Do “Chinese gays” come out?

IF 1.6 Q2 COMMUNICATION
Phil Freestone
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引用次数: 0

Abstract

This paper draws on linguistic-ethnographic fieldwork in Chengdu, China to consider the utility of broad labels such as Chinese, Western and gay in accounting for the performance of sexual and cultural identity. I problematise work which takes such notions to be stable and self-evidently referential, arguing instead that identity is much more fluid, emergent and discourse-dependent than conventional understandings tend to imply. I focus on visibility of queer sexual identity partly because it is an especially accessible example of the role of language in identity performance, being most often achieved through verbal interaction. More broadly, however, this focus emerged through my ethnographically informed, discursive-sociocultural approach to my life and research in mainland China during the period 2008–2019. Specifically, I use spoken data from the interviews which formed part of this process to argue that social practice within related ethnic and/or social groups is best understood in terms of the situated use of sociolinguistic tools and the entailed negotiation of pertinent ideological systems. From this perspective, the ostensibly insurmountable ideological pressures that “Chinese gays” are typically seen to face, and which tend to be attributed to a taken-for-granted and monolithic “Chinese culture”, are better interpreted with reference to the complex relationship between language, culture and identity. Thus, I do not assume the right to make broad claims about what Chinese gays do, or to state that they are categorically different from their presumed homogenous Western counterparts. Instead, I discuss what certain individuals say in certain conversations, noting how their performance of identity is often highly individualised, being shaped according to the interactants present and the interactional aims relevant to specific moments of communication.
“中国同性恋”出来了吗?
本文借鉴了中国成都的语言民族志田野调查,考虑了汉语、西方语和同性恋等广泛标签在解释性和文化认同表现中的效用。我对那些认为这些概念是稳定的、不言自明的参考性的工作提出了质疑,相反,我认为身份比传统理解所暗示的更具流动性、涌现性和话语依赖性。我关注酷儿性身份的可见性,部分原因是它是语言在身份表现中作用的一个特别容易理解的例子,通常通过言语互动来实现。然而,更广泛地说,这一关注点是通过我对2008-2019年期间在中国大陆的生活和研究的民族志、话语性社会文化方法产生的。具体而言,我使用访谈中的口语数据,这些数据构成了这一过程的一部分,我认为,相关种族和/或社会群体内的社会实践最好从社会语言学工具的情境使用和相关意识形态系统的谈判来理解。从这个角度来看,“中国同性恋者”通常面临的表面上难以克服的意识形态压力,往往被归因于一种理所当然的、铁板一块的“中国文化”,可以更好地参照语言、文化和身份之间的复杂关系来解释。因此,我不认为有权对中国同性恋者的行为提出广泛的主张,也不认为他们与被认为是同质的西方同性恋者完全不同。相反,我讨论了某些人在某些对话中所说的话,注意到他们的身份表现往往是高度个性化的,是根据在场的互动者和与特定沟通时刻相关的互动目标来塑造的。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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来源期刊
Journal of Language and Sexuality
Journal of Language and Sexuality Arts and Humanities-Language and Linguistics
CiteScore
3.60
自引率
9.50%
发文量
20
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