Gender reinterpretation

In line with the way the data are organized as laid out in section 1.3.5, the present chapter presents Russian and Czech nonbinary linguistic practices which rely on elements and features of the standard variety, which have a gender index. The distinctive criterion to classify them as nonbinary linguistic practices is that these features are not used in the same way as would be expected in the standard variety. Instead, these elements acquire new meaning and new pragmatics emerge in a nonbinary understanding. Therefore, the practices are categorized as a means of gender reinterpretation (of the standard variety), that is elements commonly used in the standard variety are employed among nonbinary speakers in a novel fashion to allow for nonbinary linguistic identity construction.8