36.1916, Confs: Patterns in Linguistic Avoidance (DGfS 2026 Workshop) (Germany)

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-36-1916. Fri Jun 20 2025. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 36.1916, Confs: Patterns in Linguistic Avoidance (DGfS 2026 Workshop) (Germany)

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Date: 19-Jun-2025
From: Natalie Verelst [natalie.verelst at tu-dortmund.de]
Subject: Patterns in Linguistic Avoidance (DGfS 2026 Workshop)


Patterns in Linguistic Avoidance (DGfS 2026 Workshop)

Date: 24-Feb-2026 - 27-Feb-2026
Location: Trier, Germany
Contact: Natalie Verelst
Contact Email: natalie.verelst at tu-dortmund.de

Linguistic Field(s): General Linguistics

Submission Deadline: 15-Aug-2025

Workshop at the 48th Annual Conference of the German Linguistic
Society (DGfS)
Organisers (all TU Dortmund):
Natalie Verelst
Christian Zimmer
Jones Anam
Lena Jubelius
Call for Papers:
Linguistic avoidance arises in contexts where language users either
choose not to, cannot, or are not permitted to use certain forms
directly – due to individual preferences, institutional constraints,
or social norms. Avoidance may require a certain degree of
metalinguistic awareness on the part of the language user and can
sometimes be linked to taboo (cf. Allan & Burridge 2006). Numerous
examples from various contexts show how it may impact language on
different levels: structural effects emerge in the phonemisation of
click consonants in Nguni languages, where taboo lexical items were
replaced by borrowings containing clicks (Irvine & Gal 2000);
avoidance is a key strategy in mitigating face threats in politeness
(cf. Brown & Levinson 1987); strategies like algospeak (e.g., k!ll for
kill) aim to circumvent algorithmic context moderation online;
politically correct language use is a prominent example, including
gender-neutral forms as alternatives to gendered expressions (e.g.,
German Studierende for Studenten und Studentinnen or Student*innen
‘students’); avoidance shapes naming practices: vegan or vegetarian
food names often allude to, but do not explicitly name animal products
(e.g., Visch for vegetarian “fish”, whereby <v> carries a
conventionalised meaning) to sidestep food-labelling regulations (De
Wilde 2024); certain proper names may be replaced by alternatives such
as lexemes, pronouns, or initials for various reasons (Nübling 2023),
and grammatical taboo describes the avoidance of specific grammatical
structures in a certain register (Vogel 2018).
While avoidance in pragmatics and semantics has been widely studied,
less attention has been paid to its structural dimensions and the
specific linguistic forms that arise from it. This raises a number of
open research questions, including but not limited to:
 - What linguistic patterns emerge through avoidance, and to what
extent do these alternative structures become conventionalised or
systematised within a language? How do processes of avoidance affect
language change?
 - In which contexts – whether social, institutional, or psychological
– is direct communication restricted, discouraged, or impossible, and
how do avoidance strategies relate to the underlying reasons for
avoidance?
 - How do language users interact with avoided content? What attitudes
and/or ideologies are associated with avoidance practices, how is
meaning negotiated, and how (if at all) is it reflected
metalinguistically in the absence of direct expression?
 - To what extent do avoidance practices differ across languages,
registers, or modalities, and what does this reveal about the
interface between linguistic structure, usage, and sociocultural
constraints?
This workshop is open to contributions on any language or multiple
languages, and it explicitly welcomes linguists working in different
areas (grammar, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics etc.).
Presentations will be 20 minutes + 10 minutes for discussion, and they
will be given in English.
Invited Speakers:
- Natalia Levshina (Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen, NL)
- Nils Langer (Europa-Universität Flensburg, DE)
Submission Guidelines:
Abstracts should be in English and should not exceed 1 A4 page,
including references (12pt, 1.5 line spacing). Please submit them as
an anonymised Word file and PDF to
variationslinguistik.lid.fk15 at tu-dortmund.de by 15 August 2025. Make
sure to include the names of all authors and their affiliations in
your email. You will receive a notification of acceptance by the
beginning of September 2025.
Please note that in accordance with DGfS regulations, single authors
are not allowed to present their work in multiple workshops, but they
may be listed as co-authors in different workshops.
References:
Allan, Keith & Kate Burridge. 2006. Forbidden words. Taboo and the
censoring of language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Brown, Penelope & Stephen C. Levinson. 1987. Politeness: some
universals in language usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
De Wilde, Truus. 2024. Naming strategies for vegetarian and vegan
food. Presented at the Germanic Sandwich 9, Lancaster University, UK.
Irvine, Judith T. & Susan Gal. 2000. Language Ideology and Linguistic
Differentiation. In Paul V. Kroskrity (ed.), Regimes of language:
ideologies, polities, and identities, 35–84. Santa Fe, NM: School of
American Research Press.
Nübling, Damaris. 2023. Verweigerte Referenz? Was es bedeutet, Namen
nicht in den Mund zu nehmen. Beiträge zur Namenforschung 58(1/2).
229–254.
Vogel, Ralf. 2018. Sociocultural Determinants of Grammatical Taboos in
German. In Liudmila Liashchova (ed.), The Explicit and the Implicit in
Language and Speech, 116–153. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars
Publishing.



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