Week 3

Queer Tongues: Expressing Lesbianism and Bisexuality

 Outline
♦ Introduction

♦ Historical perspectives

♦ Linguistic specificities

♦ Blurring of boundaries

♦ Labels and labelling

♦ Summary and Conclusion

 Introduction
♦ Continuation from last week

♦ Continued focus on a linguistics of performance

and of contact (cf. Mary Louise Pratt)

♦ Dual perspective

♦ Language used by and for the Queer

♦ Within the lavender linguistics paradigm

♦ Speech as being both iconic and deictic

 Introduction
♦ This week- move to another
category of Queer people

♦ LGBT

♦ Focus on the L and B components

today

♦ Next week - devoted to the T (Third

gender)
 Introduction
♦ This week’s lecture is organised as
follows

♦ Focus on lesbianism first

♦ Then move to bisexuality

♦ Single gender group vs. a more mixed/

eclectic bunch

♦ Let’s go on…
 Performing lesbianism
♦ Female-female relationships nothing new

♦ In fact, even gender studies acknowledges that

women have different bonding patterns to men

♦ More openly affectionate and demonstrative

♦ Similar effusiveness by males not always

positively viewed

♦ Consequently – might be easier for lesbians to

blend in with others

♦ Prior to coming out

 Performing lesbianism
♦ Queer males – non verbal language as well as
verbal performance scrutinised

♦ Queer females might be better able to evade

scrutiny

♦ Androgynous ways of dressing/ NV behaviour

not always marked

♦ In fact, in most communities, the unmarked

nature of lesbian speech

♦ The reason why it is even more under-

researched than gay speech
 Performing lesbianism
♦ Abe (2004) argues that even in a country like
Japan (cf. Last week’s lecture) research on
language behaviour amongst gays is available

♦ Not the case for lesbians

♦ Very very little information

♦ Moonwomon-Baird (1997: 202): “Lesbian

practice is regarded as marked behavior, but
goes unremarked much more than is true of gay
male practice, even in this era of both friendly
and hostile societal discourse on queers”

♦ So, is it possible for lesbians to have their own

we-code? Can this we-code be detected? What
labels do they use in their community? How do
we find out?
 Activity 1
• To start the discussion

• Have a look at the following clip.

• Focus only on the non-verbal clues

• Imagine the same type of behaviour

amongst women

• Think of stereotypical
representations of girls’ nights in or
sleepovers

• Compare it to the next clip

 Language behaviour
♦ Such NV behaviour not viewed as marked
amongst Queer females

♦ This makes it even harder to create the

parameters for a ‘gaydar’ for lesbians

♦ Hard to gain insider status in their communities

as well

♦ Paucity of information

♦ Information available re. the label assigned to

them though
 Historically speaking...
♦ Generated by their own in-group

♦ This label has both a Greek and a French connection!

♦ Word ‘lesbienne’ gained its present meaning only in

the second half of 19th century

♦ ‘Homosexuelle’ included in the dictionary in the 1904

supplement to the Nouveau Larousse Illustre

♦ Origins of both - Greek

♦ Specifically - Greek poetess Sappho whose work was

translated intro French
 We-code and the Language of love
♦ “Allons, lyre divine
Parle moi
Deviens une voix”

♦ First one to acknowledge the need for

women’s voice to be heard

♦ Beyond the normative framework imposed

by patriarchy

♦ Considered as the first writer to give voice to

female-female love in the Western world

♦ First woman who openly recognised women

as the subject/object of desire
 Language of love: Use of Allusion
♦ How did she do so?

♦ As a rule, heterosexual love used Eros as its

symbol

♦ Sappho - Avowed belonging to both the cult of

Eros

♦ Allegiance to the cult of Aphrodite as well

♦ Fixation on the Aphrodite/ Venus-figure

♦ Bringing female bonds, speech and labels into

the mainstream
Let’s pause for a moment…

• What do you know about

Aphrodite and Eros?

• Who are they?

• Why are they important

symbols to those working
in the field of same-sex
desire?
Let’s pause for a moment….

• Aphrodite – Greek God of

love, beauty, pleasure and
procreation

• Eros – Greek God of Love.

In some versions of Greek
mythology, he is presented
as the son of Aphrodite
(out of wedlock!)

