Metapragmatische Stereotype de-/nasaler Aussprache – Von näselnden Adeligen, Franzosen und ‚Schwulen‘

Abstract This article aims to shed light on the stereotypes of ‘gay’ nasalization by analysing metapragmatic utterances about (perceived) nasality. The data consists of two sub-corpora compiled from existing German corpus resources (SC I 444 records, 1605–1927 & SC II 3,266 records, 1949–2023), of which records are content-analytically categorized to identify associations with nasalization. This approach also allows for broader analyses of metapragmatic stereotypes of nasalization. The results shows that nasalization is primarily associated with (1) the characteristics of arrogance, distinguishedness and affectation, (2) the languages French and English and Austrian and Northern German varieties of German as well as (3) nobility, clergy, teachers and gays. Furthermore, these associations often occur in conjunction with each other. Why nasalization is associated with the stereotype of an affectatious flamboyant gay can at least in part be explained by the concept of indirect indexicality. In addition, the data show that this association represents a metapragmatic stereotype which can be discriminatory.