This article uses literary examples from English-language and French-language postwar fiction to elaborate a descriptive framework for representations of camp talk. The framework is based on four underlying semiotic strategies that produce a variety of surface textual effects (stylistic and pragmatic). The strategies are called Paradox, Inversion, Ludicrism and Parody. The effects they generate range from register play, through puns, to innuendo. The article argues that these effects contribute to the development of fictional representations of homosexual/gay/queer characters in postwar fiction and also to the elaboration of a gay critique of dominant cultural norms and practices. As such, the four strategies may also, it is suggested, underpin other (visual, gestural) semiotic regimes.
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