The gay lisp

[El Diablo]

Dom,

I agree w/ pretty much everything in your post, especially the perplexing part, hence this thread. One comment, though.

"flamboyantly lisping gay men"

I think we can largely ignore those guys in this discussion, as I think most would agree that these guys use speech just like outrageous clothing and exaggerated limp wrists and prancing and stuff as ways to flaunt their gayness.

[NT!]

[ QUOTE ]
NT, do you realize there are better ways to bring your point across here? Even my girlfriend would knee you in the jewels for making that remark, sir.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, lucky for me mine is not so uppity.

I don't much care if people don't look beyond my rather brisk approach at times to see my point. Their loss.

Also, insert --stock comment about having many gay friends and going to gay bars and occasionally having sex with men just to prove I'm not phobic-- here

[FortunaMaximus]

She ain't either. She'd do it on principle alone. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

See, a Toronto boy learns a lot. We got everybody comin' from everywhere, every walk of life in this megacity.

'frisco with better winter dress, and, well, we're also Canadian. That accounts for a different, less abrasive approach.

Naw worries.

[lef1000]

[ QUOTE ]
I think a 'subtle' advertisement would be something like matching your socks with your belt. thaying you jutht looooove the new prada thtore on fthifthhtht avenue is not what i would call subtle

[/ QUOTE ]

i am THO giving you a THTAR

it took me about a minute to figure out what u said
then i couldnt stop laughing
also ur a hipocrite for making fun and then giving a star, but ur a damn funny one.

here comes someone making fun of my grammer and spelling mistakes....

[NT!]

[ QUOTE ]
also ur a hipocrite for making fun and then giving a star, but ur a damn funny one.

[/ QUOTE ]

i'd be a hypocrite if i locked the thread for being offensive and made a comment like that.

the reason i locked the thread was because i didn't think the discussion was going anywhere productive, i thought good samaritan had some very foolish ideas about the linguistic / sociological origins and significance of 'the lisp,' and i thought it was more suited to one of several other forums.

unfortunately i don't think there is much we can do with this topic in any forum, and here's why.

first, there has been very little actual linguistic research on this issue.

second, anyone familiar with principles of research in the social sciences can see that the studies produced so far have a number of flaws in design and lack the kind of specificity and breadth of data to really make them even potentially useful. not to say that they shouldn't be done, or should be ignored completely, but they represent baby steps, nothing more. for one, there is a high element of 'performance' to language and most people have a fair degree of variance in their speech patterns depending on the audience and the subject matter. linguists studying regional and cultural dialects usually have to immerse themselves in it for extended periods to gather the kind of data a really in-depth analysis of this phenomenon would require.

while some of the very rough data presented so far seems to suggest that there might be some plausibility to an identifiable 'gay dialect' of sorts, and that it might include certain 'feminized' speech patterns and intonations, i think we're a long way from quantifying it beyond that. for one, does it exist in other languages? does it have characteristics common to all languages or does it vary between them? for instance, in one of the studies linked in the OP it notes that the pronounced asibilation observed in stereotypically gay american men is common in several other dialects or languages as well. do gay speakers of those languages exhibit even more pronounced asibilation, or is the dialect different in french, spanish, etc.

what makes this notion different from other dialects is that anecdotal evidence would seem to indicate that it may exist across other linguistic borders???? i don't know if anyone has ever studied something like feminized speech in different languages, and whether its traits carry over, but that might be a place to start.

for these and other reasons, i suspect that the discussion, if it picks up any steam, will be largely anecdotal from this point on.

[george w]

i wonder how many bisexual men speak with a gay lisp. and i wonder what the ratios are between strictly gay and bisexual men regarding the lisp. and i wonder how many closet homosexuals speak with a gay lisp.

i imagine it's acquired as a method of identification for most.

[diebitter]

those doing it, enough with the silly lisp jokes already.

[hmkpoker]

It's advertising, and it's also conformity. Gay people have managed to develop "gay culture," which entails listening to Madonna and house music, clubbing, dressing in trendy and expensive clothes, and being snotty and superficial. What that has to do with being attracted to males I haven't the faintest, but it's something for people with no sense of identity to attach to.

[kidcolin]

[ QUOTE ]
How much of his is directly linked to gay identity? Take someone who grew up in Hicksville and pushed all gayness to the far corners of his being. Then this person goes to college, moves to a big city, etc. and becomes more comfortable with his sexuality and acknowledges it. Is someone like that likely to NOW pick up this speech pattern?

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm no expert on the subject, but just based on experience, I'd say they would be inclined to pick up the speech pattern. Friends tend to pick up other friends tendencies. When I was 12, a friend moved down to FL. When he visited the following summer he had a bit of a drawl. Another instance: a few summers ago, I visited friends in Buffalo. They had this dumb habbit where instead of saying, "let's get dinner", they'd say "dinner, or no?" I caught myself saying it in less than 2 days, without ever consciously trying to.

I just think it's pretty natural for people to adapt to their surroundings. They want to fit in, they want to be liked. I wouldn't be surprised if it occured even moreso in someone with deeply repressed feelings.

[Banditgberg]

I am living in my second non-english speaking country within the past 2 years...my english sentences have been simplified and i catch myself speaking improperly on the phone with english speakers because the nature of my surroundings.

BUT i don't want to use incorrect grammer to identify myself with english second language speakers, it happens subliminally

For what it is worth...