In societies where explicit homophobic discourses are met with pushback, they must evolve to eschew mainstream criticism. They recently arrived, in the case of Singapore, as religionbased discourses that carry logics of change and transformation, now observable as neohomophobia. These discourses coax change through the Christian idea of metanoia – spiritual transformation – that encourages an individualised transformation of the self. This talk considers how language, specifically discourse, can be deployed as a corrective for nonnormative sexualities. Discourses in three forms – multimodal, narrative, and metapragmatic – are analyzed to demonstrate how correction can be achieved without relying on traditional modes of animus. Stories of ex-gay Christians, circulated by a young, non-denominational organization in Singapore, are examined for their audiovisual and narrative qualities, and ethnographic interviews conducted with religious queer individuals in Singapore evince language as a powerful technology for correction.

Vincent Pak is a sociocultural linguist at The University of Hong Kong, working in the fields of gender, sexuality, and race. His work intersects with linguistic anthropology and discourse studies, and his monograph, Queer Correctives, was recently published with Bloomsbury Academic. His articles can also be found in journals such as Journal of Sociolinguistics, Language in Society, and Signs and Society.