Name: 'Tongues of Metal: Language, Ideology, and Belonging in the Asia Pacific'
Start: 2025-10-13T17:00:00+13:00
Location: Division of Humanities, University of Otago

A talk by WESLEY C. ROBERTSON (MACQUARIE U.) & JESS KRUK (U WESTERN AUSTRALIA)
BURNS 4 and on Zoom (register https://forms.gle/wUY3qxLHJECUGx2b9)
3pm NZT Tuesday 14th October (check your local time https://tinyurl.com/mtnm765v)
Tongues of Metal: Language, Ideology and Belonging in the Asia Pacific
This talk, inspired by the recently published book Peripheral Linguistic Brutality, explores how “metalness” is created and contested through language across the Asia Pacific. Drawing on interviews with lyricists from Australia, Indonesia, Japan, and Taiwan, it examines how metal musicians rework linguistic ideologies to express belonging, defiance, and authenticity. Unlike hip-hop—with its anchoring in AAVE as an origin dialect—metal operates without a central linguistic reference point, making it a rich site for studying how global subcultures take shape through local adaptation. Rather than tracing the flow of English into new contexts, the talk focuses on how artists reimagine existing vernaculars and imported forms to craft distinct “metal languages.” In doing so, it reveals how linguistic creativity and brutality intertwine in the global metal scene, and what this can tell us about language, ideology, and identity in translocal cultural worlds.
Jessica Kruk is Lecturer in linguistics and Indonesian studies at the University of Western Australia. She has expertise in sociolinguistics and Indonesian language(s), and has published extensively on issues pertaining to language and identity in marginalized and peripheral communities in Indonesia, especially Indonesia’s ethnic Chinese minority.
Wesley C. Robertson is Senior Lecturer in Japanese studies and discipline chair of Languages and Cultures in Macquarie University’s Department of Media, Communications, Creative Arts, Language, and Literature. His work focuses on sociolinguistics and the Japanese language, and he has published on issues relating to Japanese script play, subcultural language use, and translation.
The two speakers co-host an open-access podcast called Lingua Brutallica, where they interview metal musicians about their lyrical practices.