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The voice of others: Identity, alterity and gender normativity among gay men in Israel

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2012

Erez Levon
Erez Levon
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics, Queen Mary University of London, Mile End Road, London E1 4NS, United Kingdome.levon@qmul.ac.uk
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Abstract

This article presents an analysis of a slang variety, called oxtšit, as it is described and used by a cohort of gay men in Israel. Unlike many previous analyses of gay slang, I argue that the men described do not use the variety to help construct and affirm an alternative gay identity, but rather that they use it as a form of in-group mockery through which normative and nonnormative articulations of Israeli gay male sexuality are delineated. It is suggested that this discussion has implications for sociolinguistic understandings of “groupness” more broadly, and particularly the relationship between macro-level social categories (like “gay”) and individual lived experience. (Gay slang, Israel, vari-directional voicing, identity/alterity)*

Type
Articles
Information
Language in Society , Volume 41 , Issue 2 , April 2012 , pp. 187 - 211
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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