Gaydar—Sendg Mixed Signals | Department of Lguistics | Universy of Colorado Boulr

Contents:

• GAYDAR—SENDG MIXED SIGNALS
• DISSECTG "GAYDAR": ACCURACY AND THE ROLE OF MASCULY-FEMY
• DISSECTG "GAYDAR": ACCURACY AND THE ROLE OF MASCULY-FEMY

GAYDAR—SENDG MIXED SIGNALS

Gaydar is a reified skill that nfirms the existence of a gay speech muny, but n terme a speaker's membership? Many people thk that they n regnize a gay man based on his speech.

In other words, they believe that they have a gaydar. However, as a gay man, I thk of gaydar not so much as a tool for intifyg one’s orientatn, but as a meang and discrimatory weapon ed to ntrast sexual and social differenc. For my class project Language US Society, I wanted to qutn the nature of gaydar and trace s origs beyond jt the perceptn of the speaker.

DISSECTG "GAYDAR": ACCURACY AND THE ROLE OF MASCULY-FEMY

Essentially, gaydar is the abily to tect an dividual’s sexual orientatn. The key to unrstandg gaydar is the telemunitn ncept of “radar, ” which is fed as “a radtermatn system based on the parison of reference signals wh rad signals reflected or retransmted, om the posn to be termed” (ITU Rad Regulatns, 2013). Gaydar borrows the functns of receivg and parg signals and reifi the skill of intifyg sexual orientatn to an operatnal tool.

DISSECTG "GAYDAR": ACCURACY AND THE ROLE OF MASCULY-FEMY

Hence, the technil fn of gaydar is a “system based on the parison of reference signals wh language reflected or retransmted, om the posn to be termed, ” where the posn to be termed ultimately translat to inty. Jt like a radar, an operatnal gaydar reli on the reference signals and the static background of the receiver. A historil example of this is what lguists ll the onted “s” sound that is typilly characterized as a lisp, also known as the “gay lisp” (Mack and Munson 2012).