'No to halata, astig to astig only': The emerging bisexual lingo and the (un)marketable identities on PlanetRomeo

Aries John G. Enardecido
2020 Asian Journal of English Language Studies (AJELS)  
This study critically analyzes different linguistic expressions that are ideologically and indexically used by self-identified bisexual members of PlanetRomeo, a gay-dating website. Using lexico-grammatical analysis and selective self-presentation as lens, the study examines the textual areas of 167 online dating profiles of Filipino bisexual men. Findings indicated an emerging subcultural lingo, which is characterized by word connotations, echoic binomials, and negations. Moreover, the study
more » ... fers insights into the identity-construction efforts of bisexual men through their language use, which allow them to occupy attractive and marketable identities in the contemporary period. More importantly, it sheds light on how these men's linguistic constructions of desired and desirable identities also work toward the marginalization and disenfranchisement of other identities. Overall, this study hopes to contribute to the area of sexual identity construction in and through discourse and to contemporary understandings of the ways in which identities are read as either desirable or undesirable by a particular community, and the hierarchies and judgments that such readings entail for members of the community.
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