Transglossia and Sports: Men Talk and Masculinity

Abstract

This chapter shows how sports represent a major part of many young people’s daily linguistic lives. From young Bangladeshis’ fascination with Indian cricket stars to young Mongolia students’ use of terms from Japanese sumo, these affiliations have both cultural and linguistic implications. While young speakers actively support their favourite sports’ team or athletes, they also relocalize varied sports-associated linguistic and semiotic resources as a means of self-identification and peer-bonding. Sport in the contexts of Bangladesh and Mongolia is often bound up with young men’s daily activities, with implications for particular performances of masculinity. Young males engage with varied sports-associated linguistic and semiotic resources as part of their gendered and group solidarities. The transglossic take-up of sports thus becomes a key site for the production of a linguistic and cultural matrix of masculine and group identity.