LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 13:9 September 2013
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         S. M. Ravichandran, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.
         C. Subburaman, Ph.D. (Economics)
Assistant Managing Editor: Swarna Thirumalai, M.A.

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M. S. Thirumalai
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A Preliminary Study of Gay Spoken Language in Ho Chi Minh City

Tri Hoang Dang, M.A. Applied Linguistics

I. INTRODUCTION

Sociolinguistics is the study of language in relation to social factors which include gender, social class, age, ethnic origin, and so on (Coupland & Jaworski, 1997; Wolfson, 1989; Richards, Platt & Platt, 1997). It can be said that one of the sociolinguistic areas, for the past decades, which has attracted various studies by researchers, linguists, educators is language and gender. In fact, there is various research that has been carried out on heterosexual or men’s and women’s language, especially differences in their speech (Wolfson, 1989, p. 162).

However, compared with the blossoming of interest and research on men’s and women’s language, there is the small amount of research conducted on “gay-focused linguistic scholarship” or gay language in the simple sense. As Butters (1989, cited in Gaudio, 1994, p.30) says “any notion of what might constitute gay sociolinguistics, and gay linguistics in general is virtually non-existent. One looks in vain for references to materials on homosexual subjects.” The reasons why not much attention is paid to gay language studies are that society has a homophobic attitude towards gay men, and gay speech is stereotypically been thought of being similar to women’s.

In recent years, this field has started attracting researchers who have debated whether gay men use language in a way that differentiates them from heterosexuals. Some assume that gay language is similar to that of women, whereas others say that gay people use language in a different way from heterosexuals in terms of their lexicons, intonation, and pragmatics. From my point of view, I totally agree with the latter argument since gay language can be considered as “a linguistic phenomenon” that has its own discourse.

Therefore, the study of the ways gay people use and structure their language will give us insight into “the construction and maintenance of gay identity across multiple contexts.” (Baker, 2002, p.10).

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Tri Hoang Dang, M.A. in Applied Linguistics
Faculty of Languages and Cultural Studies
Hoa Sen University
Room. A313, 10th Lot, Quang Trung Software City, 12th District
Ho Chi Minh City
Vietnam
dang.trihoang@hoasen.edu.vn
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