Ah oui, je colle ma wig et j’arrive: A linguistic and contextual analysis of English lexical borrowing on Drag Race France (2022)

This article examines the linguistic practices of French-speaking drag queens on the television show Drag Race France (2022), focusing on the morphophonological integration of English borrowings, while also analysing how these borrowings may serve as resources in identity construction, social positioning and cultural commentary. Drawing on a corpus of spontaneous speech, this study pro-vides a detailed linguistic analysis of borrowing types and of the prevalence of borrowings in different parts of the linguistic system, before moving on to examine how borrowings are used to demonstrate artistic authority, to mediate interactions with others, and in drag queens’ performances of self. These borrowings are examined not only as linguistic phenomena, but also as stylistic and strategic resources for identity construction and interactional positioning. Using Drag Race France as a case study, this article highlights the ways in which drag queen speech draws on exogenous anglophone norms to situate localised drag performance within the global drag culture popularised by RuPaul’s Drag Race and its franchises. The analysis of borrowings used in context sheds light on the social meanings associated with specific performative stances that use linguistic material from English in French.