9th International Gender and Language Association Conference

19-21 May 2016

Hong Kong

Confirmed Plenary Speakers:

Sally McConnell-Ginet

Mary Bucholtz

Peter A. Jackson

Jie Yang

Tommaso Milani

NOTE: WE ARE NOT YET ACCEPTING SUBMISSIONS. CALL FOR PAPERS WILL FOLLOW IN JUNE 2015.

The theme for IGALA 9 is ''Time and Transition: Gender, sexuality, discourse and language''

This theme reflects Hong Kong, a city in which time and transition are unusually salient and omnipresent as themes in social life. Hong Kong is a place in transition like many others, but its transition is taking place on simultaneous, variant timescales. The concept of “One Country, Two Systems” frames its relationship with China, a nation whose own changes are happening apace and on a superpower scale. At the same time Hong Kong has its own ‘system’, drawing on a very different past as it contemplates a future in which these two timescales will converge. Working in this context has prompted the organizers to reflect on timescales and transitions in relation to this conference. How do time and transition interact with gender, sexuality, discourse and language? And how is this interaction manifest in the rest of the world?

More specifically:

- How do gender, sexuality, discourse, and language intersect with rapid change?

- How are transitions, discourse, language, gender, and sexuality mutually constitutive?

- How are meanings discursively constructed across various timescales in relation to gender and sexuality?

- How do short-term gender performances persist across time as we interact in the present?

- How do we project our gendered and sexualized ‘selves’ and societies into the future while drawing on the past?

The conference will aim to provide a platform for researchers and research students from around the world to discuss these themes of timescale and change via numerous sub-themes, including the following examples:

(this list is in random order and not exhaustive)

- Timescales, identity, and gender/sexuality

- Transitions: gendered and sexualized selves, bodies and societies

- Rapid change, compressed modernity, and gender/sexuality

- Democratic movements and gender/sexuality

- Economic systems and gender/sexuality in Asia (and beyond)

- Political authority and gender/sexuality in Asia (and beyond)

- Southeast Asian communities and gender/sexuality

- Chinese and Confucian heritage communities and gender/sexuality

- Language learning and gender/sexuality

- Geosemiotics and/or linguistic landscapes and gender/sexuality

- Biology and gender/sexuality in social interaction

- Psychology and gender/sexuality in social interaction

- Multimodal interaction and gender/sexuality

- Digital practices and gender/sexuality

- Workplaces, and professional communication and gender/sexuality

- Schools, teachers, students, classrooms and gender/sexuality

- (etc…)