Potentials of Bakhtin’s festive laughter to investigate a gay linguistic variety

Gayle is a gay linguistic variety that involves the replacement of a female name for existing Afrikaans or English parts of speech, often to hilarious effect. Developed by gay coloured hairdressers in Cape Town in the 1950s, this variety has persisted and grown and is used today by many communities in the Western Cape and across South Africa. Gayle is referenced by key thinkers in the Global North as unique, however, local academic attention has waned. The aim of this article is to propose a different way into the study of Gayle, to encourage more in-depth studies. The existing literature identifies humour as a central function, but there has yet to be a focused exploration of the role that humour plays in Gayle. I propose that Bakhtin’s concept of carnival or festive laughter could be used as a springboard for such an investigation. Specifically, I will argue that the ‘essential energies’ of Bakhtinian festive laughter – its dynamism, freedom and fearlessness – could be used as a theoretical frame and I show the potential in this approach. Perhaps investigations of this ilk could uncover why and how Gayle persists while gay linguistic varieties in the Global North have declined and are seldom the focus of academic study.