Linguistics Out of the Closet Comments on a

Linguistics Out of the Closet: Comments on a Discipline’s Anxiety Tyler Kibbey University of Humboldt – Berlin A Queer(ed) Science of Language: Contemporary Perspectives An Ao Vivo – Linguists Online! Panel July 28, 2020 Linguistic Society of America, Committee on LGBTQ+ Issues in Linguistics, in collaboration with Abralin @Tyler. Kibbey tyler. e. kibbet@gmail. com

First, to explain the metaphor and kill the joke to come out of the closet to tell your family, friends, or the public that you are gay, after previously keeping this secret skeleton in the closet a discreditable or embarrassing fact that someone wishes to keep secret

A Queered Science of Language Behold, Plato’s Twink!

“The Science of language, dealing with the most basic and simplest of human social institutions, is a human science. It is most closely related to ethnology, but precedes ethnology and all other human sciences in the order of growing complexity, for linguistics stands at their foot, immediately after psychology, the connecting link between the natural sciences and the human. ” Linguistics, a Natural or Moral Science? (Bloomfield 1925) Leonard Bloomfield (1887 -1949)

Disciplinary Anxiety The same anxiety that tries keep queer and trans linguistics “in the closet” is also the same anxiety that feigns ignorance of all the closet’s attendant skeletons.

Dragging the Skeletons Out of the Closet Let’s look at the relationship between Christian Imperialism and Linguistics as an example of an anxiety inducing “Disciplinary Skeleton”

• Christian Imperialism Let’s Look at Four Individuals in the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Islands

Sir William Jones (1746 -1794) • Christian Imperialism

Sir William Jones (1746 -1794) • Christian Imperialism “The Sanskrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of wonderful structure, more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either. ”

Sir William Jones (1746 -1794) • Christian Imperialism Adoniram Judson (1788 -1850)

Sir William Jones (1746 -1794) • Christian Imperialism Adoniram Judson (1788 -1850) “Though I have seldom done anything to my own satisfaction, I am better satisfied with the translation of the New Testament than I ever expected to be. The language is, I believe, simple, plain, intelligible; and I have endeavored, I hope successfully, to make every sentence a faithful representation of the original. ”

Sir William Jones (1746 -1794) • Christian Imperialism Maurice Vidal Portman (1860 -1935) Adoniram Judson (1788 -1850)

Sir William Jones (1746 -1794) • Christian Imperialism Maurice Vidal Portman (1860 -1935) “[The Andamanese] will, out of sheer love of mischief, deliberately give incorrect information , or, as will be pointed out in subsequent comments on the Vocabularies, give abusive answers or indecent words to persons wishing to learn something of their language. ” Adoniram Judson (1788 -1850)

Sir William Jones (1746 -1794) • Christian Imperialism Maurice Vidal Portman (1860 -1935) Adoniram Judson (1788 -1850) John Allen Chau (1991 -2018)

Sir William Jones (1746 -1794) • Christian Imperialism Maurice Vidal Portman (1860 -1935) Adoniram Judson (1788 -1850) “[Sentinelese] Language: lots of high-pitched sounds with [b] [p], [l], and [s] heard. Couldn’t quite get any words. Insults are probably exchanged a lot. Did not seem to understand Jarawa words I said. ” John Allen Chau (1991 -2018)

Non-Profit American Missionary Linguistics today is worth at least $12 million of the nearly $1. 2 trillion American faith sector *Compare with the roughly $2 million net worth of the LSA

The same chart seen from the perspective of a “Language Science”

The same chart seen from the perspective of a “Linguistic Discipline”

Anti-Disciplinarity 1. Confronting the complex history of the science that exists beyond the discipline 2. To embrace the contradiction of linguistics as a moral & natural science 3. Working towards administrative excellence in addition to intellectual expertise 4. Holding each other to account and avoiding onedimensional thinking

I. Challenging the Hetero-Cistoriographies of Language Science We must go beyond simply challenging erasure and reacting to erasure, in terms of both the scientist and subject Undoing the harms of Linguistic Hetero-Cistoriography is tied to the larger project of undoing the Hetero-Cistoriography of knowledge production Behold, Plato’s Twink!

