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Heteronormativity in First Encounters: An Interactional Analysis

Stina Ericsson
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Linnaeus University, School of Language and Literature, Vxj, Sweden Version of record first published: 20 Apr 2011

To cite this article: Stina Ericsson (2011): Heteronormativity in First Encounters: An Interactional Analysis, NORA - Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research, 19:2, 87-104 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08038740.2011.568124

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NORANordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research, Vol. 19, No. 2, 87104, June 2011

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Heteronormativity in First Encounters: An Interactional Analysis

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STINA ERICSSON
Linnaeus University, School of Language and Literature, Va , Sweden xjo

ABSTRACT Conversations between people who meet for the rst time follow specic constraints. For instance, speakers are constrained as to what topics they can talk about, and how. Analysing recordings of non-institutional informal conversations in Norwegian between previously unacquainted speakers, this paper argues that conversationally appropriate displays of heterosexuality are a way of fullling constraints on friendly encounters in such settings. In the conversations this is done through references to former and present (heterosexual) partners, through talk about marriage and attraction, and through the construction of homosexuality as the other and as having negative connotations.

Introduction Consciously and unconsciously, we use language to do a number of different things in interaction with others. We convey and construct ourselves as particular kinds of being, and the world around us as a particular kind of place. Consider the following turns from a telephone conversation where the speakers are previously unknown to each other:1 Female caller: Hello Id like to make an appointment for my partner. Receptionist: Right, lets see, whats his social security number? The receptionists utterance is a perfectly ordinary one. The use of the pronominal form his is an unmarked choice in this context, where the antecedent, my partner, is available in the immediately preceding turn. Yet, the pronoun is also a gendered one, conveying the receptionists interpretation of the sex of the referent. As the referent in question is described as a partner, the gendered pronoun also reveals the receptionists view of the callers sexual identity, namely a heterosexual one.

Correspondence Address: Stina Ericsson, Linnaeus University, School of Language and Literature, SE-351 95 Vaxjo, Sweden. Email: stina.ericsson@lnu.se 0803-8740 Print/1502-394X Online/11/020087104 q 2011 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/08038740.2011.568124

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Thus, the receptionists utterance conversationally constructs the caller as a heterosexual. The utterance reects the heteronormative environment in which it was made, and, importantly, it also helps construct the world as a heteronormative one. Utterances like the receptionists show how everyday interaction contributes to the creation and maintenance of norms regarding gender and sexuality. In this article I will investigate how sexual identities are managed in conversations between strangers, in a contemporary Nordic setting.

The Social Construction of Sexuality

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I here discuss sexuality as sexual identity, following Butler and Cameron in seeing identityin their work, specically gender identityas something that is performed, and performed in relation to cultural norms, and where repeated, but not necessarily identical, interactional acts constitute identity (Butler 1990; Cameron 1997). Cameron highlights the role of speech in Butlers performance of gender, by stating that, in this view, people are who they are because of (among other things) the way they talk, rather than the other way around, and that the focus of sociolinguistic research thus becomes the investigation of how people use linguistic resources to produce gender differentiation (1997: 49). Based on this performative view of identity, I here investigate how people who meet for the rst time use language to produce sexual identities, and themselves and others as having a particular sexual identity. Like gender, expressions and interpretations of sexuality vary in different contexts and over time, and performance of sexual identity is constrained by social norms. Todays hetero/homo distinction can be seen as encompassing a rather simplistic dichotomy of a good and a bad (Katz 2007: 65, 172). These norms may also be resisted and performance of sexual identity modied in different ways. Importantly for present concerns, even though heterosexuality in a heteronormative context is the default or unmarked sexuality, and as such in some way invisible, it need not be unmarked or invisible in a conversation (Cameron & Kulick 2003: 59). Regarding the use of identity, I also want to point out that the speakers themselves, in the conversations below, need not be consciously aware that they are doing any identity work, nor need they actually consider themselves as having a particular sexual identity. As an analyst I use notions of sexual identity to describe what is construed and conveyed interactionally in the conversations. By seeing sexuality from a social constructionist perspective I here intend three things (cf. Burr 2003). Firstly, I take a critical view of knowledge that is taken for granted, here specically the view that heterosexuality is natural, in the sense of given by biology and unaffected by peoples daily lives. Secondly, our treatment of sexuality is historically and culturally specic and as such by no means better or more true than other views of sexuality. Thirdly, it is through interaction that our view of sexualitythe system that we place it inis constructed, and this view, this system, in turn regulates interpretations and expressions of sexuality.

