Discourses of Gender and Sexuality (DoGS)

The social sciences and humanities have highlighted that gender and sexuality are interconnected, discursively produced phenomena with far-reaching social implications. They shape our contemporary societies and, therefore, continue to be pressing research areas, not the least from the vantage points of equality, discrimination, representation, identity construction, inclusion, and exclusion.

The research group Discourses of Gender and Sexuality (DoGS) intends to harness this conceptualization to induce social change through a critical analysis of gender- and sexuality-related discourses and practices as they surface in a variety of social realities and empirical domains.

DoGS is a group of international scholars whose research focuses on topics connected to gender and sexuality. The group is interdisciplinary and open to researchers from various fields. It currently hosts researchers specializing in literary and cultural studies, linguistics, didactics, sociology, political science, social anthropology, musicology, social work, and development studies. A central goal of the research group is to capture gender and sexuality as phenomena that can be studied from a range of perspectives, drawing on various theoretical and methodological approaches that mutually complement each other.

We welcome scholars whose research focuses on gender and/or sexuality and who are interested in sharing their research insights with colleagues from other disciplines. The research group is also an arena for initiating new research collaborations.

The work of the research group is loosely based on a Foucauldian notion of discourse, which means that gender and sexuality are conceptualized as discursive formations and practices in whose production a broad range of mechanisms and phenomena play a role, including language, texts, practices, representations, perceptions, attitudes and (public) imaginaries.

The research group currently has three focal points
  • The first focal point is the issue of social representation. This includes, for example, analyses of how gender and sexuality are represented in social practices, language use, educational materials, literary works, media, music and other art forms, provoking questions of social inclusiveness and adequacy for educational use.

  • A second aspect that is explored by DoGS is the intersectionality of gender and sexuality with other social categories such as race, ethnicity, socio-economic background/class, caste, age, and migration, as well as a cross-cultural comparison of gender and sexuality discourses, including for example discussions of implications for educational practices, social inclusion, and gender equality. Intersectionality as a conceptual category allows for an investigation of the ways in which power and privilege, or the lack thereof, shape and reproduce exclusion in different societal arenas.

  • The third domain concerns the use of critical modes of inquiry, particularly embedded in queer theory, subaltern theory, and political philosophy, to challenge hegemonic discourses of gender and sexuality such as gender binarism (femininities, masculinities), sexual binarism, gender difference thinking, gender-related power mechanisms of domination, gender and sexual stereotyping, and heteronormativity. This domain also includes critical analyses related to issues such as gender equality, gender mainstreaming, stigmatizing, taboo, and sexual harassment.

Research group leaders

bilde av Heiko Motschenbacher

Heiko Motschenbacher

Professor

bilde av Sarah Hoem Iversen

Sarah Hoem Iversen

Associate Professor

Research group members

  • Alicia Rosaria Churchill (Division of Property Management), intersectional feminism
  • Anette Fagertun (Centre for Care Research, Bergen), social anthropology
  • Aziz Hakimi (Department of Pedagogy, Religion and Social Studies, Sogndal), political sociology
  • Brianne Rae Jaquette (Department of Language, Literature, Mathematics and Interpreting, Bergen), literary and cultural studies
  • Dunja Blazevic (Department of Pedagogy, Religion and Social Studies, Bergen), history
  • Heiko Motschenbacher (Department of Language, Literature, Mathematics and Interpreting, Bergen), linguistics
  • Laila Margaret Nordstrand Berg (Department of Social Science, Sogndal), political science
  • Line Alice Ytrehus (Department of Pedagogy, Religion and Social Studies, Bergen), intercultural studies
  • Lynda Aasnæs (Department of Language, Literature, Mathematics and Interpreting, Bergen), linguistics and language didactics
  • Nafeesa Tarajee Nichols (Department of Language, Literature, Mathematics and Interpreting, Bergen), literary and cultural studies
  • Padmaja Barua (Department of Welfare and Participation, Bergen), gender and development
  • Sarah Hoem Iversen (Department of Language, Literature, Mathematics and Interpreting, Bergen), literature, linguistics, and language education
  • Silje Valde Onsrud (Department of Arts Education, Bergen), music education and musicology
  • Vibeke Vågenes (Department of Pedagogy, Religion and Social Studies, Bergen), social studies

  • External members: Yasemin Nurcan Hacioglu (Department of Language and Literature, Volda University College), literary and cultural studies

Projects

Journal of Language and Sexuality: JLS is an international, peer-reviewed journal published by John Benjamins. The editorial office of JLS works at HVL, with Heiko Motschenbacher as a general editor.