• So, what’s special about

them?
 Eros and Aphrodite
• One version of Greek mythological tales

• When Uranus’s (God of Sky) genitals

were cut off by Cronus (Patron of
harvest)

• Thrown in the sea

• Foam from the genitals being thrown in

the sea

• Gave rise to Aphrodite

• She was so beautiful that to avoid

discord amongst Gods, she was married
off to Hephaestus, the blacksmith of
the Gods (and ugly to boot!)

• One of her affairs resulted in Eros

 Of Sex and Sexuality
• Sappho draws on Greek mythology

• Particularly Aristophanes’s explanation

of love and sexuality (West, 2005)

• Aristophanes defined love as a “pursuit

for wholeness” or a “desire to be
complete” (West, 2005: 11)

• Originally, according to him, there

were three sexes of doubled-up human
beings with two heads, two sets of
limbs and two sets of genitals (man-
man, woman-woman and man-woman)

• They conspired against the Gods and

were punished

• Split into what we know today

 Of Sex and Sexuality
• Ever since, each half has been in search
of its other

• So, the man-man has been seeking to

unite once more (Gay)

• The woman-woman seeks union too

(Lesbian)

• The androgynous ‘double’ (man-

woman) is what is deemed to be
socially more mainstream today
(heterosexuality)

• Search for completion – spurred by

Eros and Aphrodite

• Hence the adherence to the cults of

both Eros and Aphrodite by Sappho
 Sappho’s times
♦ Middle Ages

♦ Women who dared porter l’habit de l’homme’

♦ ‘dissimuler l’etat de femme’

♦ ‘utiliser l’etat d’homme

♦ Could be given the death penalty

♦ One of the twelve charges against Joan of Arc

before she was burned at the stake

♦ She had dared to wear men’s clothing

 Sappho’s times
♦ Imagine the censorship regarding direct
references to same-sex love

♦ Initially- could be cloaked by Latin or

Greek

♦ Understood by few, so euphemistic

references were a distinct possibility

♦ How could female-female love be

labelled?
 Terminology
♦ A term used in 17th century French that comes
from Greek
♦ Henri Estienne - Famous humanist who used the
word ‘tribades’
♦ Tribades: She who couples with a person of her
own gender and simulates the man.
♦ Hence, the tri in Tribades – woman as man as
woman!
♦ However, the term ‘tribades’ itself didn’t survive.
♦ Instead it’s the term ‘lesbienne’ which is more
popular today.
♦ Guess why?
 Evolution
♦ So how did the term lesbianism and
homosexuality come about?

♦ Well - hold your breath!

♦ Guess the full name of Sappho?

♦ Sappho of Lesbos!

♦ She was from Lesbos in Greece

♦ The word ‘Lesbos’ provides the root of

the term ‘Lesbienne’
 Homoīos
♦ Originally even the term homosexuelle/
homosexuality
♦ Derived from Greek Homoīos
♦ Means ‘same’
♦ Similarities attract!
♦ Both ‘lesbianism’ and ‘homosexuelle’,
therefore, are etymologically linked to Greek
♦ Through their association with Sappho who
openly loved women
♦ They came to act as in-group labels for
lesbianism
 Baudelaire
♦ How did the term ‘Lesbian’ become
popular?

♦ Thank Charles Baudelaire for that

♦ Famous poem Les Fleurs du Mal initially

named as Les Lesbiennes

♦ Was even tried for obscenity

♦ Achieved something important though –

got the term the popularity that it enjoys
today!
 Activity 2
• So, how did these terms
spread to the rest of the
world?

• What about the English-

speaking world?

• How was ambiguity

depicted?

• Let me start with a riddle…

 Activity 2
• Have a look at the
following pictures

• Famous literary figures

• What do they have in

common?

• Let’s see how clued in you

are…
Rosalind
Julia
Viola
Portia
 Lexical issues
♦ Whole issue cropped up in 16th century
England
♦ Due to issues of disguise
♦ Cf. Shakespeare (portraying reality?)
♦ Think of boy act(resses)ors
♦ So what term did Shakespeare come up with
to refer to woman-woman love or man-man
love onscreen?
♦ After all, one of complications of having a
character in disguise was that he/she
frequently became the recipient of
unrequited homoerotic love!
 Boggery
♦ Term coined by Shakespeare to refer to these
complicated situations

♦ The heroine no longer needed to be ‘feminine’

♦ Could do away with being emotional, passive

and powerless

♦ Could adopt the code of chivalry

♦ Polite language but discursively more forceful

♦ Less amenable to negotiations in power

 Boggery
♦ Obviously- frowned upon by males

♦ Boggery: only term available in the

lexicon to describe such ‘unfeminine’
females

♦ Middle English Dictionary defines

boggery (or bugerie) as:

♦ Unfaithfulness towards God, Heresy

♦ That leads me to a very interesting

question…
 Activity 3
• Mauritian Creole has a
number of derogatory
terms to refer to gender
categories

• In the basilect, how do we

refer to a man?