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Linell assumes three conversational principles that are fundamental to the view of interaction adopted here (Linell 2005). The rst principle is sequentiality. An utterance in a conversation is always made in the context of preceding and subsequent utterances, and its form and meaning depend on this sequential position. In other words, an utterance is both connected to what comes before it and points forward to what comes next. This means that an utterance cannot be studied in isolation, but only as part of a sequence of utterances. The second principle is mutual dependence between utterance and activity. The activitysuch as a doctor patient consultation or friends having coffee togetheraffects utterances, and utterances make up part of the activity. This means that, in addition to taking into account utterances sequential position, it is also important to consider their non-linguistic context. The third conversational principle is joint construction, which means that utterances are constructed in relation to both hearer and speaker. On this view, it is not the case that a message with a certain content is transmitted from speaker to hearer, but rather that speaker and hearer together and incrementally create meaning. This may occur very concretely through one speaker completing another speakers utterance, or more generally through speakers having their own views of the conversation and what has been established at a particular point, as well as through a participant reacting to and adjusting another participants utterance. In terms of the study of heteronormativity in interaction, and based on these three conversational principles, it can be expected that the construction of heteronormativity in conversation is achieved in relation to previous and anticipated utterances in the conversation (for instance, how a third party is referred to by a speaker may depend on references previously made by another speaker), as well as in relation to the activity the participants are involved in and their roles in this activity, and also that speakers together jointly construct the meaning of a sexual identity, such as heterosexuality, to the extent that such an identity is relevant to the particular interaction. Cameron and Kulick sum up work on heteronormativity in conversations by saying that casually displaying heterosexuality is a way of displaying normality, maturity and social appropriateness (Cameron & Kulick 2006: 10). This is particularly shown in the work of Celia Kitzinger. She investigates 50 after-hours calls to a doctor in the English Midlands, showing how contemporary societal norms surrounding the family create a context where both doctor and callers rely on heteronormative assumptions for framing their utterances and for making inferences (Kitzinger 2005a). What can be seen in these conversations is an assumption of a heterosexual nuclear family, consisting of a married, co-resident couple and their biological children. Importantly, Kitzinger argues that heteronormative inferences and family reference terms in these data are not used with the intent of discriminating against non-heterosexuals. The doctor and the callers are simply doing the ordinary thing of making use of societal norms, while going about their main business, that is, the medical concerns. In another study, Kitzinger analyses classical British and American conversationanalytical recordings of conversations from the 1960s to the 1980s, showing how

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heterosexuality acts as a taken-for-granted resource in these interactions (Kitzinger 2005b). She identies three different ways in which speakers in the data speak as heterosexuals and thereby co-construct the world as a heteronormative one. The rst way is through joking, banter, and talk about heterosexual activity, such as a woman being teased about supposedly being sexually attracted to a male member of a rock band (2005b: 228). The second way in which heterosexuality is displayed is through topic talk about heterosexual relationships, such as a woman discussing her upcoming wedding (note that at the time of the recordings, same-sex marriage was not a legal option), or a man talking about his wedding anniversary (2005b: 229). The main focus of Kitzingers article is on the third way in which speakers make heterosexuality known. This is done indirectly, while the topic of the talk is not (hetero)sexuality. In particular, speakers here make use of person reference forms, referring to someone unknown to the hearer. For instance, a speaker may show her or his heterosexuality by locating themselves in a marital unit, such as a woman calling a suicide prevention centre, saying my husband is suicidal (2005b: 236), or a person using pronouns such as we, us, or our to refer to self and heterosexual partner, we been to Palm Springs (2005b: 247). Other person reference forms involve in-law terminology, identication of someone with reference to their spouse, and the mention of couples. In contrast with these studies of heterosexuality, interactionally, homosexuality functions quite differently in heteronormative contexts. For instance, homosexuality has interactional costs, such as several turns being needed for the correction of an erroneous heteronormative assumption of a persons sex (Land & Kitzinger 2005); young men forming a gay identity have to do considerably more work than heterosexuals in nding cultural references (Leap 1999), and people in same-sex couples often have to assess the risks of conveying the sex of their partner in interactions with others, something which constrains the reference forms that can be used (Liang 1999). Another aspect of interactional differences between homosexuality and heterosexuality in heteronormative contexts can be seen in the function of homosexuality in heterosexual-only conversations. As an example of this, Cameron analyses a self-recording made in 1990 by a 21-year-old male US college student, of himself and four male friends in an informal setting (Cameron 1997). Camerons overall concern is the performance of gender identity, and she argues that the young men in the conversation are actively engaged in doing gender by displaying their heterosexuality. They do this by contrasting themselves with gay men on numerous occasions and in very explicit ways, such as through a long discussion of the clothes and appearance of that really gay guy in our Age of Revolution class or through descriptions such as fat, queer, goofy guy . . . [whos] as gay as night and blond hair, snide little queer weird shit (1997: 53 54, 52). Interestingly, the description of someone as gay by these young men is not directly correlated to the actual sexual preferences of the described persons. Rather, gay is construed in terms of gender deviance, so that in a general way, someone who is not masculine enough, or not in the appropriate way, is put into the category of gay, and gays are conversationally construed as alien.

