Call for papers

The intersections of language, gender and sexuality have become central topics of interest for researchers from many fields, but gender and sexuality categories are often handled in a simplistic manner, for example as fixed binary variables. However, these are both complex categories which require new theoretical understanding and methodological orientations. 

With the aim of bringing together both national and international scholars interested in language and gender and/or sexuality, we are organizing a two-day conference on October 12 and 13 (2023) at the University of Helsinki. All presentations will be given in person. 

The call for papers for the conference is open to all scholars focusing on language. In particular, we hope to receive abstracts on studies utilizing queer theories or feminist approaches (e.g., intersectional feminism), but we welcome abstracts on any topics related to language and gender and/or sexuality. Possible topics include but are not limited to:

• queer (linguistic) theory/methods
• corpus linguistic approaches to studying language and gender/sexuality
• ethnographic approaches to studying language and gender/sexuality
• construction of gender and sexual identities in discourse
• queer and trans sociophonetics

The conference includes two plenary sessions and hands-on methodological workshops:  

• Dr. Lucy Jones, University of Nottingham. 
  • Plenary: Analysing identity and embodiment in the discourse of trans youth: A queer and trans linguistic approach
  • Workshop: Doing ethnography in Language, Gender and Sexuality research: Issues, concepts, and reflections
• Dr. Frazer Heritage, Manchester Metropolitan University: 
  • Plenary: Lavender corpus linguistics: taking stock and moving forward
  • Workshop: Corpus approaches to language and sexuality: tackling methodological challenges

Submission details

Abstracts should be 250 words in length (excluding references), and they can be written in English or Finnish. Likewise, accepted papers can be presented either in English or Finnish. 

All abstracts should be submitted via email to langgesex@helsinki.fi by May 11th. Please use the abstract template we have provided below.

Abstract Template (pdf)

Abstract Template (docx)

Notification of acceptance will be sent in early June.

The conference is funded by the Helsinki Institute for Social Sciences and Humanities. There is no registration fee for presenters.