Language in the middle: Class and sexuality on the Hinglish continuum

Abstract

This article draws from ethnographic research among youth in Delhi's expanding middle classes to call for more sociolinguistic attention to the role played by sexuality discourse in the reproduction of class relations. The discussion highlights the centrality of the middle classes to sustaining as well as shifting sexual normativity, suggesting that sexual norms are in part constituted through everyday discourses that situate middle class subjectivity between two class extremes. Specifically, the article tracks how Hinglish, as a mixed‐language alternative to a class system polarized by English and Hindi, came to rival English as the preferred language of sexuality, challenging the elite censorship of “vernacular” languages that began in nineteenth‐century colonialism. However, as demonstrated by two case studies of queer speakers at different ends of the Hinglish continuum, speakers of this internally diverse hybrid variety are not equally able to master the sexuality discourse that has become indexical of upward mobility.

“She will control my son”: Navigating womanhood, English and social mobility in India

“…For these young women, who find themselves at the locus of patriarchy, colonialism, neoliberalism, class and caste, their middle classness must be constantly discursively achieved, which they manage more or less successfully. In other words, their middle classness is not produced in isolation, but rather takes on meaning in articulation with ‘other systems of social stratification’ (Hall, 2021, p.307) which renders their performances at times unstable. Taking a cue from Chun's (2019) theorisation of interanimation I have demonstrated the semiotic dynamism of these women's language practices as they have been shown to be interpreted differently across different spaces in which these women move: in spaces that make claims to ‘eliteness’ their use of English can work to ‘feminise’ them and make them appear modern and progressive; in other spaces, their proximity to English‐ness can index a rejection of tradition and particular caste and class‐infused constructions of womanhood and wifehood.…”

“…49–50). As such, using English is embedded not only within class projects, but equally within idealised social types of (upper middle class) femininity (see also Hall, 2021). Such a project works by drawing on colonial ideologies that construe colonial languages as more refined, less vulgar (Fanon, 1967), thus allowing their speakers to embody these characteristics.…”

“…The middle classes, however, are far from homogenous, and many scholars are dubious about narratives that claim liberalisation resulted 'in a massively expanded, homogenous mass of wealthy, Indian middle classes' (Ganguly-Scrase & Scrase, 2009, p. 2;Fernandes, 2006). However, while the heterogeneity of the middle classes is widely addressed in the literature, the role of gender and its interanimation (Chun, 2019) with class and caste remains relatively underacknowledged (although see Nakassis, 2016and Hall, 2019, 2021.…”

Language, gender and sexuality in 2021

“…By the same token, Rajendra and Sarin (2021) analyse intersections between caste and gender in government-run educational programmes for disadvantaged girls. Hall (2021), focusing on the 'Hinglish' of queer middle-class youth in Delhi, reminds us of the importance of considering class relations as powerful elements in the demarcation of social boundaries.…”

Voicing singlish from the “middle”: Indexical hybridities of class, race, language, and Singaporeanness

“…Following scholars in linguistic anthropology and the social sciences more generally, (Bourdieu, 1984; Goh, 2016; Hall, 2019, 2021; Ortner, 2006; Reyes, 2017; Urciuoli, 1993; Yeoh, 2004), I treat social class as a relational subjectivity reproduced through the discourse of invested subjects, distinct from but densely interconnected with its material reality. I demonstrate how middle classness, naturalized and neutralized as an unmarked norm, can be exposed through the analysis of discourses that constitute its productive unmarking process (Barrett, 2014; Hall, 2021). It is only by studying the “labor involved in crafting emblems of distinction” (Lo, 2020, 296)—that is, interrogating the “middling” Singlish discourses connected to national identity and nationhood claims—that middle classness can be made visible.…”