Selected publications by DoGS researchers

Barua, Padmaja (2007): Making Inroads: Women's Participation in Panchayati Raj Institutions in Assam” [Master’s Thesis, University of Bergen].

Barua, Padmaja (2018): Unequal Interdependencies: Exploring Power and Agency in Domestic Work Relations in Contemporary India [PhD Thesis, University of Bergen].

Barua, Padmaja & Haukanes, Haldis (2019): Organizing for empowerment: Exploring the impact of unionization on domestic workers in India. Studies in Comparative International Development 55.1: 27-47.

Barua, Padmaja, Haukanes, Haldis & Waldrop, Anne (2016): Maid in India: Negotiating and contesting the boundaries of domestic work. Forum for Development Studies 43.3: 415-436.

Barua, Padmaja, Waldrop, Anne & Haukanes, Haldis (2017): From benevolent maternalism to the market logic: Exploring discursive boundary making in domestic work relations in India. Critical Asian Studies 49.4: 481-500.

Berg, Laila Nordstrand & Murdoch, Zuzana (2019): Bureaucracy of gender equality: Europeanisation in Nordic context? In: Dørum, Knut (ed.): Nordic Gender Equality Policy in a Europeanisation Perspective. London: Routledge.

Blix, Hilde Synnøve, Vestad, Ingeborg Lunde & Onsrud, Silje Valde (2021): Envisioning gender diversity for music education. In: Onsrud, Silje Valde, Blix, Hilde Synnøve & Vestad, Ingeborg Lunde (eds.): Gender Issues in Scandinavian Music Education: From Stereotypes to Multiple Possibilities. London: Routledge, 1-27.

Coimbra Gomes, Elvis & Motschenbacher, Heiko (2019): Language, normativity and sexual orientation obsessive-compulsive disorder (SO-OCD): A corpus-assisted discourse analysis. Language in Society 48.4: 565–584.

Eriksen, Annelin, Fagertun, Anette & Ødegaard, Cecilie (2007): Introduction: About gender and anthropology. Norsk Antropologisk Tidsskrift 18.2: 75-89.

Fagertun, Anette (2007): Gender as a structuring principle of ritual work in Bali. Norsk Antropologisk Tidsskrift 18.2: 104-123.

Fagertun, Anette (2009): The Gender of Work and the Work of Gender: On Social Transformations in Two Fisher Villages on Jimbaran Bay, Bali, Indonesia. PhD dissertation, University of Bergen.

Fagertun, Anette (2013): Gender and moralities of work on Jimbaran Bay, South Bali. In: Bråten, Eldar (ed.): Migrants and Entrepreneurs in Peninsular Southeast Asia. Leiden: Brill, 83-102.

Fagertun, Anette, ed. (2016): Localising Globalisation: Gendered Transformations of Work in Emergent Economies. (Special issue of Journal of Development Studies).

Fagertun, Anette (2016): Labour in Paradise: Gender, Class and Social Mobility in the Informal Tourism Economy of Urban Bali, Indonesia. Journal of Development Studies 53.3: 331-345.

Fagertun, Anette (2021): Absorbing care through precarious labour: The shifting boundaries of politics in Norwegian healthcare. In: Haukanes, Haldis & Pine, Frances (eds.): Intimacy and Mobility in an Era of Hardening Borders: Gender, Reproduction, Regulation. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 199-217.

Fagertun, Anette & Tingvold, Laila (2018): Care work, gender and ethnicity: Multicultural work communities and institutional changes. In: Debesay, Jonas & Tschudi-Madsen, Christine (eds.): Health, Migration & Profession. Oslo: Gyldendal Akademisk, 173-193.

Hellinger, Marlis & Motschenbacher, Heiko (eds.) 2015: Gender Across Languages. The Linguistic Representation of Women and Men. Volume IV. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Iversen, Sarah Hoem (2005): Her frequent quarrelling drove him to drink – Gender stereotyping in illustrative dictionary examples. Språk og Språkundervisning 38.3: 11-16.

Iversen, Sarah Hoem (2012): “To teach little boys and girls what it is proper for them to know”: Gendered education and the nineteenth-century children’s dictionary. In: Fjeld, Ruth Vatvedt & Torjusen, Julie Matilde (eds): Proceedings of the 15th EURALEX International Congress. Oslo: Euralex: 613–618.

Iversen, Sarah Hoem (2020): “When you have said your les-sons well, then you shall go out to play”: Play, gender, and the child addressee in nineteenth-century children’s dictionaries. In: Deszcz-Tryhubczak, Justyna & Kalla, Irena Barbara (eds.): Rulers of Literary Playgrounds: Politics of Intergenerational Play in Children’s Literature. London: Routledge, 45-63.

