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Article published In: Journal of Language and Sexuality
Vol. 6:1 (2017) ► pp.177–203

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Bilingual/bisexual

Linguistic and sexual fluidity in fictional accounts of bilingualism and language learning

 | University of Memphis, USA
Published online: 22 June 2017
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https://doi.org/10.1075/jls.6.1.06fog
Abstract
Recent work in language and sexuality has emphasized globalization and multilingualism as important areas of investigation (Bucholtz, Mary & Hall, Kira. 2006. Gender, sexuality, and language. In Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, Volume 4, Keith Brown (ed), 751. Oxford: Elsevier. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, Leap, William L. & Boellstorff, Tom (eds). 2003. Speaking in Queer Tongues: Globalization and Gay Language. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, Murray, David. 2014. Queering borders: Language, sexuality and migration. Journal of Language and Sexuality 3(1): 1–5. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). Concomitantly, other scholars have employed the construct of sexual fluidity as a metaphor for linguistic fluidity (Otsuji, Emi & Pennycook, Alastair. 2010. Metrolingualism: Fixity, fluidity and language in flux. International Journal of Multilingualism 7(3): 240–254. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, 2015. Metrolingualism: Language in the City. New York: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). Few studies, however, have examined how sexual and linguistic fluidity intersect in individual experience. This paper examines metalinguistic discourse in three fictional novels involving bisexual, bilingual characters in order to understand how talk about language informs representations of sexualities. In these texts bilingualism functions in constructing access to queer communities, authenticity, belonging, and emotional control for bisexual characters. Further, sexual and linguistic fluidity are portrayed as lifespan processes embedded in specific time periods. Such understandings point to a need for historical approaches to fluidity that capture longer timescales and multiple dimensions of linguistic and sexual desire, practice, and identity.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Fluidity and fixity
  • 3.Bisexuality
  • 4.Literary representation
  • 5.The study
  • 6.Bilingual/bisexual in three novels
    • 6.1 In One Person: “Trans” fluid
    • 6.2 Krakow Melt: Mixing
    • 6.3 Red Audrey and the Roping: Fixity
  • 7.Discussion
    • 7.1Lifespan orientations
    • 7.2Historical contextualization
    • 7.3Methodological frameworks
  • 8.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Note
  • References
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Cited by one other publication

Jones, Lucy
2021. Queer linguistics and identity. Journal of Language and Sexuality 10:1 ► pp. 13 ff. DOI logo

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