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 speakers. Recently these interests have taken a strong turn toward sociophonetic issues surrounding the perception of gender and sexuality. Other broad areas of interest include language & identity, language & masculinity, language & embodiment, and language socialization.

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

Download my full CV (PDF).

Work in progress:

  • "Identity, socialization, and gay-sounding voices" (tentative title).
  • "The discursive construction of sex: Identity and ideology in talk about transgender embodiment." For inclusion in Lal Zimman, Joshua Raclaw and Jenny Davis (eds.), Queer Excursions: Retheorizing Binaries in Language, Gender, and Sexuality.
  • Queer Excursions: Retheorizing Binaries in Language, Gender, and Sexuality (edited volume); with Joshua Raclaw and Jenny Davis.
Publications:
  • in press. Lal Zimman and Kira Hall. Language, embodiment, and the "third sex". In Dominic Watt and Carmen Llamas (eds.), Language and Identities. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
  • 2009. "The other kind of coming out": Transgender people and the coming out narrative genre. Gender and Language 3(1):53-80.
  • 2007. Review of Speaking Out: The Female Voice in Public Contexts, Judith Baxter, ed. Gender and Language 1(2):327-334.

Upcoming talks:

  • 2010. Biology, socialization, and identity: Accounting for the voices of female-to-male transsexuals. 84th Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America. Baltimore, MD, January.
  • 2009. Perceived sexual orientation and gender normativity: What do gay men, nerds, and female-to-male transsexuals have in common? New Ways of Analyzing Variation. University of Ottawa, October.
Conference presentations:
  • 2009. Perceived sexual orientation and gender normativity: What do gay men, nerds, and female-to-male transsexuals have in common? (PDF handout). New Ways of Analyzing Variation 38. University of Ottawa (Ottawa, Canada), October 24.
  • 2009. Identity, socialization, and gay-sounding voices (PDF handout). 2nd Conference on Culture, Language, and Social Practice (CLASP). University of Colorado (Boulder, CO), October 4.
  • 2009. One of these things is not like the others: Why power matters for the study of gay-sounding voices (PDF handout). 83rd Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America. San Francisco, CA, January 9.
  • 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 [+back] [+low] 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'.