Iversen, Sarah Hoem (2021): The (re)presentation of knowledge about gender in children’s picture dictionaries. In: Goga, Nina, Iversen, Sarah Home & Teigland, Anne-Stefi (eds.): Verbal and Visual Strategies in Nonfiction Picturebooks: Theoretical and Analytical Approaches. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 67-79.

Leap, William L. & Motschenbacher, Heiko (2012): Launching a new phase in language and sexuality studies. Journal of Language and Sexuality 1.1: 1-14.

Motschenbacher, Heiko (2006): Women and Men Like Different Things? – Doing Gender als Strategie der Werbesprache. Marburg: Tectum.

Motschenbacher, Heiko (2007): Can the term ‘genderlect’ be saved? A postmodernist re-definition. Gender and Language 1.2: 255-278.

Motschenbacher, Heiko (2008): Werbesprachliche Genderstilisierung für globale Zeitschriften-Communities. In: Held, Gudrun & Bendel, Sylvia (eds.): Werbung – grenzenlos. Multimodale Werbetexte im interkulturellen Vergleich. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 57-76.

Motschenbacher, Heiko (2008): Structural linguistic gender categories and discursive materialization: A deconstructionist analysis. Indiana University Working Papers in Linguistics 8.3: 21-46.

Motschenbacher, Heiko (2008): ‘Women and men like different things’? Doing gender as a strategy of advertising language. [Summary of doctoral thesis] English and American Studies in German 41: 34-37.

Motschenbacher, Heiko (2009): Speaking the gendered body. The performative construction of commercial femininities and masculinities via body-part vocabulary. Language in Society 28.1: 1-22.

Motschenbacher, Heiko (2010): Female-as-norm (FAN): A typology of female and feminine generics. In: Bieswanger, Markus; Motschenbacher, Heiko & Mühleisen, Susanne (eds.): Language in its Socio-Cultural Context: Explorations in Gendered, Global and Media Uses. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 35-67.

Motschenbacher, Heiko (2010): Speaking commercial femininities and masculinities: Advertising language in Cosmopolitan and Men’s Health magazines. In: Kelly-Holmes, Helen & Mautner, Gerlinde (eds.): Language and the Market. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 201-212.

Motschenbacher, Heiko (2010): The discursive interface of national, European and sexual identities: Preliminary evidence from the Eurovision Song Contest. In: Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk, Barbara & Pułaczewska, Hanna (eds.): Intercultural Europe: Arenas of Difference, Communication and Mediation. Stuttgart: Ibidem, 85-103.

Motschenbacher, Heiko (2010): Language, Gender and Sexual Identity: Poststructuralist perspectives. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Motschenbacher, Heiko (2011): Taking Queer Linguistics further: Sociolinguistics and critical heteronormativity research. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 212: 149-179.

Motschenbacher, Heiko (2012): Queere Linguistik: Theoretische und methodologische Überlegungen zu einer heteronormativitätskritischen Sprachwissenschaft. In: Günthner, Susanne; Hüpper, Dagmar & Spieß, Constanze (eds.): Genderlinguistik. Sprachliche Konstruktionen von Geschlechtsidentität. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 87-125.

Motschenbacher, Heiko (2012): Negotiating sexual desire at the Eurovision Song Contest: On the verge of homonormativity? In: Calderón, Marietta & Marko, Georg (eds.): Let’s Talk About (Texts About) Sex: Sex and Language. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 287-299.

Motschenbacher, Heiko (2012): ‘I think Houston wants a kiss right?’: Linguistic constructions of heterosexualities at Eurovision Song Contest press conferences. Journal of Language and Sexuality 1.2: 127-150.

Motschenbacher, Heiko (2012): An Interdisciplinary Bibliography on Language, Gender and Sexuality (2000-2011). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Motschenbacher, Heiko (2013): Now everybody can wear a skirt: Linguistic constructions of non-heteronormativity at Eurovision Song Contest press conferences. Discourse & Society 24.5: 590-614.

Motschenbacher, Heiko (2013): Gentlemen before ladies? A corpus-based study of conjunct order in personal binomials. Journal of English Linguistics 41.3: 212-242.

Motschenbacher, Heiko & Stegu, Martin (eds.) 2013: Queer Linguistic Approaches to Discourse (Special Issue: Discourse & Society 24.5) Los Angeles: Sage.

Motschenbacher, Heiko & Stegu, Martin (2013): Queer Linguistic approaches to discourse. Discourse & Society 24.5: 519-535.

