Lesbian at the vanguard
a tribute to Anna Livia (1955–2007)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.21529Keywords:
Lesbian at the vanguard, vanguard, Anna Livia , tributeAbstract
This tribute considers the work of linguist and novelist, Anna Livia (1955–2007). Anna was a noted fiction writer before becoming a linguist and much of her work considered language play in literature. Anna brought her experience as a lesbian activist to queer linguistics, where she played an important role in establishing the field. Her work continues to be an important example of linguistic research on lesbians, an area that continues to be underrepresented in the field.
References
Barrett, Rusty (1997) The ‘homo-genius’ speech community. In Anna Livia and Kira Hall (eds), Queerly Phrased: Language, Gender, and Sexuality 181–201. New York: Oxford University Press.
Bucholtz, Mary (1999) Review of Queerly Phrased: Language, Gender, and Sexuality. American Anthropologist 101(4): 855. https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.1999.101.4.855
Hall, Kira and Bucholtz, Mary (eds) (1995) Gender Articulated: Language and the Socially Constructed Self. New York: Routledge.
Hall, Kira, Bucholtz, Mary and Moonwomon, Birch (eds) (1992) Locating Power: Proceedings of the Second Berkeley Women and Language Conference. Berkeley: Berkeley Women and Language Group.
Jones, Lucy (2018) Lesbian identity construction. In Kira Hall and Rusty Barrett (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Language and Sexuality. Oxford Handbooks Online. https://doi.org/110.1093/oxfordhb/9780190212926.013.28
Livia, Anna (1982) Relatively Norma. London: Onlywomen Press.
Livia, Anna (1991) Minimax. Portland, OR: The Eighth Mountain Press.
Livia, Anna (1995) ‘I ought to throw a Buick at you’: fictional representations of butch/femme speech. In Kira Hall and Mary Bucholtz (eds) Gender Articulated: Language and the Socially Constructed Self 245–278. New York: Routledge.
Livia, Anna (1999a) ‘She sired sex children’: feminist experiments with linguistic gender. In Mary Bucholtz, A. C. Liang and Laurel A. Sutton (eds) Reinventing Identities: The Gendered Self in Discourse 332–347. New York: Oxford University Press.
Livia, Anna (1999b) Doing sociolinguistic research on the French Minitel. American Behavioral Scientist 43(3): 422–435. https://doi.org/10.1177/00027649921955353
Livia, Anna (2000) Memories in flesh and marble. Journal of Lesbian Studies 4(4): 87–96. https://doi.org/10.1300/J155v04n04_08
Livia, Anna (2001) Pronoun Envy: Literary Uses of Linguistic Gender. New York: Oxford University Press.
Livia, Anna (2002) Public and clandestine: gay men’s pseudonyms on the French Minitel. Sexualities 5(2): 201–217. https://doi.org/10.1177/1363460702005002004
Livia, Anna (2003) ‘One man in two is a woman’: linguistic approaches to gender in literary texts. In Janet Holmes and Miriam Meyerhoff (eds) The Handbook of Language and Gender 142–158. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Blackwell. https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470756942.ch6
Livia, Anna and Hall, Kira (eds) (1997a) Queerly Phrased: Language, Gender, and Sexuality. New York: Oxford University Press.
Livia, Anna and Hall, Kira (1997b) ‘It’s a girl!’: bringing performativity back to linguistics. In Anna Livia and Kira Hall (eds) Queerly Phrased: Language, Gender, and Sexuality 3–18. New York: Oxford University Press.
Queen, Robin (1997) ‘I don’t speak Spritch’: locating lesbian language. In Anna Livia and Kira Hall (eds), Queerly Phrased: Language, Gender and Sexuality 233–256. New York: Oxford University Press.
Wakeford, Nina (2007) Anna Livia. The Guardian, 26 September.
Zimman, Lal (2020) Transgender language, transgender moment: toward a trans linguistics. In Kira Hall and Rusty Barrett (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Language and Sexuality. Oxford Handbooks Online. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190212926.013.4
Zimman, Lal (2021) Beyond the cis gays’ cis gaze: the need for a trans linguistics. Gender and Language 15(3): 423–429. https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.20883
