Monographic Session "Language, Gender and Sexuality: Perspectives from Queer Linguistics" at the LIV Symposium of the Spanish Society of Linguistics
Short Title: Language, Gender and Sexuality
Theme: Perspectives from Queer Linguistics

Date: 26-Jan-2026 - 29-Jan-2026
Location: Madrid, Spain
Meeting URL: https://www.sel.edu.es/liv-simposio-madrid-2026/sesiones-monograficas/

Linguistic Field(s): Anthropological Linguistics; Discourse Analysis; General Linguistics; Phonetics; Sociolinguistics
Subject Language(s): Spanish (spa)
Spanish Sign Language (ssp)

Submission Deadline: 30-Sep-2025

Queer linguistics has emerged as an essential field for understanding how language, across its various analytical dimensions, relates to LGBTIQ+ identities and experiences. This linguistic branch goes beyond merely documenting specific varieties or sociolects within queer communities. Instead, it examines the linguistic and discursive mechanisms through which dominant culture constructs, maintains, and sometimes challenges established norms around gender and sexuality.

Drawing from gender studies, queer theory, and LGBTIQ+ social movements, the field has evolved considerably from its early focus on specialized lexicons to encompass broader analyses of everyday communicative practices and systematic critiques of heteronormativity as a pervasive discursive regime shaping both linguistic structures and usage.

This monographic session provides a forum for presenting and discussing cutting-edge research in queer linguistics within Spanish-speaking contexts. Our goal is to highlight the expanding body of academic work and growing social interest in LGBTIQ+ issues, particularly their intersection with language in Hispanic contexts, areas that remain underrepresented in mainstream academic literature. We welcome contributions from diverse linguistic approaches (including critical discourse analysis, variationist and interactional sociolinguistics, pragmatics, corpus linguistics, experimental phonetics, and semantic analysis) that examine how language manifests key concepts in this field. These include gender and sexuality performativity through language, the discursive construction of LGBTIQ+ identities, power dynamics embedded in linguistic choices, ongoing debates about inclusive language in Spanish, processes of linguistic reclamation, queer narrative analysis, and intersectionality in linguistic practices.

Through this session, we aim to foster interdisciplinary dialogue grounded in linguistics, thereby strengthening queer linguistics' position within Spanish academia.