Arnold Zwicky's Blog

From the Linguistic Society of America’s Secretariat this morning:

Arnold Zwicky Award: This award, given for the first time in 2021 [as the 2022 AZ Award], is intended to recognize the contributions of LGBTQ+ scholars in Linguistics and is named for Arnold Zwicky, the first [openly] LGBTQ+ President of the LSA. The Committee on LGBTQ+ [Z] Issues in Linguistics (COZIL) is pleased to announce that Professor Lal Zimman is the LSA’s 2024 Arnold Zwicky Award recipient [AZ: to be formally awarded at the 2024 LSA meeting in early January in New York City].

Lal Zimman, an Associate Professor of Linguistics at UC Santa Barbara, is recognized as a global leader in the area of trans linguistics. His research on trans language has had a significant impact on sociocultural linguistics, sociophonetics, inclusive pedagogy, and social justice- and community-based linguistics. Zimman has also been active in advocating for trans inclusion in the discipline and the academy, and he has been a mentor to many trans students. He now directs the Trans Research in Linguistics Lab (TRILL) at UCSB, which is dedicated not only to studying trans linguistics but also holistically supporting trans students and scholars.

Yes — a Z to a Z!

I will discourse a bit on LZ in a moment, but first a brief …

Digression on the day. The day before Thanksgiving, also 11/22, which is both St Cecilia’s Day and, alas, JFK Assassination Day (the 60th this year, and I recall 11/22/63 quite vividly).

From my 11/22/17 posting “Cecilia, you’re breaking my heart”:

It’s Thanksgiving Eve — or as some commercial folk now have it, Black Wednesday — which this year is November 22nd, St. Cecilia’s Day, a day to celebrate music … , but also JFK Assassination Day.

… The unfortunate concurrence of St. Cecilia and JFK comes by every year, always close to Thanksgiving, triggering a deeply uncomfortable mixture of emotions

And from my 11/21/11 posting “Saint Cecilia”:

[10/22 is] St. Cecilia’s Day — Cecilia, the patron saint of music and musicians. A day to sing and play. And, for me, to appreciate the music of Handel and Purcell. Hail! Bright Cecilia!

Tomorrow will be not only Thanksgiving Day, but also 11/23, which is Fibonacci Day (11/23 standing for the sequence 1, 1, 2, 3 [5, 8, 13, 21, …]).

About LZ. From Wikipedia:

Lal Zimman is a linguist who works on sociocultural linguistics, sociophonetics, language, gender and identity, and transgender linguistics.

Zimman received his BA in Philosophy and MA in English with a Linguistics concentration from San Francisco State University. He received his PhD in linguistics from University of Colorado at Boulder in 2012 where he worked under Kira Hall. His dissertation, Voices in Transition: Testosterone, Transmasculinity, and the Gendered Voice among Female-to-Male Transgender People, used both ethnographic and sociophonetic methods to explore the effects of hormone therapy on the voices of trans men.

Zimman’s work has been influential in developing the field of trans linguistics. He has been widely recognized for his work on inclusive language reform and activism, the relationship between the body, biological sex, and the voice, and pronouns and singular they.

Zimman is currently assistant professor of Linguistics & Affiliated Faculty in Feminist Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara.

… Zimman is transgender and uses he or they pronouns.

And on this blog, my 5/22/12 posting “Geek days” was about LZ’s work, starting with a 2009 NWAV talk of his comparing gay men, self-identified nerds, and trans men, reflecting on the “gay voice” and the “geek voice”.

This entry was posted on November 22, 2023 at 11:03 am and is filed under Anniversaries, Announcements, Awards, Gender and sexuality, Holidays, Language and sexuality, Language and the sexes, Linguists, Music, My life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.