LGBT Students’ Short Range Narratives and Gender Performance in the EFL Classroom

Abstract

By means of the analysis of six short range narratives, utilizing as a methodology (Feminist Post –Structuralist Discourse Analysis) FPDA,this paper unveils some significant moments which evidence the way LGBT EFL students draw on different discourses to adapt, negotiate,resist, emancipate, and reproduce heteronormativity. EFL students Methodological FrameworkConstantly shift positions and perform their gender assuming simultaneously powerful and powerless stances in the EFL classroom.The study categorizes the emancipatory discourse as a way to resist, the discourse of vulnerability as a way to reproduce and cope withmarginalization, and the homophobic discourse as a way to position LGBT individuals as abnormal. Finally, the article will reflect on themoments LGBT student mitigate their oral skills and constrain their participation in class, due to the fact that they are frequently evaluatingtheir comments to avoid accidental disclosure of their sexual identity.

Keywords

• LGBT individuals, Post-structuralism, discourse, gender, FPDA (Feminist post-structuralist discourse analysis).