bag Series. University of Toronto Mississauga, Toronto, Ontario.
October 2018. Gadanidis, T., Hildebrand-Edgar, N., Kiss, A., Konnelly, L., Pabst, K., Schlegl, L., Umbal, P. & Tagliamonte, S. “Stance, style, and semantics: Operationalizing insights from semantic-pragmatics to account for linguistic variation.” Paper presented at NWAV47. New York University.
May 2018. Gadanidis, T., Hildebrand-Edgar, N., Kiss, A., Konnelly, L., Pabst, K., Schlegl, L., Umbal, P., & Tagliamonte, S. A. Operationalizing style in variationist analysis: stance-taking and English complementizers. Paper presented at Change and Variation in Canada (CVC) 10. University of Manitoba.
April 2018. Konnelly, L. “I’m just making an update video”: stylistic use of creaky voice in non-binary transition vlogs. Paper presented at Lavender Languages and Linguistics Conference (LavLang) 25. Rhode Island College.