In support of trans linguistics as the basis for a “sociolinguistics of variation for people and for society”

The paper encourages the recognition of a much needed and in part already existing trans linguistics in the field of sociolinguistics. Applying Bakhtin’s notions of monoglossia and heteroglossia to the analysis of the multiplicity of possible gender productions, it invites the recognition that individual productions of gender are shot through with contradiction, and incorporate both aspects of performance generally understood as ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’. The very fact that ‘men’s language’ and ‘women’s language’ can be appropriated by transgendered individuals is the most powerful evidence that those labels themselves are inadequate and sterile, and that a transformative trans Linguistics is needed, i.e. a sociolinguistics that depicts the social reality of variance and focuses on the constant re-negotiability of indexicalities at large, made manifest in the transgender individual’s performances, but also in each individual performance.