• Careful - I’m not thinking

of swear words here!
 Etymologically speaking
♦ Boggery derived from the French word
Bougres

♦ So whenever you are referring to a man as

a ‘boug’, etymologically speaking, you are
also insinuating that that person might be
involved in a same-sex relationship!

♦ Meaning Bulgars

♦ Or Heretics

♦ What’s the association?

 Bulgars
♦ Around 800 AD

♦ Semi-nomadic
people

♦ Flourished in
Pontic Steppe and
Volga Basin
 Bulgars
♦ Bulgars viewed as
aliens

♦ Hence – heretics

♦ Again, this whole

association of woman
as man as woman

♦ Being seen as other!

 Post-Victorian era
♦ However, Shakespeare’s term did not survive
because it was not generated by the in-group

♦ Again, it is the we-code which has!

♦ Post-Victorian era - boggery was eventually replaced

by lesbianism because queer females identified more
with Sappho

♦ Term came to England via France

♦ But what the historical perspective shows you is that

attempts were always made to label lesbians

♦ Early labels derived from the they-code were not

always flattering (e.g. boggery)

♦ Without any surprise, it is the more positive term,

derived from the we-code which has become popular
 Linguistic features
♦ Now that we’ve got the interesting issue
of labels out of the way

♦ Let’s move to actual performance related

issues

♦ Are there any specific linguistic features

that we need to focus on?

♦ Coates and Jordan (1997)

♦ Study carried out in Melbourne Australia

 Linguistic features
♦ Focus on a group of women

♦ Spontaneously occurring conversation

amongst a group of women

♦ Believe that queer provides a

counterbalance to heterosexuality and
patriarchal dominance

♦ “the gender scripts found in

heterosexuality prescribe male dominance
and female subordination” (Coates and
Jordan, 1997: 215)
 Linguistic features
♦ View Queer female speech as a means
to undermine powerful male language

♦ Group of privileged, university

educated young women

♦ View lesbianism as subversive to the

norms established by heterosexuality

♦ How do they do it?

♦ Case study – analysis of snippets of

conversation
 Conversation opener
♦ A tells their two friends that the mother of one
of their acquaintances is getting married

♦ To a man she’s known for a month and has been

having an affair with
 Conversation 1
♦ Group’s main reaction to A’s news is
horror

♦ Expressed in a discourse that is

explicitly sceptical about marriage

♦ Horrified at the thought that an

apparently sane woman could
contemplate marriage!

♦ Notice the prosodic emphasis on

MARriage
Conversation 1
 Conversation 1
♦ Ironical

♦ Not objecting due to ethics (issue of the

man and woman having an affair!)

♦ Objection was to the institution of

marriage

♦ Viewed as the enforced subordination

of women

♦ See, the conversation closure…

Conversation Closure
 Lesbian speech: New Swear Words!
♦ Very overtly anti-institutional discourse

♦ The M-word

♦ Think of connotations (N word, F word)

♦ No serious offense implied here

♦ The marginalized hitting back?

♦ Deliberately setting out to shock, titillate and

offend

♦ Language as a form of empowerment to the

powerless
 Lesbian speech
♦ How is this speech perceived by women
though?

♦ Does sexual orientation impact upon

the way in which females construct
discourse?

♦ Coates – collaborative and accretive

nature of female speech

♦ Same in female groups, irrespective of

sexual orientation
Collaborative footing
 Collaborative footing
♦ Accretively building up on the same point

♦ Shifting from one topic to the next seamlessly

♦ Overlaps not seen as interruptions or

usurpations

♦ Heavy dose of irony- shared by all

♦ Similar interrogation style, intonations and

repetitive patterns

♦ Function as a team rather than individual

speakers, sexual orientation is not a problem
 Lesbians: Stereotypes
♦ Lakoff in the 1970s asserted that gays used
more feminine patterns of language behaviour

♦ Lesbians, in contrast, were theoretically meant

to deviate towards more male patterns of
speech

♦ As we have seen so far – not the case

♦ In fact, there are similarities in the ways that

both gays and lesbians speak

♦ Use of allusion + use of both male (e.g.