Motschenbacher, Heiko (2014): Focusing on normativity in language and sexuality studies: Insights from conversations on objectophilia. Critical Discourse Studies 11.1: 49-70.

Motschenbacher, Heiko (2014): Language, normativity and power: The discursive construction of objectophilia. In: Pishwa, Hanna & Schulze, Rainer (eds.): The Expression of Inequality in Interaction: Power, Dominance, and Status. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 239-264.

Motschenbacher, Heiko (2014): Grammatical gender as a challenge for language policy: The (im)possibility of non-heteronormative language use in German vs. English. Language Policy 13.3: 243–261.

Motschenbacher, Heiko (2015): Some new perspectives on gendered language structures. In: Hellinger, Marlis & Motschenbacher, Heiko (eds.): Gender Across Languages. The Linguistic Representation of Women and Men. Volume IV. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 27-48.

Motschenbacher, Heiko & Weikert, Marija (2015): Structural gender trouble in Croatian. In: Hellinger, Marlis & Motschenbacher, Heiko (eds.): Gender Across Languages. The Linguistic Representation of Women and Men. Volume IV. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 49-95.

Motschenbacher, Heiko (2015): Structural gender linguistics and de-essentialisation: A study of Croatian personal nouns. In: Scheller-Boltz, Dennis (ed.): New Approaches to Gender and Queer Research in Slavonic Studies. München: Otto Sagner, 51-69.

Motschenbacher, Heiko (2016): A poststructuralist approach to structural gender linguistics: Initial considerations. In: Abbou, Julie & Baider, Fabienne (eds.): Gender, Language and the Periphery: Grammatical and Social Gender from the Margins. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 65-88.

Motschenbacher, Heiko (2016): Gender, inclusion and English language teaching: A linguistic perspective. In: Elsner, Daniela & Lohe, Viviane (eds.): Gender and Language Learning: Research and Practice. Tübingen: Narr, 97-112.

Motschenbacher, Heiko (2016): A discursive approach to structural gender linguistics. Gender and Language 10.2: 149-169.

Motschenbacher, Heiko (2016): Inclusion and foreign language education: What linguistics can contribute. ITL – International Journal of Applied Linguistics 167.2: 159–189.

Motschenbacher, Heiko (2016): Language, Normativity and Europeanisation: Discursive Evidence from the Eurovision Song Contest. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Motschenbacher, Heiko (2017): Compliments, gender and sexuality in European ELF talk. In: Handler, Peter, Kaindl, Klaus & Wochele, Holger (eds.): Ceci n’est pas une festschrift: Texte zur Angewandten und Romanistischen Sprachwissenschaft für Martin Stegu. Berlin: Logos, 259–278.

Motschenbacher, Heiko (2017b): Strukturelle Genderlinguistik: Ein diskursiver Ansatz. Osnabrücker Beiträge zur Sprachtheorie 91: 87–110.

Motschenbacher, Heiko (2018): Sexuality in Critical Discourse Studies. In: Flowerdew, John & Richardson, John E. (eds.): Routledge Handbook of Critical Discourse Studies. London: Routledge, 388–402.

Motschenbacher, Heiko (ed.) 2018: Corpus Linguistics in Language and Sexuality Studies: Developments and Prospects (Special Issue: Journal of Language and Sexuality 7.2). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Motschenbacher, Heiko (2018): Corpus linguistics in language and sexuality studies: Taking stock and future directions. Journal of Language and Sexuality 7.2: 145–174.

Motschenbacher, Heiko (2019): Discursive shifts associated with coming out: A corpus-based study of news reports on Ricky Martin. Journal of Sociolinguistics 23.3: 284–302.

Motschenbacher, Heiko (2019): Language and sexual normativity. In: Barrett, Rusty & Hall, Kira (eds.): The Oxford Handbook of Language and Sexuality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Motschenbacher, Heiko (2019): Methods in language, gender and sexuality studies: An overview. Wiener Slawistischer Almanach 84: 43–79.

Motschenbacher, Heiko & Roivainen, Eka (2020): Personality traits, adjectives and gender: Integrating corpus linguistic and psychological approaches. Journal of Language and Discrimination 4.1: 16-50.

Motschenbacher, Heiko (2020): Language use before and after Stonewall: A corpus-based study of gay men’s pre-Stonewall narratives. Discourse Studies 22.1: 64-86.

Motschenbacher, Heiko (2020): Walking on Wilton Drive: A linguistic landscape analysis of a homonormative space. Language and Communication 72: 25-43.

Motschenbacher, Heiko (2020): Coming out and normative shifts: Investigating usage patterns of gay and homosexual in a corpus of news reports on Ricky Martin. Sociolinguistic Studies 14.1/2: 61-84.

