Manifestations of transphobia in computer-mediated communication. A case study of language discrimination in english and polish internet-mediated discourse

Abstract

This article aims to investigate the linguistic means of transphobic discrimination observed on the Internet. The languages analysed are English and Polish, since they both offer their speakers direct and indirect ways that discrimination manifests itself, yet Polish seems to enable a more noticeable means because of the presence of grammatical gender in the language. The paper discusses twelve samples of Computer-Mediated Communication, using the methodological tools offered by Critical Discourse Analysis and Queer Theory. Based on the analysis of the samples, the article shows that even though transphobia lies mainly in lexical choices of the speaker, it is not always direct, i.e. visible in insults and attacks on a trans person, but is oftentimes indirect, i.e. visible in the incorrect use of personal pronouns in both English and Polish, or in the incorrect use of grammatical gender in Polish. Moreover, while transphobia visible in language is not always intended by the speaker, it can still be considered to be discriminatory.