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While Kitzingers and Camerons work mainly focuses on institutional contexts, or conversations between family members or people otherwise already acquainted with each other, the present study uses non-institutional informal conversations between people who are not previously acquainted, thus adding to our knowledge of sexual identities in interaction. As in the present study, the doctor patient conversations analysed by Kitzinger involve speakers who are interacting with each other for the rst time (Kitzinger 2005a). However, their institutional setting places particular constraints on the interaction, associated with the different roles of the participants, and this also inuences the management of sexual identities. Importantly, while Kitzingers work is based in an English-language context, the study presented here investigates a Nordic setting. Even though there are a number of studies on heteronormativity in a variety of different academic disciplines in the Nordic countries, there is very little research on interaction and sexual identity. As an illustration, a recent Swedish book on language and gender includes a chapter on sexuality, but relies almost exclusively on English-language studies and does not refer to any Nordic studies of sexuality and interaction (Edlund et al. 2007). Similarly, in a survey of language and gender in sociolinguistics, Ohlsson includes a section on queer studies but actually does not include any linguistic or sociolinguistic studies (Ohlsson 2007). Among the exceptions, Ericsson analyses heteronormativity in different activities in a Swedish corpus of conversations and also in play and conversations involving adults and young children (Ericsson 2008, 2009). First Encounters People meeting for the rst time, and who share an interest in getting along, whether only for the few minutes they are waiting for the delayed bus together or because they will have extensive contact in the future, are constrained in what they can talk about and how. Getting to know each other is often a careful step-by-step process, where speakers convey their opinions little by little, taking into account the interlocutors views. Goffman calls this a feeling-out process and exemplies it by the disclosure of political opinions: by proceeding step by step, a speaker can halt his gradual disclosure of how far Left or how far Right he is just at the point where the other has come to the furthest extreme of his actual beliefs (Goffman 1990: 189). Another aspect of conversations between people unacquainted with each other, related to the feeling-out process, is that speakers engage in building up a common ground, a common knowledge base about each other, from which they can nd shared perspectives on which to base their talk (Gumperz 1982: 142; Svennevig 1999: 235). As the above shows, speakers adapt to each other in interaction in different ways. One way to capture this is through the notion of face, described by Goffman as the positive social value a person effectively claims for himself in a particular interactional situation (Goffman 1967: 5). An utterance can respect a persons face, and it can also threaten it. Speakers often seek to avoid face-threatening acts (Brown & Levinson 1987: 68). Svennevig investigates the conversations between ve pairs of people who meet, each pair separately, for the rst time (Svennevig 1999). The speakers meet for real-life

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purposes, and the conversations are roughly 40 minutes long. He investigates three interactional aspects of these conversations: questions inviting the other to say something about herself, topic introduction more generally, and side sequences where speakers deal with asymmetries in background knowledge. The rst two of these are of specic interest to present concerns. Svennevig uses the term presentation-eliciting questions for questions inviting the other to speak. Examples include what are you studying?, what is it you do?, are you from the city here or are you? (1999: 101102). Similar questions are investigated by Maynard and Zimmerman in an experimental setting (Maynard & Zimmerman 1984). The questions concern the hearers membership in some category or aspects of such a category. Maynard and Zimmerman, and Svennevig, argue that presentation-eliciting questions, and their ensuing responses, help to accomplish intimacy in conversations between unacquainted speakers, as they allow participants to provide information about themselves and to establish similarities with respect to different membership categories. Regarding topic introductions more generally, Svennevig argues that Goffmans feeling-out process centrally involves participants trying to nd topics that do not threaten anyones face and which allow a common search for shared perspectives (Svennevig 1999: 236). Material and Method The material I use is NoTa-Oslo2, which is the Oslo part of Norsk talesprakskorpus, a corpus of Norwegian spoken language (Johannessen & Hagen 2008). NoTa-Oslo consists of interviews and conversations recorded in 2005, and it was constructed to enable the study of contemporary Oslo language use from a number of different angles. The studies of NoTa-Oslo that have been published to date include lexical studies, interactional analysis, syntax, and language technology (see the different contributions to Johannessen & Hagen 2008). The speech is collected from 166 informants, of whom 144 are chosen as a representative sample of the greater Oslo area, in terms of sex, age, geographical location, and education. Interviews were semi-formal and conducted with individual informants. Conversations were informal and carried out in pairs. Coffee, tea, and sweets were provided for the conversations, and the recordings were made in settings other than a sound studio, such as work places, the homes of informants, and a university seminar roomall to make the informants feel as comfortable as possible. Informants were instructed to talk for about half an hour, avoiding sensitive topics such as talk about someone else, politics or religion, or their own or someone elses health, and similar. Sound and video were recorded for interviews and conversations. The interviewer was present during the informal conversations, but did not participate unless some problem occurred. Participants are divided into four categories depending on the relationship between the pair: friends, acquaintances, unacquainted, and family. For my study I have chosen all the conversations between people previously unknown to each other. There are ve such conversations in the corpus. The characteristics of the participants in these conversations are given in Table 1 (excluding geographical location, as this plays no part in my study).

