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Culture and Swardspeak: What are you fighting for dear Jejemons?
Jejemon Attack
Jejemon
is
a
pop
culture
phenomenon
in
the
Philippines.
Jejemons
are
defined
by
Urban
Dictionary
as
those
"who
has
managed
to
subvert
the
English
language
to
the
point
of
incomprehensibility
and
online
lynch
squads."
A.
A
Jejemon
is
described
as
one
of
a
"new
breed
of
hipsters
who
have
developed
not
only
their
own
language
and
written
text
but
also
their
own
sub-‐culture
and
fashion."
B.
Jejemons
also
imitate
"gangster"
like
attitudes
(Biado,
2010).
Several
people
have
speculated
that
jejemons
came
to
exist
because
of
excessive
text
messaging.
In
an
effort
to
make
the
most
out
of
the
360-‐character
limit
for
every
text
message,
some
shorten
words
by
removing
vowels.
And
even
if
unlimited
text
messaging
services
are
offered
at
affordable
rates,
people
seem
to
have
gotten
the
hang
of
this
style
of
text
messaging.
(ABSCBN
News,
http://www.abs-‐cbnnews.com)
As
part
of
the
pre-‐school
year
clean-‐up
of
schools
for
the
upcoming
2010-‐11
school
year,
the
Department
of
Education
(DepEd)
strongly
discourages
students
from
using
Jejemon
spelling
and
grammar,
especially
in
text
messaging.
Communicating
with
other
using
Jejemon
are
said
to
cause
deterioration
of
young
Filipino
students’
language
skills.
(GMA
News.tv,
www.gmanewstv.com)
How
would
you
like
your
own
5
year
old,
speak
jejenese
instead
of
Filipino
and
English,
just
because
they
got
the
hang
of
it?
Although
we
accept
that
the
study
of
this
language
is
new
and
it
may
have
further
development
in
the
future,
just
by
looking
at
its
roots,
would
you
bank
on
socially
accepting
a
language
that
just
wants
to
be
different,
or
go
for
Swardspeak
that
is
deeply
rooted
in
one
goal,
for
gays
to
survive
and
adapt
in
this
highly
patriarchal
society
which
looks
upon
them?
ProSwardspeak
It
is
common
knowledge
to
us
language
is
a
vehicle
used
to
adapt
to
a
culture,
a
community
and
even
to
a
whole
new
country.
Manalansan
in
his
book
“Global
Divas”
has
examined
and
studied
Filipino
gay
men
in
New
York
City
and
how
they
adopted
and
survived
in
a
foreign
country
with
the
use
of
Swardspeak
(Benedicto,
318).
As
part
of
Global
Divas,
Manalansan
unpacks
the
dynamics
between
bakla
and
gay
and
argues
for
a
view
of
kabaklaan
as
an
enduring
social
category
recuperated
by
the
Filipino
gay
diaspora
in
order
to
carve
out
spaces
in
New
York
City
and
in
the
U.S.
social
imaginary.
Central
to
his
argument
is
the
notion
that
the
borders
between
bakla
and
gay
are
porous
and
that
immigrants
are
able
to
draw
on
the
former
to
negotiate
identity
and
difference,
particularly
through
the
linguistic
practice
of
swardspeak
and,
to
a
lesser
extent,
cross-‐dressing
(Benedicto,
321).
Today,
Swardspeak
is
a
vernacular
language
used
by
Filipino
gay
men
in
Manila
and
overseas
that
reconfigures
elements
from
Filipino,
English,
and
Spanish
and
that
is
spoken
with
a
hyperfeminized
inflection
(Benedicto,
321).
Manalansan
argues
that
deploying
swardspeak
indicates
resistance
to
assimilation
and
reflects
Filipino
gay
men’s
struggles
with
notions
of
belonging
in
the
context
of
their
abject
relationship
to
the
(Philippine)
nation
and
to
the
American
(mostly
white)
gay
community
(Benedicto,
321)
According
to
Bobby
Benedicto
(p.320)
SWARDS
has
been
understood
as
a
subculture
(Tan),
a
form
of
psychosexual
inversion
(Garcia),
the
embodiment
of
an
outside
cultural
other
(Johnson),
mimicry
par
excellence
(Cannell),
and
an
alternative
modernity
(Manalansan).
In
a
study
regarding
gay
bahasa,
many
homosexual
men
in
Indonesia
speak
what
they
call
bahasa
gay
‘gay
language’,
a
linguistic
phenomenon
based
upon
bahasa
Indonesia
(Indonesian),
Indonesia’s
national
language.
Bahasa
gay
involves
derivational
processes
including
unique
suffixes
and
word
substitutions
and
a
pragmatics
oriented
around
community
rather
than
secrecy
like
our
own
Filipino
Swardspeak.
Although
mainstream
knowledge
of
the
existence
of
homosexual
men
is
limited,
bahasa
gay
is
increasingly
being
appropriated
by
Indonesian
popular
culture,
again
just
like
in
the
Philippines
(Boellstorff,
248).
Many
gay
men
emphasize
that
they
have
a
way
of
speaking
in
the
gay
world
(dunia
gay)
that
differs
from
speech
in
typical
Indonesian
society—what
they
(and
Indonesians
more
generally)
often
term
the
normal
world
(dunia
normal).
Then
as
now,
the
gay
world
refers
not
to
a
fixed
topography
but
to
an
imagined
geography
where
gay
men
can
be
terbuka
‘open’.
It
comes
into
being
any
time
gay
men
gather
at
the
slightest
remove
from
the
normal
world.
This
imagined
gay
world
is
not
contiguous,
but
composed
of
an
archipelago
of
physical
locales
ranging
from
parks
and
salons
to
shopping
malls
and
individual
apartments;
it
also
includes
intangible
romantic,
sexual,
and
friendly
networks
of
affiliation.
(Boellstorff,
?)
Ask
yourselves?
Can
jeje-‐speak
transcend
to
other
countries?
Countries
that
text
messaging
is
not
common
and
is
quite
expensive?
Mary
Louise
Pratt
(1987)
In
her
critique
of
“linguistic
utopias,”
notes
that
the
notion
of
the
“imagined
community”
can
be
used
to
characterize
the
idealized
speech
communities
that,
in
her
view,
undergird
sociolinguistic
inquiry
(Boellstorff,
249)
Although
you
may
say
that
nowadays,
swardspeak
translated
traditional
bahay
kubo,
penpen
de
sarapen
among
others
may
have
a
fancy
translation,
and
others
would
consider
this
a
linguistic
act
that
taints
our
language
and
cultural
heritage.
However,
this
translation
also
shows
how
creative
gay
language
is
as
a
flourishing
language
and
how
it
also
performs
a
social
function
bringing
gays
and
non-‐gays
together,
in
some
ways.
Gay
Language
sometimes
indexes
homosexuality,
but
it
registers
a
sense
of
belonging
(Boellstorff,
264).
Reference:
Boellstorff,
Tom.
“Gay
Language
and
Indonesia:
Registering
Belonging”.
Journal
of
Linguistic
Anthropology,
Vol.
14,
Issue
2
(2004):
248–268
Benedicto,
Bobby.
“The
Haunting
of
Gay
Manila”.
Project
Muse:
Scholarly
Journals
Online
Vol1
(2008):
317-‐
321