37.2080, Calls: Journal of Language and Sexuality - "Special Issue: In-Group Queer Languages Beyond the West" (Jrnl)

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-37-2080. Tue Jun 16 2026. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 37.2080, Calls: Journal of Language and Sexuality - "Special Issue: In-Group Queer Languages Beyond the West" (Jrnl)

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Date: 15-Jun-2026
From: Burak Alp Çakar [burak.alp.cakar at liu.se]
Subject: Journal of Language and Sexuality - "Special Issue: In-Group Queer Languages Beyond the West" (Jrnl)


Journal: Journal of Language and Sexuality
Issue: In-Group Queer Languages Beyond the West
Call Deadline: 28-Sep-2026

Pioneering researchers of twentieth-century argots developed by sexual
and gender minorities documented covert lexicons employed by trans
women and gay men – often including sex workers – and, to a lesser
extent, lesbian women and trans men (Hayes 1976; Painter 1981;
Sonenschein 1969). This research typically explained the emergence of
in-group linguistic practices through the lens of Halliday’s (1976)
anti-language framework.
As the field of lavender linguistics developed, however, scholars
began to challenge the notion that these lexicons, sociolects, and
registers solely functioned as secret codes. Subsequent research moved
beyond compiling inventories of lexical terms to adopt more nuanced
analytical approaches. While some scholars have emphasized the
functional ability of sociolects to produce belonging among sex/gender
minorities (Boellstorff 2004), others reveal how such argots work to
highlight disbelonging and reify difference within a purportedly
unified LGBTQ community (Levon 2012).
Much of this scholarship has disproportionately focused on coded forms
of speech employed in Western Europe or North America (Leap 1996;
Baker 2002; Leap 2020; Chauncey 1994) and white South Africa (Cage and
Evans 2003). The epistemic hegemony of institutions within these
regions over academic knowledge production and circulation resulted in
research agendas that privilege communities and contexts most
accessible to Western academia. Our proposed special issue, however,
aims to contribute to the scholarship on queer argots outside these
regions, building upon the rich ethnographic work on bhasa gay in
Indonesia (Boellstorff 2004), swardspeak in the Philippines
(Manalansan 2003; Casabal 2008), pajubá in Brazil (Simões de Araújo
2022), and isiNgqumo in South Africa (Rudwick and Ntuli 2008), among
others.
Our proposed special issue seeks to expand scholarly attention to
marginalized queer sociolects of the Global South, indigenous
communities, and Europe’s peripheries. Beyond regional expansion, we
invite contributions that examine how these multifaceted, camouflaged
vernaculars and their lifecycles elide binary understandings of
secrecy and visibility and open up, even if just briefly, novel and
emancipatory opportunities for self-identification outside of dominant
languages. We are interested in a range of topics, including those
that situate these linguistic practices within the context of mass
mediation and appropriation, the ascendancy of global far-right
anti-gender ideologies, and the creative, playful, and
activist-oriented terrains of 21st-century queer life.
We are seeking scholarly article manuscripts on queer language, either
historical or contemporary, and which employ any number of
methodologies for inclusion in a proposed special issue of Language
and Sexuality. If you are interested in contributing, please submit a
paper title and manuscript of 8,500 words max by September 28th to the
special issue editors Seth Palmer (seth.palmer at cnu.edu) and Burak Alp
Çakar (burak.alp.cakar at liu.se). Further information regarding the
submission process and guidelines can be found on the Language and
Sexuality journal homepage.

Linguistic Field(s): Anthropological Linguistics
                     Applied Linguistics
                     Discourse Analysis
                     Language Documentation
                     Sociolinguistics




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