Heteronormativity in First Encounters: An Interactional Analysis

Table 1. Speaker characteristics. Conversation 023 024 025 026 029 030 055 056 Speaker Tore Camilla Trond Hege Odd Trude Karl Rannveig Sissel Astrid Sex M F M F M F M F F F Age 18 18 20 18 19 18 91 81 39 52 Occupation

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119 120

Student Student Student Student Student Student Vocational training Ofce Service sector Ofce

The corpus consists of orthographically transcribed speech, with links to audio and video clips. The data are accessible through a web interface that gives concordances in response to various search queries. As my study uses a qualitative method, I have used transcriptions of entire conversations, rather than just concordances. In the transcription extracts given below, I have modied the original transcriptions to increase readability. Most importantly, I have substituted ctional names for the speaker tags originally used (025, 026, etc.), and I have removed meta-information and the various tags used, such as for pauses and overlapping speech. I use interactional linguistics (Lindstrom 2006) to describe how certain conversational constructions function sequentially in their interactional context and to argue that these constructions conversationally create a specic view of sexual identities. Interactional linguistics is partly based on conversation analysis (CA) but, among other things, includes a broader perspective on a conversations context. Some basic assumptions of interactional linguistics that are shared with CA are that everyday conversations are structurally organized and can be studied as such, that utterances are to be studied in their sequential context (see also the section on sexuality and interaction above), and that the analysis takes as its starting-point the perspective of the participants, as this perspective manifests itself in the conversations. The method in its basic form is highly inductive but in practice often involves a combination of predetermined research questions and of inductively letting data speak. The work I present is also in line with feminist talk-in-interaction analysis of genders and sexualities, as argued by Kitzinger, notably that people are actively engaged in producing and resisting the social world, that seemingly unremarkable events can be noticed and analysed through close attention to interactional detail, and that everyday talk is one important arena for the accomplishment of women and men, heterosexuals and homosexuals (Kitzinger 2000: 166 173). Using the transcriptions of the ve conversations between strangers in the NoTaOslo corpus, I have identied all instances where the sexual identity of the speaker or the addressee is conversationally managed. These identied instances in the written material have then been supplemented with audio data from the corpus web interface, to give a fuller picture of the local context of the examples. Note that the analysis

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focuses not just on the rst instance in each conversation where sexual identities are made known but on how sexual identities are managed throughout the conversations. The Conversational Management of Sexual Identities Two sexual identities appear in the conversations between strangers in NoTa-Oslo: heterosexuality and homosexuality. However, they appear in radically different ways, and I will show how both function in ways that enforce heteronormativity in these encounters. Sexual identity appears in three of the ve conversations. The remaining two conversations, 023 024 and 029 030, contain no instances where sexual identity is portrayed. One reason for this may be that heterosexuality is often conveyed by reference to a partner, as can be seen from Kitzingers examples above (Kitzinger 2005b: 235 254). Both of the conversations 023 024 and 029 030 are between 18 19-year-old students. Their relatively young age may then mean an absence of a signicant other. Indeed, one of the speakers uses we in a way that seems to refer to the family unit where he is a child, in a way and context that is similar to examples of we referring to self and partner in adult conversations. Note that this is not to say that young people are uninterested in sexuality or that they have no interest in conveying their sexual identityquite the contrary, as shown by others (e.g. Eckert 1994, 1996; Pichler 2007). Nor does it mean that the absence of sexual identity in these two conversations is necessarily representative of conversations among strangers in this age-group as a whole. Indexing Heterosexuality There are several instances in the conversations among unacquainted speakers in NoTa-Oslo where a heterosexual identity is conversationally managed. In the rst example, Trond (T) and Hege (H) are talking about previous schools they have attended. Trond says that he has been at the Elvebakken school and then continues with an evaluation of the school, which is the rst line in Figure 1. Figure 1: Conversation Elvebakken: 01 T: Elvebakken er jo grei skole det da [Elvebakken is a great school yknow] 02 H: mm jeg hrte at det var ganske bra a ga der [mm I heard it was pretty good to go there] 03 T: m har vunnet femte aret pa rad med de russegreiene for neste damene fordi det sku- [latter] [mm has won fth year in a row with the russegreiene for the prettiest ladies because it shou- [laughter]] 04 H: sapass ja det er liksom det dere gutter tenker pa neste dama pa skolen [right so so thats what you boys think about prettiest lady in the school] Talking about specic Norwegian end-of-the-year extra-curricular activities, known as russegreiene, Hege teases Trond about his supposed attraction to beautiful

