STAL organizes a monthly seminar on issues related to the study of slurs, pejoratives, and evaluative and expressive terms in general, from less studied languages.
The titles and abstracts of the talks in the 2024-2025 academic year can be seen here.
The titles and abstracts of the talks in the 2023-2024 academic year can be seen here.
In the 2025-2026 academic year, the STAL seminar takes place on
MONDAYS, 14:30-16:00 Central European Time.
The next seminar is
MAY 18, 2026
Yim Binh Felix Sze (The Chinese University of Hong Kong)
"Taboos and Euphemisms in Sex-Related Signs in Asian Sign Languages"
ABSTRACT:
This talk presents findings from my earlier paper on sex-related euphemisms in four historically unrelated Asian sign languages: Hong Kong Sign Language, Jakarta Sign Language, Sri Lankan Sign Language, and Japanese Sign Language. The central research question is whether direct visual reference to sex-related body parts or concepts is taboo among Deaf signers, and, if so, what strategies they use to form euphemistic expressions. I will present evidence showing that, although Deaf signers are accustomed to the visual explicitness of the signing modality, the highly iconic nature of some sex-related signs can still be offensive, thus giving rise to euphemistic expressions. While some of these euphemistic strategies aim to reduce the visual iconicity associated with taboo signs, most closely resemble strategies used in spoken languages, suggesting that verbal politeness strategies may be universal across language modalities.
The schedule for the 2025-2026 academic year is the following:
OCTOBER 27, 2025
Luvell Anderson (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign)
"Theories of Reclamation"
NOVEMBER 17, 2025
Claire Horisk (University of Missouri)
"Derogatory Speech: Conversations, Hearers, and Listeners"
DECEMBER 15, 2025
Xavier Villalba (Autonomous University of Barcelona)
"Expressivity Cross-linguistically: A Corpus Study of Expressive and Evaluative Adjectives in Romance and Germanic"
JANUARY 19, 2026
Daisy Dixon (Cardiff University)
"Aesthetic Slurs"
FEBRUARY 9, 2026
Elisabeth Camp (Rutgers University)
"Why Do Mantras Move Us?"
MARCH 9, 2026
Leopold Hess (Jagiellonian University)
"Recognizing Slurs: The Case of Polish Murzyn"
APRIL 20, 2026
Robin Jeshion (University of Southern California)
"What Is Wrong with Slurs?"
MAY 18, 2026
Yim Binh Felix Sze (The Chinese University of Hong Kong)
"Taboos and Euphemisms in Sex-Related Signs in Asian Sign Languages"
JUNE 1, 2026
Mingya Liu (Humboldt University of Berlin)
TBA