There can be no form that can be held to be true to the state of knowledge, especially those forms that demand their own legitimacy We must be careful to avoid making hagiographies of truth out of our historiographies of science

II. Transcriptivism “If linguists are moral agents within society and not simply undertaking an academic exercise in truthmaking, then it must be said, adamantly and without reservation, that linguistics as a discipline must reconcile the moral responsibility of linguists with its commitment to empirical research. In brief, if descriptivism requires neutrality on moral issues, then the methodology as it stands must be considered immoral. ” (Kibbey 2019)

“Telling me I am required for political reasons to use a construction that strikes me as ungrammatical, and judging me morally and politically for not instantly obeying, is the most extreme manifestation of prescriptivist Stalinism I have ever encountered. ” – Resident Skeleton

“Telling me I am required for political reasons to use a construction. THEY that strikes me as ungrammatical, and judging me morally and politically for not instantly obeying, is the most extreme manifestation NOTof prescriptivist Stalinism I have ever LISTEN encountered. ” TO G. P. – Resident Skeleton

III. Disciplinary Decentralization Meaningful change demands looking beyond our own time and place within our intellectual institutions and laying the groundwork for a better science for all marginalized peoples within those institutions and for the benefit of the public, whose trust is held by such institutions

Administrative and Financial Centralization The Administrative privileges and Financial authority of an intellectual body being centralized into a single body, regulating, primarily, the affixation of that body’s name This is characterized by slow but steady development of the administrative body aligned with a higher degree of financial stability Is primarily beneficial for systems with a smaller membership base

Administrative and Financial Decentralization The Administrative privileges and Financial authority of an intellectual body being decentralized into multiple bodies, working to distribute access to the institution’s authority This is characterized by irregular development of the administrative bodies aligned with a greater degree of financial volatility and risk Is beneficial for institutions witha medium-sized membership

Administrative and Financial Distribution What might a true Administrative and Financial Distribution look like? One example is the formal “academy”, comprised of the tangible and intangible instantiations of science and philosophy in a global context. Another example is the informal network of “societies”, comprised of the largely unsubstantive gift economy of academia Beneficial for institutions with a maximally large membership

The Society vs. The Academy The scholar is no longer the administrative & fiduciary locus of the academy or the university. That privilege is now reserved for the administrator, regardless of their scholarship. The scholar (especially those who have already been privileged on account of their race, gender, class, or sexuality) has been all too happy to forsake these privileges in favor of an idealized state of “Being a Scholar” The Society, in many ways, represents what the university was once imagined to be, and perhaps offers us a second chance going forward

IV. Systematic Professionalism Anti-disciplinary? Inter-disciplinary? Multi? Poly-? What are we supposed to do with the discipline itself? Should we burn it down and start over? Hyper-specialize? Re-organize an entire science and multi-national academic industry? Whatever we move towards, we must – as a matter of the utmost importance – avoid the replication of the centralized institution, that which perpetuates and serves as a cornerstone of empire and oppression

“Not only the furtherance of our science, but also the needs of society, make it the duty of students of language to work together systematically and with that sence of craftsmanship and of obligation which is called professional. ” Linguistics, a Natural or Moral Science? (Bloomfield 1925) Leonard Bloomfield (1887 -1949)

A Queer Language Science Fuck my drag, right?

Coming Out of the Closet with Skeletons in Tow to come out of the closet to challenge the hetero-cistoriographical production of discipline that obscure and abdicate responsibility for a complex tradition skeleton in the closet the untenability of discipline in the face of its production, preservation, and propagation; the anxiety of discipline

Thanks For Listening! @Tyler. Kibbey tyler. e. kibbet@gmail. com Linguistics Out of the Closet: Comments on a Discipline’s Anxiety Tyler Kibbey University of Humboldt – Berlin A Queer(ed) Science of Language: Contemporary Perspectives An Ao Vivo – Linguists Online! Panel July 28, 2020 Linguistic Society of America, Committee on LGBTQ+ Issues in Linguistics, in collaboration with Abralin