Swearing) and female features (collaborative
footing)
 Spritch
♦ Use of both so-called male and female
features viewed at the level of
hypertext as well

♦ Queen (1997) – labels this variety as

Spritch

♦ Focus on a series of comic books

♦ Targeted at lesbians

♦ Main characters lesbians as well

♦ Representations of the ways lesbians

are assumed to speak
 Queer Cartoons
♦ Not mainstream ones

♦ A few examples:

1. Hothead Paisan: Homicidal

Lesbian Terrorist
2. Dykes to watch out for
3. Rude Girls and Dangerous women
Rude Girls and Dangerous Women
Hothead paisan
 Hothead Paisan
♦ Focus on NV language

♦ Dressed like a male

♦ Physiologically depicted as male as well

♦ Not very coquettish

♦ Register of violence and impetuousness

 At the level of language
♦ Comics display 4 types of
language behaviour believed to be
stereotypical (esp. in the media):

1. Stereotyped women’s language

2. Stereotyped non-standard
varieties, often associated with
WC males
3. Stereotyped gay male language
4. Stereotyped lesbian language
Features associated with stereotyped
female language
 Features associated with stereotyped male
language
♦ Cursing
♦ in’ versus ing
♦ cluster simplification
♦ contracted forms, e.g. gonna
♦ Ethnically marked linguistic forms,
e.g. yo’ mama
♦ Post-vocalic r-deletion (applicable
in rhotic areas)
 Features associated with stereotyped gay
language
♦ Use of wider pitch range
♦ Hypercorrection
♦ Use of novel lexical forms (specific
to that community)
♦ Use of H*L intonational contours
♦ Co-occuring with extended vowels
e.g. fAAbulous
Features associated with stereotyped
lesbian language
♦ Cursing
♦ Use of expressions such as bite me
(normally associated with men)
♦ Lack of humour and joking
♦ Very little sarcasm and irony
 Hothead Paisan and other comics
♦ Use of a mixture of stereotypes

♦ Only female speech viewed derogatorily as

‘spritch’

♦ What is interesting is that even though the

media associates specific features with
lesbianism

♦ These cartoons use stereotypes from ALL

registers of speech

♦ Thus undermining the very concept of

stereotypical lesbian speech

♦ Goes to show that lesbians do NOT veer

towards the masculine!
 Japan
♦ Even in Japan which is more conservative

♦ The stereotype regarding the use of male

patterns of speaking by lesbians exists!
(Abe, 2004)

♦ However – not true

♦ Gives the example of first person pronouns

♦ Designed to be used differently by men

and women when speaking Japanese
 Japan
♦ First-person pronouns watakushi and
watashi are used by both sexes

♦ The forms boku and ore (standard) as well

as wagahai and washi (nonstandard) are
used exclusively by men

♦ And the forms atakushi and atashi

(standard) as well as atai and uchi (non-
standard) are used by women

♦ Kanamaru (1997) claims that jibun is also a

masculine form.
 Japan: Love?
♦ Abe (2004) studies lesbian bar talk in Japan

♦ And found that the lesbians refused to use

male forms of personal pronouns

♦ Refused to “merge and identify with men”

(Abe, 2004: 137)

♦ Instead they used a mixed version consisting

of both male and female forms (e.g. they used
watasht and jibun)

♦ Butch-femme dichotomy

♦ Even butch lesbians who were in a relationship

did not wish to sound uniformly masculine
 Bisexuals
♦ Again- scant research available

♦ Blurring of lines as well

♦ How are you referred to when you

play on both sides of the field?

♦ What sort of labels do you get?

♦ How does the self-labelling process

work?
 Labels and Labelling
♦ Lexical innovation required

♦ E.g. byke (mis-spelling

intentional)

♦ New category labels as well

♦ Monosexual, gay-identified
bisexual, bi, biphobia etc

♦ Epithets: switch-hitter, fence-

sitter

♦ Connote ‘mixed’ or ‘confused’

identity
 Labels and Labelling
♦ Bisexuals are aware of this discourse of
confusion

♦ Uncomfortable with it too

♦ Murphy (1997)

♦ How do bisexuals label themselves?