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women (line 4). In so doing, she places Trond in the category of boys, and the teasing concerns heterosexual attraction. This is clearly an example of Kitzingers category of heterosexual joking and teasing (Kitzinger 2005b). The conversation continues with the categories boys and girls, Trond saying that there were 75 boys in his boys-only class and that they never talked to the girls in a class across the street. The conversation between Sissel (S) and Astrid (A) begins with mutual greetings between the speakers, and then the conversation is organized by two talk-inviting questions posed by Sissel, rst the question Where were you born and raised? and, some time later, the question And you work here?. These two questions are presentation-eliciting questions or, equivalently, the rst question in a pre-topical sequence (Maynard & Zimmerman 1984; Svennevig 1999). The second of these questions leads to talk about where the speakers work, and their education and working life before today. See Figure 2 for part of this talk. Figure 2: Conversation Make sure to get married: 01 A: ja nei jeg gikk rett fra altsa jeg tok jo jeg tok jo gymnaset jeg som det var liksom veldig selvflgelig for for oss a gjre liksom det var ikke noe [yes no I went straight from I nished upper secondary that was sort of a very natural thing for for us to do it was not something] 02 S: ja ja [yes yes] 03 A: men sa bare begynte jeg a jobbe pa kontor etter det og det det har jeg fortsatt med da [but then I just started working in an ofce after that and that thats what Ive continued doing] 04 S: m [m] 05 S: mm det var jo veldig vanlig vei a ga egentlig spesielt for jenter [mm that was a very common thing to do really especially for girls] 06 A: ja og sa srge for a bli [yes and make sure to get] 07 A: gift da selvflgelig og da [latter] sa [married then of course and then [laughter] so] Astrid, aged 52 at the time of the recording, relates that she completed her upper secondary education and then started working in an ofce (lines 1 and 2). Sissel portrays this as a common thing for girls to do at the time (line 5). Astrid agrees, and further strengthens the picture by adding that make sure to get married was another part of what it was common for a girl to do (lines 6 7). Both speakers laugh about this, possibly because making sure that you get married is no longer a strong imperative. The interpretation that Astrid in lines 6 7 is speaking about women, and not both women and men, can be made based on the preceding utteranceline 5 which concerns girls especially, as well as a common cultural assumption of women being more concerned than men about weddings and marriage (see e.g. Giddens

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(1995: 48) about the women-exclusive life goal of being married, in a more historical context). At the time that the speakers refer to, roughly the 1970s given Astrids age, marriage was an entirely heterosexual institution (same-sex marriage became legal in Norway on 1 January 2009), making Figure 2 an example of heterosexuality. Astrids utterance is treated by both participants as a humorous contribution, as seen from their laughter, which also continues after the utterances shown in the extract. As a humorous contribution, it might be seen as another example of jokes concerning heterosexuality (Kitzinger 2005b). The mention of marriage also ties in with Kitzingers examples of topic talk concerning heterosexual activities. However, in Figure 2 marriage is never made the topic of conversation but rather plays a more background role, with getting married as part of the more overarching discussion of womens life choices in general and the speakers own lives in particular. As such, Astrids utterance in lines 6 7 is a casual reference to a heterosexual institution, without heterosexuality as such being the topic of the conversation. A few minutes before the extract in Figure 1, Trond and Hege are talking about their living arrangements. A presentation-eliciting question from Trond about where Hege lives leads to the speakers discovering that they live in the same area, Sagene. The conversation continues from this to talk about renting lms, and Trond then brings the conversation back to accommodation issues, through the presentationeliciting question in line 1 in Figure 3. Figure 3: Conversation Sagene: 01 T: ja hvor lenge har du bodd pa Sagene? [yeah how long have you lived at Sagene?] 02 H: m e sann siden jeg ytta egentlig hit i juni da [m eh since I actually moved here in June] 03 H: men sa bodde jeg da hos han jeg var sammen med sa da ytta jeg ikke hit fr sann ordentlig august da [but then I lived with him that I was going out with so then I didnt fully move here until August] In providing an answer to Tronds question, explaining how long she has lived in the area, Hege reveals a heterosexual identity (line 3). Heterosexuality or sexual identity is not the topic of the conversation at this point, and neither Trond nor Hege makes it the topic in subsequent talk. Hege reveals her (presumed) heterosexuality as something perfectly ordinary and unremarkable while the talk is about something else (Kitzinger 2005b: 232). Had she wanted to conceal her sexuality, she could have done so by choosing another term rather than a gendered pronoun. For instance, she could have talked about the person I lived with or just said that she rst lived somewhere temporarily. Liang discusses genderless reference terms such as they or spouse, and repeated use of the person as a way of disguising the sex of a same-sex partner, in conversations with naive and possibly hostile heterosexuals (Liang 1999: 301 302). Such references also give rise to what Liang calls gay implicature, whereby the correct sex of the person in question can be deduced by someone familiar with such inferences, precisely because of the absence of any gender

