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Office Location:
Specialization:
Sociocultural linguistics; trans linguistics; language, gender, race & sexuality; language & social justice; identity & embodiment; sociophonetics (esp. gender & voice); discourse analysis.
Education:
2012 PhD, Linguistics, University of Colorado, Boulder
2006 MA, English Linguistics, San Francisco State University
Bio:
I am a sociocultural linguist focused on language in and around transgender communities and the capacity of trans language to shed light on the workings of language, identity, embodiment, and power. Because I entered linguistics well before the past decade's swell of popular interest in trans language, I have had the opportunity to shape the emergence of trans linguistics as a discipline (see Zimman 2020) and to work across many levels of language, from phonetics to discourse. I have also been heavily involved in advocacy around trans-inclusive language at my institutions and beyond. My current work prioritizes addressing power dynamics and inequities within trans communities, challenging the whiteness of trans linguistics, the complex relationship between efforts to address racism and transphobia in language, and how to build coalitional movements for linguistic justice.
Research:
My research has addressed topics like:
- Trans voices; gender differences in the voice; the attribution of gender and sexuality based on the voice; trans language ideologies about the voice; pitch properties; creaky voice; /s/
- The linguistic construction of biological sex; trans men/transmasc people's use of body part terminology
- Changes in identity terminology in trans online communities in the 2000s
- Neoliberal identity discourse and the notion of self-identification
- Pronouns; singular 'they'; trans students experiences with pronouns; laws targeting trans people's pronoun usage
- Trans people's linguistic activism; language ideologies in activist discourse
- Linguists' practices around collecting and analyzing gender-related information; linguists construction of the gendered voice
- Discourse on reality television; RuPaul's Drag Race; transphobia, inclusion & anti-Blackness in drag media
Publications:
Books
- Crowley, Archie, J. Calder & Lal Zimman (under contract). An Introduction to Transgender Linguistics. Wiley.
- Zimman, Lal, Jenny L. Davis & Joshua Raclaw (eds.) (2014). Queer Excursions: Retheorizing Binaries in Language, Gender, and Sexuality. Oxford University Press.
Select articles and book chapters
- Zimman, Lal & Cedar Brown (2024). Beyond Pronouns 101: Linguistic advocacy for trans-inclusive language in the college classroom. In Anne Charity Hudley, Christina Mallinson, and Mary Bucholtz, Inclusion in Linguistics. Oxford University Press.
- Zimman, Lal (2024).Trans language activism and intersectional coalitions. Lead Discussion Article for Dialogue Series. Journal of Sociolinguistics 28:3-8.
- Zimman, Lal (2023). Language, gender, race, and sexuality: Intersectional perspectives. For Alessandro Duranti, Rachel George, and Robin Conley Riner (eds.), The New Companion to Linguistic Anthropology. Wiley.
- Becker, Kara, Sameer ud Dowla Khan, & Lal Zimman (2023). Beyond binary gender: creaky voice, gender, and the variationist enterprise. Language Variation and Change 34(2):215-238.
- Azul, David & Lal Zimman (2022). Innovation in speech-language pathology research and writing: Transdisciplinary theoretical and ethical perspectives on cultural responsiveness. International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology 24(5):460-471.
- Zimman, Lal (2020) Transgender language, transgender moment: Toward a trans linguistics. In Rusty Barrett and Kira Hall (eds.), The Oxford Handbook in Language and Sexuality. Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press.
- Zimman, Lal & Will Hayworth (2020). Lexical change as sociopolitical change in trans and cis identity labels: New methods for the corpus analysis of internet data. University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics 25(2): Article 17.
- Zimman, Lal & Will Hayworth (2020). How we got here: Short-scale change in identity labels for trans, cis, and non-binary people in the 2000s. Proceedings of the Linguistic Society of America 5(1):499-513.
- Zimman, Lal (2019). Trans self-identification and the language of neoliberal selfhood: Agency, power, and the limits of monologic discourse. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 256(1):147-175.
- Zimman, Lal (2018). Transgender voices: Insights on identity, embodiment, and the gender of the voice. Language and Linguistics Compass 12(7):e12284.
- Zimman, Lal (2017) Variability in /s/ among transgender speakers: Evidence for a socially-grounded account of gender and sibilants. Linguistics 55(5):993-1019.
- Zimman, Lal (2017). Transgender language reform: Some challenges and strategies for promoting trans-affirming, gender-inclusive language. Journal of Language and Discrimination 1(1):84-105.
- Zimman, Lal (2017) Gender as stylistic bricolage: The contextual production and perception of gender in the voices of transgender speakers. Language in Society 46(3):339-370.
- Zimman, Lal (2014). The discursive construction of sex: Remaking and reclaiming the gendered body in talk about genitals among trans men. In Lal Zimman, Joshua Raclaw, and Jenny Davis (eds.), Queer Excursions: Retheorizing Binaries in Language, Gender, and Sexuality. Oxford University Press. 13-34.
- Edelman, Elijah & Lal Zimman (2014). Boycunts and bonus holes: Discourse about transmasculine bodies and the sexual productivity of genitals. Journal of Homosexuality 61(5):673-690.
- Zimman, Lal (2013). Hegemonic masculinity and the variability of gay-sounding speech: The perceived sexuality of transgender men. Journal of Language & Sexuality 2(1):1-39.
- Zimman, Lal (2009). “The other kind of coming out”: Transgender people and the coming out narrative genre. Gender and Language 3(1):53-80.
Courses:
Undergraduate:
- Linguistics 130: Language as Culture
- Linguistics 131: Sociocultural Linguistics
- Linguistics 132: Language, Gender, and Sexuality
- Linguistics 144: Sociophonetics
- Linguistics 194: Trans Initiatives in Linguistics
Graduate:
- Linguistics 230: Methods in Sociocultural Linguistics
- Linguistics 232: Foundations of Sociocultural Linguistics
- Linguistics 233: Language, Gender, and Sexuality
- Linguistics 244: Sociophonetics