Investigating language attitudes among Singaporean gay men towards gay language

• Main Author: Chua, Alfred Ming Feng
• Other Authors: Stefanie Stadler
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2016
• Subjects: DRNTU::Humanities::Language::Linguistics
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/66060
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

This research project explores perceptions and attitudes that Singaporean gay men have towards gay language spoken within the gay community. It hypothesises that there is a stigmatised variety of gay English language spoken in Singapore. This project examines language attitudes towards masculine-sounding and feminine-sounding speech patterns using the matched-guise technique. A total of 30 participants had taken part in the first part of the research study, in which they had to listen to two separate guises - one sounding more masculine, and another, more feminine - and rating these speakers on a series of personality traits. The second part of the research study involved three of the 30 participants for a follow-up interview, where questions were asked that explored personal language attitudes towards gay language in Singapore. The results from the research study has shown that the feminine-sounding speech pattern to be slightly more stigmatised than the masculine-sounding guise. The feminine-sounding speech pattern rated higher for traits of solidarity, but the masculine-sounding counterpart ranked higher in status traits. The follow-up interview also revealed that this stigma might be the result of societal stereotypes within the gay community towards gay men that behave in a more effeminate manner.