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marking. No such implicatures are needed for Heges utterance. She straightforwardly presents the sex of her former partner, conveying her sexual identity while talking about how long she has lived in the Sagene area. Karl (K) and Rannveig (R) also talk about where they live and have lived. Early in the conversation they talk about the country homes in their lives, both using the pronoun we (Norwegian vi) to refer to themselves and their partner and possibly also their children. The use of we can thus be referred to Kitzingers category of pronoun usage (Kitzinger 2005b: 245). The sex of the partners is revealed a few minutes later in the conversation. Rannveig mentions the death of her husband as a reason for her moving to a different area (line 5 in Figure 4), while the conversation concerns where the speakers live and have lived. Similarly, later in the conversation, Karl mentions that he got married in 1940, in connection with talking about his move to Tyen (lines 15 19 in Figure 4). Figure 4: Conversation Tyen: 05 R: sa jeg ytta tilbake hit til e for tre og et halvt ar siden for jeg mista mannen min [so I moved back here to eh three and a half years ago because I lost my husband] ... 15 K: her nedpa Tyen [here down at Tyen] 16 R: ja vel ja [alright yeah] 17 K: ytta dit i nittenfrti [moved there in nineteen forty] 18 R: ja [yes] 19 K: jeg gifta meg da i frti da [I got married then in nineteen forty] Thus, Rannveig reveals her (assumed) heterosexuality through her location in a marital unit (Kitzinger 2005b: 235). Karl conveys his (assumed) heterosexuality through his mention of getting married. Both speakers convey their heterosexuality as part of talking about where they live or have lived. A similar example is given during the conversation between Sissel and Astrid (not shown here).

Indexing Homosexuality In contrast with the heterosexual examples just seen, unacquainted speakers in NoTa-Oslo never portray a non-heterosexual identity for themselves or their interlocutor. However, there is one instance where homosexuality is explicitly mentioned, and whereI will arguespeakers heterosexuality is construed through talk of homosexuality. Towards the end of the conversation between Trond and Hege, they are talking about downloading lms from the Internet. Trond tells Hege that he is currently

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downloading the lm Alexander, the 2004 Oliver Stone lm about Alexander the Great. He also says that he saw the lm at the cinema the previous Saturday. Hege expresses positive interest in the lm, and asks Trond whether it was good. Trond replies that it was very good (skikkelig bra). He then provides another comment (see line 17 in Figure 5). Figure 5: Conversation Alexander: ... 17 T: var bare om homser hele lmen [was just about gays the whole lm] 18 H: bare homser hele lmen? [just gays the whole lm?] 19 T: ja [yeah] 20 H: nei [no] 21 T: alle i alle nesten alle guttene i hele lmen var homser [all of all almost all the fellas in the whole lm were gays] 22 H: nei [no] 23 T: ja fordi han Alexander han var visst det [yeah because Alexander he was apparently that] 24 T: det jeg visste ikke noe om det jeg s- var der masse kamerater de bare hva faen Trond assen lm er det her da [that I didnt know anything about that I s- there were lots of friends they just what the fuck Trond what kinda lm is this] 25 H: [latter] [laughter] 26 T: sa jeg sa jeg bare nei slapp av [so I so I just no relax] ... 38 T: sa [leende] det er sann derre sa er det to slag i hele lmen [so [smiling] its one of those then theres two battles in the whole lm] 39 H: [latter] [laughter] 40 T: nei men det er den var jeg syns n var kul jeg utenom det [no but its it was fun I thought besides that] 41 H: ja ok ja [yeah okay yeah] 42 T: var en jvlig bra lm liksom var bare litt spesiell [was a bloody good lm like was just a little odd] 43 H: {uforstaelig} [{incomprehensible}] 44 H: ja [latter] ja ja det var ikke det jeg forestilte meg at det skulle vre homser hele gjengen nar jeg sa for at reklamelmen virker ganske bra den [yeah [laughter] yeah yeah that wasnt what I imagined that theyd be gays

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Heteronormativity in First Encounters: An Interactional Analysis the whole bunch when I saw because the promo seems quite good] mm ja den er ikke darlig liksom den er bare litt spesiell [mm yeah its not bad like its just a bit odd]

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45 T:

