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

Bilingual/bisexual

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

| University of Memphis, USA

Recent work in language and sexuality has emphasized globalization and multilingualism as important areas of investigation (Bucholtz & Hall 2006, Leap & Boellstorff 2003, Murray 2014). Concomitantly, other scholars have employed the construct of sexual fluidity as a metaphor for linguistic fluidity (Otsuji & Pennycook 2010, Pennycook & Otsuji 2015). 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.

Keywords: bilingualism, bisexuality, fluidity, fiction, multilingualism
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


This article is currently available as a sample article.

Published online: 22 June 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jls.6.1.06fog
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