♦ Survey amongst a sample of informants

Results
 Labels and Labelling
♦ 84.3% of bisexuals identify themselves as
Queer

♦ Not as dykes, bi or anything else

♦ Shows their discomfort

♦ Prefer generic terms to more specific ones

♦ Hierarchy in the Queer linguistic domain as

well?

♦ G and L at the top and B and T at the bottom?

♦ Hence- rebellion and adoption of the term

‘Queer’
 We-code?
♦ In this case though

♦ Can be argued that the we-code is

not the one that provided them
with their label

♦ Although they prefer the term

Queer

♦ Mainly known as bisexuals or bis

 Gender confusion
♦ Let’s end this session on a funnier
note…

♦ Bisexuality – not always obvious

♦ How about men who want to live

as women?

♦ And have the guts to challenge not

just social but religious tropes as
well?
 Activity 5
• Have a look at the
following clip

• Shows you a very

interesting phenomenon

• Comments?
 Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence
♦ Normally- gay speech in the UK known as
Polari

♦ However – this has recently been reclaimed by

the male nuns (Lucas, 1997)

♦ Polari occupies a mythical place in modern

British Gay culture

♦ Terms such as eek, riah, trade, troll, cottage

♦ Language of romantic rendez-vous

 Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence
♦ Now adopted by the Sisters

♦ Popular export from the US

♦ First public event conducted by the sisters

♦ Canonization of gay film-maker Derek Jarman

at his home in Kent, UK

♦ Beginning of canonization: Chanting Derek

Derek Out Out Out

♦ Asking for coming-out?

Hymn: Derek’s windy garden
 Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence
♦ Parody of the Queen!

♦ Seek entrance to parliament at the

beginning of the parliamentary sessions

♦ Refused entry a few times before being

allowed in

♦ A lot of the terms used are borrowed

from Polari

♦ However, there are a few features of

Women’s Language here (e.g. Use of
many adjectives)
 Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence
♦ Use both male and female + gay/ lesbian
features

♦ These are of course drag queens. Not all of

them are bisexuals

♦ Yet their language behaviour is believed to

be similar to how we would expect
bisexuals to behave (i.e. Using both so-
called gay and lesbian styles)

♦ In-group identity, solidarity and loyalty

marker
 So?
♦ In conclusion – the performance of
lesbians and bisexuals is very much
mixed

♦ Mix and match from different registers

♦ Eckert and McConnell-Ginet (2003)

argue that such behaviour is normal

♦ Performance of gender is dictated by

both social and cultural expectations
 Being male and female
♦ They prove this by using pre-adolescent
males and females

♦ I.e. Before the hormones have kicked in

and homo/ hetero- erotic desire take
centre stage

♦ Biologically speaking – males and females

have different vocal tracts

♦ Men have longer ones and women shorter

ones

♦ How does it matter?

 Activity 6
• Following material courtesy
of acoustics.org

• Have a look at the picture of

two vocal tracts

• Accompanying clip voicing

out the word ‘abracadabra’
(moving from a long to a
short vocal tract)

• Notice the difference?

 Being male and female
♦ Shorter vocal tracts (those of females)
produce higher pitches

♦ Differentiation in the length of the vocal

tract normally takes place at puberty

♦ Yet – Eckert and McConnell-Ginet (2003)

found that PRE-ADOLESCENT children
would show this pitch differentiation

♦ Even when their vocal tracts are of

relatively the same length!

♦ They are performing masculinity and

femininity
 Sexuality
♦ In the same way – it is very possible for desire to be
performed

♦ If gender is socially constructed, so is sexuality!

♦ In heterosexual settings - Change in performance by

males and females in order to be found appealing by
the opposite sex

♦ Similarly, depending on what their community expects

from them (show their sexual orientation, allude to it or
conceal it), lesbians and bisexuals will play with the
resources available to them

♦ At all levels (not just phonological ones)

♦ Will try to appeal to other women or to both men and

women
 Summary and Conclusion
♦ Many facets of lesbian and
bisexual speech

♦ Evolution from a more ambiguous

history to a complex code

♦ Creatively manipulated by users

♦ Deeply connotative
Questions/ Comments?
Thank You