Les Hommen

the language of reactionary masculinity

Authors

  • Eric Louis Russell University of California, Davis

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.31061

Keywords:

french, homophobia, masculinity, same-sex marriage

Abstract

This article examines the lexico-grammatical and lexico-pragmatic patterns of a social media corpus authored by les Hommen, a populist group of young French males who protested the enactment of same-sex marriage and parenting laws in late 2012 and early 2013. Through the close description of linguistic data and its interpolation via abstract discursive constructs of positioning and framing, it is argued that these praxes are not merely homophobic, but are also projections of reactive masculinity (i.e. a backlash against the perceived erosion of male hegemony triggered by the loi Taubira and its consequences). The article uses traditional and functional grammatical approaches to advance a view of the Hommen's cognitive context, manifest though linguistic performance, whereby the French male is projected as a simultaneous victim of and reactionary force against - in their view - an undemocratic administration, and sectarian LGBT and feminist activists.

Author Biography

  • Eric Louis Russell, University of California, Davis

    Eric Russell is Associate professor in the Department of French and Italian, and affiliated faculty in the linguistics programme and graduate group in gender, sexuality and women's studies, Eric Louis Russell has published extensively on topics in theoretical and applied linguistics, including the phonetic indexing of sexual orientation. This article is an abbreviated version of a longer case study appearing as chapter 3 in The Discursive Ecology of Homophobia: Unraveling Anti-LGBTQ Speech on the European Far Right (Bristol, Multilingual Matters, 2019).

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Published

2019-04-08

Issue

Section

Articles

How to Cite

Russell, E. L. (2019). Les Hommen: the language of reactionary masculinity. Gender and Language, 13(1), 94-121. https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.31061