Language and LGBT identity: 

Overview

This project involves fieldwork with young LGBT people in three socioeconomically and culturally variable locations in the UK. It combines ethnography with discourse analysis to examine the strategies used by the young people to negotiate norms and ideologies of gender and sexuality in their everyday interaction.

Specifically, the project focuses on intersectionality to consider how factors such as the young people’s socioeconomic class, ethnicity, location, and support networks impact on their experiences as LGBT people and their subsequent identity constructions.

Project aims 

The aims of the project are:

1. to develop a framework for the qualitative sociolinguistic analysis of LGBT identity which takes into account the impact of other social identities, and;
2. to inform social policy and practice related to the support of young LGBT people. This second point will be achieved via a briefing paper and a workshop in collaboration with the young people involved in this project. This will provide those working in healthcare, education, and social policy at a local and national level with information about the support needs of LGBT youth.