Queer: Homophobia or New Identity?

Homosexual discourse is an increasingly significant, shifting, and evolving area of linguistics. Past research has been conducted into the origins and history of lexicon used to describe homosexuals, whether male or female, as individuals and how words have evolved over homosexual liberation. Nevertheless, our understanding of how these terms are used in context is rapidly shifting. Society’s attitudes and values are continuously undergoing change. This project aims to investigate, analyse, and question current attitudes of homosexuality by focusing on discourse labels used to describe and categorise homosexuals within the UK, and will ultimately question whether homosexuals are using negative words positively, thus causing a lexical reappropation.
This process has been conducted by focusing on their origins from a chronological approach, and by using quantitative research in the form of questionnaires to try and grasp current understanding of these terms, both by heterosexual and homosexual communities alike. The project also touches upon homosexual discourse as a way of expressing identity in the register Polari, and how society has shifted from using words to express identity, to words ultimately becoming identity.