From Stephen L. Mann at the Univ. of Wisconsin-La Crosse this morning:
The deadline (November 5) is quickly approaching to submit abstracts for the 20th annual Lavender Languages and Linguistics conference, which will be held at American University in Washington, DC, on February 15-17, 2013. Below are general conference details, as well as the call for the session I am organizing (“Sounding LGBTQ: Identifying Sexual and Gender Orientation in Speech”). Please let me know [address link above] if I can answer any questions about the conference or the individual session.
General conference details
From the conference website: “Stated broadly, the Lavender Languages and Linguistics Conference examines language use in lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and/or queer life. Linguistic inquiry is broadly defined here, to include studies of: pronunciation, vocabulary and meaning, conversational structures and styles, life stories and other narratives, fiction, and poetry, the “language” of scientific and historic documents and print media, meanings encoded in spatial practices, sign language, non-verbal communication, and communication through photography, cinema and other visual arts.” For information, including abstract submission details, go to the conference website: http://www.american.edu/cas/anthropology/lavender-languages/index.cfm
Organized session details
“Sounding LGBTQ: Identifying Sexual & Gender Orientation in Speech”
When listeners claim to be able to identify the sexual or gender orientation of a speaker, on what are they basing their claim? This question has received some attention in the lavender language literature over the past 20 years (e.g., Gaudio 1994; Levon 2006; Moonwomon-Baird 1997; Munson et al 2006; Piccolo 2008; Pierrehumbert et al 2004; Zimman 2010; plus sessions at past Lavender Languages and Linguistics conferences). This panel will focus on this question from multiple perspectives, including (but not limited to): What linguistic and extralinguistic factors contribute to listener perception of sexual and gender orientation? What is the role of levels of language other than phonetics/phonology? What does it mean to sound LGBTQ in languages other than English? How are linguistic features associated with sounding LGBTQ situated within a larger “indexical field” (Eckert 2008)? What social psychological connections are associated with sounding LGBTQ? Abstracts are welcome for papers that address these and similar questions from different theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches.
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