Unraveling Fluid Identities: Exploring the Migration of Gendered Semiotics in Magahi across Caste, Culture, and Pragmatics

Abstract

The paper explores gendered semiotics in cross-category interactions within the context of Magahi, an Indo-Aryan language. It investigates the dynamic interplay of language, gender, and intersubjectivity in discourse, focusing on linguistic elements like terms of address, reference, honorifics, taboo/expletives, and cross-referencing/reversing genders. The study elucidates the semiotic processes of identity formation and attainment within the purview of ‘social meaning’. The analysis uncovers a profound connection between linguistic structure, pragmatic goals, communicative goals, and power-gender dynamics. Significantly, this study explores cases of reversing gender through semiotic indexes from the viewpoint of the affective dimension of linguistic gendering. Strategies such as the use of kinship terms for non-kinship relations, employing taboo words as strategy, manipulating honorifics for (dis)/respect and the levels of familiarity are explored from the standpoint of ‘communicative goal’. These linguistic strategies illuminate how language constructs social realities and identities in a fluid, non-fixed manner. Moreover, the study suggests a dynamic interpretation between semiotic indexes and socio-cultural concepts, examining language usage from a perlocutionary perspective. To comprehensively explore these phenomena, we employ the framework of Interactional Sociolinguistics (IS) as the guiding framework, complemented by Critical Discursive Psychology (CDP). The exploration of migration in linguistic expressions as per socio-cultural categories adds a nuanced layer to our understanding of how language reflects and shapes fluid socio-cultural identities.