Language Identity and the Other Gender

Hussein Obeidat, Khadidja Hammoudi

(Department of English Language and Literature, Yarmouk University, Irbid, Jordan)

Abstract: There is small amount of research conducted on “gay focused linguistic scholarship” and its counterpart in Arabic-gay-sociolinguistics is virtually non-existent. The present paper raises the issue of the existence of gay community in the Arab world. On the basis of empirical investigations, field-direct and indirect observations, interviews as well as random questionnaire, we hypothesize that there exists a gay speech community in (at least in the studied countries) the Arab world for we investigate and determine its social and linguistic dimensions. This lead us to find out the discursive criteria which characterize modes of gay-speak that are part of their identity. After comparing them to women’s talk, we assume, however, that in spite of this high rate of assimilation in language behavior at the phonological, lexical, and even gestural ones, gays cannot be defined as “women” nor can they be classified as a separate gender or third sex (as other studies claim).

Key words: other gender, gay, gay community, identity, repertoire, style, effeminate