ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces a rare and exemplary conversation analysis study designed explicitly to address a larger social problem- that of heteronormativity. Of all the approaches to discourse analysis, conversation analysis is undoubtedly considered the least capable of addressing larger social problems, often occupying the opposite end of the continuum from critical discourse analysis. Looking at language as a means of illuminating social problems is an interest of interactional sociolinguistics, one of its strengths being linking the macro and the micro. Personalism refers to the language ideology that what determines linguistic meaning is largely the speaker's beliefs and intentions. One of the goals of critical discourse analysis is to uncover non-obvious connections of deep ideological underpinnings that often escape an otherwise uncritical reading. Race ideology has been of great interest to discourse analysts.
