M.A. / At about the same time as Gayspeak was developing across the Atlantic, 'coloured' and white South African gay men were also starting to use their own in-group form of communication. It became known as Gayle, a name which derives from the lexical item Gail, which means 'chat' in the language. This study will endeavour to classify the type of language variety of Gayle, as it clearly is not a separate language on its own. It will also examine why South African gay men have used, and continue to use Gayle in their everyday lives. Given what we said earlier about legitimising Gayle as an incontestable reality within serious linguistic study, and the dearth of serious research in this area, it is important that this topic take its rightful place in the field of sociolinguistics. As language is an integral part of culture, it is also important that a comprehensive lexicon of Gayle be compiled, in line with Joustra's Homo-erotisch Woordenboek, Courouve's Vocabu/aire de l'Homosexualite Masculine and Rodgers' Gay Talk: A (sometimes Outrageous) Dictionary of Gay Slang, as Gayle is an undeniable component in the history of South African culture. In the course of the empirical research component of this study, approximately 90% of respondents indicated an interest in, and need for, such a dictionary.

This research examines men’s talk around abortion using critical discourse analysis. Current literature indicates a dearth of studies addressing the topic of men and abortion in various domains. An understanding of men’s relationship to abortion, however, is crucial to understanding abortion as a social phenomenon. This study utilises the work of Foucault around discourse and power, as well as Butler’s work on gender to create a theoretical framework to approach data. Data were collected in the form of interview groups made up of men, as well as newspaper articles and on-line forum discussions that featured men as the author. What emerged from theses texts was a ‘Familial Discourse’ which posits the nuclear, heterosexual family as a long term relationship between a mother and father, which forms the ideal site to raise children. Discourses that support the family are a discourse of ‘Equal Partnership’ which establishes the man and the woman as being in a heterosexual relationship where each partner is seen to have equal power, and a discourse of ‘Foetal Personhood’ which constructs the foetus as a child in need of a family. Related to the heterosexual matrix, the formation of a family unit comes to be constructed as ‘natural’. Abortion acts as a disruptor to these discourses. By disrupting the formation of the family unit, abortion negatively affects the individuals involved. A relationship where a formation of a family unit was disrupted cannot survive. If the female partner has an abortion without her partner, it is seen as disrupting the equal partnership between the man and the woman. Men in this case see themselves as ‘powerless’ compared to women. From this point a ‘New Man’ discourse emerges, where men position themselves as loving and responsible in the context of a nuclear, heterosexual family unit. Abortion disrupts ‘Foetal Personhood’ and is constructed as murder. In the case of rape the ‘Familial Discourse’ can be invoked either to justify abortion or resist abortion, based on whether or not a family unit can be formed. These discourses reproduce patriarchy.