Trond introduces gays by claiming that the whole lm is just about gays (see also line 21). The extract then develops into an amusing episode for the speakers, where Trond makes Hege laugh and also laughs himself (lines 25, 38, 39, and 44, in addition to a few lines not shown in the gure). Initially, Trond seems to convey an unequivocally positive account of the lm: he downloads it even though he has just seen it and describes it as very good. He then introduces the theme of gays (line 17 in the gure). In line 24 he conveys the negative attitudes of his friends, a negative attitude that is connected to the presence of gays in the lm. The report of these attitudes conveys the heterosexuality and heteronormativity of Tronds friends. Again, Trond conveys a positively evaluated comment by telling his friends to relax (line 26). Throughout the talk about Alexander, Trond maintains his view of the lm as a very good one. However, in doing so he also introduces a reservation, using a pattern of the form the lm is very good but just a bit odd because it contains so many gays. This is used in lines 42 and 45. Similarly, in line 40 he conveys the opinion that the lm is good despite containing gays, or possibly despite only containing two battles, due to all the gay themes in the lm. In none of these three lines40, 42, and 45are gays explicitly mentioned. However, it is clear from the surrounding context that this is what is meant. For instance, see line 45 in light of Heges utterance in the preceding turn, and Tronds own very similar utterance before that. Also, nothing else in the extract is construed as giving grounds for seeing the lm as a little odd. Hege is clearly being conversationally collaborative in the extract, by reinforcing and agreeing with Tronds statements, and by showing amusement. See her no in lines 20 and 22, and line 44 where she constructs a contrast between a promo of a good lm and a lm containing nothing but gays. Although presumably not intending to convey homophobia or to discriminate against non-heterosexuals, the speakers here effectively construct a view of homosexuality as the other and as something negative by its being opposed to what is good and positive. What we nd here is a fairly subtle enactment of the good/bad distinction between heterosexuality and homosexuality (Katz 2007: 65, 172). The presence of gays is conversationally construed as something negative, contrasting with a positive situation where men are not gay, that is, where they are heterosexual. Heterosexuality is never explicitly mentioned, but implied, and connected with an ordinary, unremarkable state of affairs. The construal of homosexuality as the other by both speakers here interactionally conveys their heterosexuality, and this is another way in which heteronormativity functions in this corpus. West and Fenstermaker, discussing difference as on-going interactional accomplishment, state that the accomplishment of race, class, and gender does not require categorical diversity among the participants, social inequality can still be achieved (West & Fenstermaker 1995: 31). In the conversation between Trond and Hege, both speakers conversationally come across as heterosexual, but they still

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construe a distinction between heterosexuality and homosexuality, rendering the latter as inferior, thereby effectively upholding heteronormativity. The extract in Figure 5 also has connections with the men-only conversation analysed by Cameron (1997). The speakers in Figure 5 and the speakers in Camerons conversation are all in the same age groupyoung adultsand in both conversations the construction of homosexuality as something alien conveys the heterosexual identity of the speakers. In contrast with Camerons conversationwhere gay is connected to what the speakers see as gender-deviant behaviour generally, whether involving same-sex attraction or notin the Norwegian conversation, homser (gay) is used in the more restrictive sense of involving same-sex attraction.3 Whereas Camerons young men often use coarse language and come across as aggressively negative towards gays or gender deviation, the portrayal of homosexuality in Figure 5 is more subtle and less overtly discriminatory. This may or may not be connected to Camerons conversation being an all-male one, where the men have to avoid the danger that so often accompanies Western male homosociality: homosexuality (1997: 61), whereas Figure 5 is a mixed-sex conversation. Another interesting contrast between Camerons conversation and the discussion about Alexander concerns the degree of acquaintance between the speakers. In the all-male conversations, the speakers are all friends and as such have a good deal of previous knowledge about each other and a good deal of practice in similar conversations. In contrast, the speakers in the Norwegian conversation are meeting for the rst time, and have no knowledge about the others views of same-sex relations. However, at this point in the conversation, Hege has mentioned a previous boyfriend, and has teased Trond about attractive women, and these displays of heterosexuality, together with a general background assumption of heteronormativity, presumably makes Tronds comment about gays in Figure 5, line 17, a safe topic here. Heteronormativity in First Encounters Two sexualities appear in this material, heterosexuality and homosexuality. These two sexualities are presented very differently in the material, yetI argueboth convey heteronormativity. Heterosexuality here acts as the taken-for-granted background resource noted by Kitzinger in other conversations (Kitzinger 2005b). Participants in the Norwegian material unproblematically refer to their (heterosexual) present and former partners, and they talk about marriage and (heterosexual) attraction. Heterosexuality is itself never questioned or portrayed as problematic. Homosexuality, on the other hand, appears explicitly in the material through talk about gays (homser) in a lm. Homosexuality is interactionally created as the other and is given negative connotations. The speakers in these conversations act in a heteronormative context, and their conversations help maintain and shape this heteronormativity. All speaker identities appear to be heterosexual. That is, my analysis says something about how heterosexual identities are managed conversationallyit says nothing about homosexual identities. This can be compared with Land and Kitzinger, who show how lesbians index their sexuality in the same way with family and friends as do