Motschenbacher, Heiko (2020): Coming out - seducing - flirting: Shedding light on sexual speech acts. Journal of Pragmatics 170: 256-270.

Motschenbacher, Heiko (2021): Language and sexuality studies today: Why homosexual is a bad word and why queer linguist is not an identity. Journal of Language and Sexuality 10.1: 25-36.

Motschenbacher, Heiko (2021): Foreign language learning and sexuality-related inclusion: A multimodal analysis of representational practices in the German textbook series Navi Englisch. In: Pakuła, Łukasz (ed.): Linguistic Perspectives on Sexuality in Education: Representations, Constructions and Negotiations. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 51-75.

Motschenbacher, Heiko (2021): Corpus-based considerations on critical literacy in ELT: The linguistic representation of Ricky Martin in the news media. In: Paiz, Joshua M. & Coda, James (eds.): Intersectional Perspectives on LGBTQ+ Issues in Modern Language Learning and Teaching. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 217-259.

Motschenbacher, Heiko (2021): Linguistic barriers in foreign language education. In: Mohebbi, Hassan & Coombe, Christine (eds.): Research Questions in Language Education and Applied Linguistics: A Reference Guide. Cham: Springer, 711-716.

Motschenbacher, Heiko (2022): Linguistic Dimensions of Sexual Normativity: Corpus-Based Evidence. London: Routledge.

Nichols, Nafeesa T. (2021): Intimate violence and sexual assault in Kopano Matlwa’s Coconut: Carving spaces of feminist liberation in post-apartheid South African Literature. In: Holland, Mary K. & Hewett, Heather (eds.): #MeToo and Literary Studies: Reading, Writing, and Teaching about Sexual Violence and Rape Culture. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 187-198.

Nichols, Nafeesa T., Mendes, Jan-Therese & Averin, Ro (eds.) (forthcoming): Troubling Racism: Subversive Bodies, Subversive Desires (Special issue of Lambda Nordica). Gothenburg: Gothenburg University.

Onsrud, Silje Valde (2011): Et Epistemologisk Blikk på Kjønn i Musikkpedagogikken. Nordisk Nettverk for Musikkpedagogisk Forskning, Årbok 12. Oslo: NMH-publikasjoner.

Onsrud, Silje Valde (2012): Musikk, kjønn og skole: Perspektiver på elevers kjønnsperformans gjennom musikk. Norsk Pedagogiske Tidsskrift 6: 465-475.

Onsrud, Silje Valde (2013): Kjønn på Spill - Kjønn i Spill: En Studie av Ungdomsskoleelevers Musisering (Doctoral thesis). Bergen: Universitetet i Bergen.

Onsrud, Silje Valde (2014): “Slike gutter det vil gamle Norge ha”: Kjønnsperspektiver i tekster fra norske skolesangbøker. In: Bjørnstad, Fred Ola, Rong, Marit & Olsen Eiliv (eds.) Med Sang! Perspektiver på Norske Skolesangbøker etter 1814. Oslo: NOVUS, 177-201.

Onsrud, Silje Valde (2015): Gender performativity through musicking: Examples from a Norwegian classroom study. Nordic Network for Research in Music Education, Yearbook 16: 69-86. 

Onsrud, Silje Valde (2021): Thinking queer pedagogy in music education with Girl in Red. In: Onsrud, Silje Valde, Blix, Hilde Synnøve & Vestad, Ingeborg Lunde (eds.): Gender Issues in Scandinavian Music Education: From Stereotypes to Multiple Possibilities. London: Routledge.

Onsrud, Silje Valde, Blix, Hilde Synnøve & Vestad, Ingeborg Lunde (eds.) (2021): Gender Issues in Scandinavian Music Education: From Stereotypes to Multiple Possibilities. London: Routledge.

Sundsbø, Astrid, Fagertun, Anette & Oddvar Førland (2023). Contested care: Gendered re-negotiations of care needs for the frail elderly population in Norway. European Journal of Politics and Gender 6.2: 205-221.

Trysnes, Irene, Furrebøe, Elise Frølich, Berg, Laila Nordstrand, Einstabland, Åsta Lovise Håverstad, Klostergaard, Claudia & Drangsholt, Hanne (2022): “Hot case-workers and squint-eyed whores” - Sexual harassment of Norwegian social- and health care students in practical training. NORA - Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research 30.2: 124-139.

Research program
DoGS is a part of the research program Languages, Communication and Learning (SKOL).

                           
New research group members welcome – please help spreading the word!
Get in touch for more information: heim@hvl.no