Young Scholars Forum
It’s (not) OK to be gay: Heterotopic formations in the linguistic landscape of the Metro Manila Pride March
Christian Go
The National University of Singapore
This study examines the
linguistic landscape (LL) of the 2018 Metro Manila Pride March (MMPM) in relation
to the presence of three dominant stakeholders: a progressive Christian church
(Church of Freedom in Christ Ministries), an Evangelical anti-LGBT group, and
the pride march participants. Specific focus is given to the these stakeholders
as they represent varying and conflicting religion-based conceptions of
sexuality in the Philippines. These tensions manifest materially in the LL of
the MMPM, and so I argue that while the MMPM is generally seen as an
‘LGBT-affirmative’ space, it is likewise a constrained, contested site, partly
emerging from the intersections of religious and sexual discourses. Using
gathered data (photographs, videos, and field notes), I examine each
stakeholder’s use of multimodal signs to take up stances (Kiesling 2018) in relation
to other stakeholders, as well as discourse that (in)validates non-normative
sexualities. Moreover, I utilize the principle of emplacement (Scollon &
Scollon 2003) to examine how the physical location of these groups contribute
to the development of the MMPM as a ‘heterotopic affective space’ (Zembylas
2009). That is, each stakeholder present in the MMPM creates heterotopic
formation by circulating particular affects such as (un)acceptance to demarcate
their respective position within the MMPM. As such, the configuration of
competing heterotopic formations, founded on and supported by contrasting
affects and discourses about non-normative sexuality, is crucial to
understanding the MMPM as an LL. This study contributes to the growing
scholarship regarding sexuality’s embeddedness in linguistic landscapes.
Christian Go is a PhD candidate studying English Language and
Linguistics at the National University of Singapore. His current research examines the semiotic construction of
Metro Manila Pride’s linguistic landscape. His research interests fall under
language and sexuality, linguistic anthropology and affect theory.