Lavender Mandarin in the sites of desire: Situating linguistic performances among Taiwanese gay men

Abstract

This paper explores how those with same-sex desire in Taiwan reconfigure Mandarin linguistic practices as western constructions of gay culture are now circulating globally. Ethnographic methods are employed to examine the linguistic stylization that enables Taiwanese gay men use to formulate identities. The nascent emergence of identity markers is first introduced. This study shifts its focus to the context in the study of gay language to avoid circularity. Three primary linguistic stylizations widely practiced among gay cliques are retrieved as (1) kinship soap opera; (2) geisha memoir; (3) celebrity stardom to illuminate the relationship between language and subjectivity. This study illustrates how these vernacular utterances and linguistic stylizations producing collective resources of resistance, accommodation and pleasure are discursively constructed and represented in a localized site in the intersection of an increasingly globalized queer culture.