Lal Zimman (FAQ)
/lal 'zɪmn̩/
zimman /æt/ colorado /dat/ edu

University of Colorado
Department of Linguistics
UCB 295
Boulder, CO 80309-0295


I'm a PhD student in the linguistics department at the University of Colorado at Boulder, where I am also affiliated with the programs in Culture, Language and Social Practice (CLASP) and  Women's and Gender Studies. My research pursuits are mainly in the area of sociocultural linguistics, dealing with issues of language, gender and sexuality, particularly among transgender people. Other broad areas of interest include language & masculinity, sociophonetic issues surrounding the perception of gender and sexuality, language & embodiment, and language socialization.

Some of my non-academic hobbies and interests are: movies (especially documentaries, indie film, sophomoric comedies, and experimental film), disability studies, video games, reading (nonfiction, sci-fi/fantasy/cyberpunk, graphic novels, 20th century/contemporary fiction), maps, politics, veg(etari)an food/cooking/baking, & yoga.

Download my full CV (PDF).

Publications:

  • in preparation. Lal Zimman, Jenny Davis, and Kira Hall. Language, identity, and the "third sex". In Dominic Watt and Carmen Llamas (eds.), Language and Identities. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
  • forthcoming. "The other kind of coming out": Transgender people and the coming out narrative genre. Gender and Language.
  • forthcoming. Editorial Assistant to Kira Hall, ed. Studies in Inequality and Social Justice: Essays in Honor of Ved Prakash Vatuk. Meerut, India: Archana Publications.
  • 2007. Editorial Assistant to Kira Hall, ed. Studies in Indian Folk Traditions: Collected Writings of Ved Prakash Vatuk. Meerut, India: Archana Publications.
  • 2007. Review of Speaking Out: The Female Voice in Public Contexts, Judith Baxter, ed. Gender and Language 1(2):327-334.

Conference presentations (including upcoming talks):

  • 2008. Talking like a man: Discourses of language and masculinity among transgender men. 107th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association. San Francisco, CA, November.
  • 2008. "She's just a high-maintenance bitch": Interpersonal drama & discourse continuity in reality television. Arizona Linguistics and Anthropology Symposium. University of Arizona (Tucson, AZ), May 10.
  • 2008. Contesting gender, (re)constructing sex: Semantic variation in transgender communities. Lavender Languages and Linguistics XV. American University (Washington, DC), February 17. 
  • 2007. Institutionally coerced narratives and power in transgender research. 106th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association. Washington, DC, November 29.
  • 2007. Revisiting the closet: Transgender narratives of identity, coming out, and disclosure. 1st Conference on Culture, Language, and Social Practice. University of Colorado (Boulder, CO), October 6.
  • 2007. Who's coming out and whose coming out? Transgender people and the coming out paradigm. Lavender Languages and Linguistics XIV. American University (Washington, DC), February 10.
  • 2006. Gendered language in a female-to-male transgender community of practice. Lavender Languages and Linguistics XIII. American University (Washington, DC), February 12.

Frequently Asked Questions about my name:
How do you pronounce Lal?
Phonemically, my pronunciation of Lal is just like it's spelled: /lal/, though most [-front] [-high] vowels are fine to my ear. In less technical terms, it shouldn't rhyme with Hal or pal - it should sound more like Paul or fall.

Is that short for anything?
Nope, that's it.

So what kind of name is Lal?
It comes from Sanskrit, meaning 'to play' or 'to caress'. It also means 'red' in Hindi, though this is not what my parents had in mind when naming me (nor was the contemporary term of endearment, as appropriate as that would have been). Other, better known Lals include the second Prime Minister to India, Lal Bahadur, Data's android daughter in a memorable episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and a few others.

What about your last name?
Much less interesting, but sometimes exotified in pronunciation because of my first name. It's actually just like Zimmerman without the 'er', perhaps due to a clerical error or similar at Ellis Island, which is where this name comes from.