Speaking in Queer Tongues

by Leap, William L.

• ISBN13: 9780252071423
• ISBN10: 0252071425
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-12-01
• Publisher: Univ of Illinois Pr

Summary

"Language is a fundamental tool for shaping identity and community, including the expression (or repression) of sexual desire. Speaking in Queer Tongues investigates the tensions and adaptations that occur when processes of globalization bring one system of gay or lesbian language into contact with another.Western constructions of gay culture are now circulating widely beyond the boundaries of Western nations due to influences as diverse as Internet communication, global dissemination of entertainment and other media, increased travel and tourism, migration, displacement, and transnational citizenship. The authority claimed by these constructions, and by the linguistic codes embedded in them, is causing them to have a profound impact on public and private expressions of homosexuality in locations as diverse as sub-Saharan Africa, New Zealand, Indonesia and Israel. Examining a wide range of global cultures, Speaking in Queer Tongues presents essays on topics that include old versus new sexual vocabularies, the rhetoric of gay-oriented magazines and news media, verbal and nonverbalized sexual imagery in poetry and popular culture, and the linguistic consequences of the globalized gay rights movement."

Table of Contents

Introduction: Globalization and "New" Articulations of Same-Sex Desire	p. 1
Vague English Creole: (Gay English) Cooperative Discourse in the French Gay Press	p. 23
Qwir-English Code-Mixing in Germany: Constructing a Rainbow of Identities	p. 46
French, English, and the Idea of Gay Language in Montreal	p. 72
Dancing on the Needle's Edge: Gay Lingo in an Israeli Disco	p. 105
Language, Belonging, and (Homo)sexual Citizenship in Cape Town, South Africa	p. 134
Takatapui, Gay, or Just Ho-mo-sexual, Darling? Maori Language, Sexual Terminology, and Identity in Aotearoa/New Zealand	p. 163
"Authentic, of Course!": Gay Language in Indonesia and Cultures of Belonging	p. 181
Gay Adaptation, Tom-Dee Resistance, and Kathoey Indifference: Thailand's Gender/Sex Minorities and the Episodic Allure of Queer English	p. 202
Pajaration and Transculturation: Language and Meaning in Miami's Cuban American Gay Worlds	p. 231
Mother Knows Best: Black Gay Vernacular and Transgressive Domestic Space	p. 251
Contributors	p. 279
Index	p. 283
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