>>17190124in troduction: Soyspeak as a Minor Language
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soyspeak presents a fascinating case study for Deleuze and Guattari's linguistic theories, particularly their concepts of minor languages, order-words, and continuous variation. Far from being merely a "right-wing dog whistle" or an online slang, Soyspeak functions as what Deleuze and Guattari would call a minoritarian treatment of a major languageβEnglishβthat operates through creative deterritorialization and establishes a distinct semiotic regime.
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1. Soyspeak as a Minor Language
The Major/Minor Distinction
Deleuze and Guattari argue that "major" and "minor" do not designate different languages but rather two treatments of language:
"There are not, therefore, two kinds of languages but two possible treatments of the same language. Either the variables are treated in such a way as to extract from them constants and constant relations or in such a way as to place them in continuous variation." (p. 103)
Soyspeak exemplifies the minor treatment of English. It does not create a new language from scratch but instead deterritorializes English through systematic operations:
Β· Apostrophisation: Dropping first syllables ("'o" for "to," "'e" for "be")
Β· Mutation: Altering consonants based on preceding/following words ("the Sharty" for "the Party")
Β· Acronymisation: Compressing phrases into single words ("HWNBAG" for "he will never be a gem")
These operations constitute what Deleuze and Guattari describe as a "chromatic linguistics" that places linguistic elements in continuous variation:
"A secret language does not merely have a hidden cipher or code still operating by constants and forming a subsystem; it places the public language's system of variables in a state of variation." (p. 97)
The Double Movement of Minor Languages
Soyspeak displays the characteristic double movement of minor languages:
1. Poverty/Ellipsis: The dropping of syllables and creation of acronyms represents a "restriction of constants" (poverty)
2. Overload/Variation: The complex mutation rules and proliferation of forms represent an "extension of variations" (overload)
"Two conjoined tendencies in so-called minor languages have often been noted: an impoverishment, a shedding of syntactical and lexical forms; but simultaneously a strange proliferation of shifting effects, a taste for overload and paraphrase." (p. 104)
This is precisely what we see in Soyspeak: grammatical simplification combined with elaborate mutation rules that create a rich, shifting linguistic field.
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2. The Order-Word Function
Language as Command, Not Communication
Deleuze and Guattari fundamentally challenge the view of language as informational or communicational:
"Language is made not to be believed but to be obeyed, and to compel obedience." (p. 76)
Soyspeak's self-description as an "international auxiliary language" that emerged from "persecution days" suggests it functions as what they call an order-word assemblageβnot primarily to communicate information but to:
1. Establish group identity and signal membership
2. Create exclusionary boundaries ("to off-siters, soyspeak is known as the right-wing undertoned dog whistle")
3. Resist moderation (bypassing filters, avoiding wordfilters)
The creators of Soyspeak "shortening words permitted the poster to avoid wordfilters"βthis is a practical application of Deleuze and Guattari's claim that:
"The order-word is itself the redundancy of the act and the statement." (p. 79)
Each Soyspeak utterance simultaneously:
Β· Says something
Β· Performs the act of belonging to the "soymunnity"
Β· Enacts resistance to external moderation
The Death Sentence of the Order-Word
Deleuze and Guattari argue that order-words carry "a little death sentence":
"Every orderword, even a father's to his son, carries a little death sentenceβa Judgment, as Kafka put it." (p. 76)
Soyspeak's constant references to "death" and "dying" in its internal discourse ("he will never be a gem," "the gem that saved the Party" vs. "the coal that doomed the Sharty") manifest this dimension. The language creates a world where membership is marked by the ever-present possibility of exclusion, cancellation, or "death" within the community.
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3. Soyspeak's Regime of Signs
The Postsignifying/Subjective Regime
Deleuze and Guattari distinguish several regimes of signs. Soyspeak appears to operate primarily in what they call the postsignifying or subjective regime, characterized by:
1. A point of subjectification: "the Sharty," the "soymunnity" as the origin of linguistic authority
2. Linear proceedings: The succession of "proceedings" (father-proceeding, hotel-proceeding, court-proceeding in Kafka's work)
3. the double turning away: Creating a space of "insider" language that turns away from the mainstream