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heterosexuals, with the exception of talk related to marriage (Land & Kitzinger 2005: 378). However, heteronormativity means that homosexual identities in talk with people with whom one is unacquainted may have interactional costs, such as the correction of gender assumptions, or the hiding of such identities (Liang 1999; Land & Kitzinger 2005). No such interactional costs are found for the displays of heterosexuality in the NoTa-Oslo conversations. Interactions between people meeting for the rst time differ from conversations between those already acquainted. The unacquainted NoTa-Oslo speakers are actively involved in building up a common ground, by revealing details about themselvessuch as their job or education and where they liveand by providing opportunities for their interlocutor to provide such information. This talk enables speakers to nd shared perspectives, and provides the basis for further talk (Gumperz 1982: 142; Svennevig 1999: 235). Questions are of specic importance in conversations between strangers (Maynard & Zimmerman 1984; Svennevig 1999). These are often questions relating to some membership category, which allow speakers to form a rough picture of each other and thus provide opportunities for extended talk. In NoTa-Oslo, these membership categories often concern speakers present and past accommodation in terms of geographical location, and their jobs and education. Without making a comprehensive analysis of presentation-eliciting questions in the data, I have noted the occurrence of some questions of this kind in relation to the extracts I have discussed (and there are several more examples in the remainder of the conversations). In none of these questions is the sexual identity of the interlocutor the relevant membership category. Similarly for topic introduction generally, the sexual identity of a speaker is never introduced as a topic of conversation. Rather, a speakers sexual identityand always a heterosexual one as it is conveyed conversationallyis conveyed as part of some other topic and may act to provide the reason for something, or to explain something. I argue here that displays of heteronormativity are a way of fullling constraints on friendly encounters. This goes together with the view that a casual display of heterosexuality is a way of showing oneself to be normal and socially appropriate (Cameron & Kulick 2006: 10). Thus, heteronormativity is part of what Sacks calls doing being ordinary (Sacks 1984; Kitzinger 2005b: 236). Heterosexualityof the proper kind and properly conveyedis not face-threatening in a heteronormative society. A question or other utterance that a speaker knows may be threatening to the interlocutors face is carefully worded, and may be marked through mitigating phrases such as just a little, hesitation markers, or pauses. Sensitive topics have been shown to be approached by speakers in this marked way, for instance smoking and drinking habits in conversations between midwives and pregnant women (Linell & Bredmar 1996). There is nothing indirect or marked about the revelations of heterosexuality in Conversations 1 4 above. Speakers convey their identities in a perfectly unmarked way. A similar argument can be made by considering Goffmans feeling-out process (Goffman 1990: 189). Overall, speakers in the Norwegian conversations can be seen as incrementally providing information about themselves and gathering knowledge

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about their interlocutor. However, unlike Goffmans political example, NoTa-Oslos unacquainted speakers do not gradually disclose just how heterosexual they are. On the assumption that appropriate displays of heterosexuality can be one aspect of friendly encounters, is there a contradiction between heterosexuality as an expected membership category and heterosexualitys absence from presentationeliciting questions and other topic initiations? If there is nothing face-threatening about an (appropriate) heterosexual identity, what is wrong with an explicit question about it? Clearly, an open-ended question about someones sexual identity would be sensitive in ordinary conversations, as sexuality is a sensitive topic in our society generally, like politics or religion (Svennevig 1999: 130). Even more strongly, asking about someones sexual identity might be a sensitive topic because such a question in a heteronormative society opens up the possibility that the other is not heterosexual. Instead, heterosexuality should simply be assumed and therefore conveyed only indirectly. In addition, talk about love relations are often considered as part of a very private sphere, and excluded from talk between strangers (Svennevig 1999: 130). In short, displays of heterosexuality in NoTa-Oslo seem to be just personal enough to create intimacy with a stranger during a half-hour conversationand not too private, and the speakers are fullling constraints on friendly rst encounters.

Acknowledgements The author wishes to thank Kristin Hagen for access to full transcriptions of NoTa-Oslo conversations, and for her prompt and friendly help, and two anonymous reviewers and the NORA editors for helpful comments and suggestions. Many thanks also to Tommy Olofsson for his Norwegian insights.

Notes
1 2

The example is constructed, but based on eld notes of similar examples in Swedish. Norsk talesprakskorpus Oslodelen, Tekstlaboratoriet, ILN, Universitetet i Oslo. http://www.tekstlab. uio.no/nota/oslo/. 3 Note that the speakers use of homser (gays) for the male characters in the lm Alexander is anachronistic. Free men in Ancient Greece could have sexual relations with men as well as with women, and they categorized sexuality in other ways than based on the sex of the participants (Foucault, 1992).

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Stina Ericsson received her PhD in Linguistics from the University of Gothenburg in 2005. She is a lecturer in Swedish at Linnaeus University. Her research interests are sociolinguistics, interactional linguistics, semantics, pragmatics, gender, and sexual identity. Recent publications include (2005) Information Enriched Constituents in Dialogue, Gothenburg Monographs in Linguistics, 28 (Department of Linguistics, Gothenburg University); (2006) Optimising elliptical utterances in dialogue, Journal of Research on Language and Computation, 4(4), pp. 377 395; (2008) The missus, the co-habitee and the real babe: heteronormativity in Swedish conversations, in: J. Santaemilia & P. Bou (Eds), Gender and Sexual Identities in Transition: International Perspectives (Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing); (2008) She probably thinks hes hot! Parents constructing heterosexual identities for and with their children, Proceedings of IGALA5, Wellington, New Zealand (extended version currently being reviewed for Gender & Language); and (2010) Weddings, girlfriends, and nancy boys: Young children and sexual identity in heteroland, Proceedings of IGALA6, Tokyo, Japan.