versus context – in the analysis of texts, cotext refers to linguistic material in the surrounding text. Context refers to information outside of the text, available to a reader through understanding of genre, situation, and world knowledge. In the structure of the enthymeme, for example, one premise is part of the cotext of a conclusion, while the suppressed premise is not in the text, but available in the context.
Published in Chapter:
‘Masculine Normal Guy Here' – Lonely Hearts and ‘Normal' Gays in Cyberspace
Martin Paviour-Smith (Massey University, New Zealand)
Copyright: © 2010
|Pages: 16
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-61520-773-2.ch010
Abstract
This chapter examines the discourse of dating advertisements on a small-scale dating site, NormalGay.com. I analyse the deployment of linguistic resources of identity-making, in particular, the term, normal, and how members take up or reject this position. Examining the profiles as strategically managed displays of capital on the dating market reveals normal to have a number of meanings which are encoded in different ways. Many profile creators deploy the rhetorical strategy of the enthymeme to covertly define the term with respect to heterosexual norms. Others, who see the dating site as an extension to their off-line lives, define the term against the backdrop of “the gay scene”. The interpretation of identity terms such as normal requires construing the positions taken up with respect to their imagining of the community, heteronormative masculinity and understandings of gay male sociality.