vision statement: a tranifesto
The UCSB Trans Research In Linguistics Lab (TRILL) promotes understandings of language, power, and identity through trans-centering research and community engagement. We are committed not only to trans analytic lenses, but also social and linguistic justice for gender non-normative communities, within and beyond academia. We understand ‘transness’ broadly, taking into account the ways gendered identities are produced by and in conversation with various forms of domination and resistance. Thus, we recognize gender as necessarily intersecting with other subjectivities and positionalities, among them race, ethnicity, and citizenship; disability and neurodiversity; linguistic and semiotic repertoires and communicative modalities; class; and sexuality. Through our academic and community-based work, language is central because of its capacity to both oppress and empower, to dehumanize and to make whole, to bring suffering and to bring joy.
TransTalks & Other TRILL Events
TRILL Members
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Dr. Lal Zimman (he/they)
Lab Director / PI
Research interests: trans linguistics, sociophonetics, embodiment, pronouns, trans inclusive language & pedagogy, stance & affect, trans voice training & SLP, online trans communities, drag performance and media, language & social justice
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Kristy Ali (she/her)
PhD Candidate, Linguistics
Research Interests Sign language linguistics, Language documentation and description, Typology, Phonology, Caribbean sign languages, Linguistic ethnography, Tactile languages, Language and social justice
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Cedar Brown (they/them)
PhD Candidate, Linguistics
Research interests: sociocultural linguistics, trans linguistics, computational linguistics, linguistic anthropology, discourse analysis, sociophonetics, trans inclusive language, online trans communities, language and identity, trans/queer theory, community-engaged research
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Dozandri C. Mendoza (they/them/elle)
PhD Candidate, Linguistics
Research interests: sociocultural linguistics, linguistic anthropology, queer/trans Latinx performance, drag and Ballroom culture, patería/Puerto Rican Studies, semiotics, discourse analysis, sociophonetics
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deandre miles-hercules (they/them)
PhD Candidate, Linguistics
Research interests: TBA
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Marina Zhukova (she/her)
PhD Candidate, Linguistics
Research Interests: sociocultural linguistics, computational linguistics, language and identity, language and gender, emoji, co-speech gestures, Russian
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Solaire Denaud (she/her)
PhD Student, Comparative Literature
Research interests: TBA
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Crystal Gong (they/them)
PhD Student, East Asian Languages and Cultures, Stanford University
Research interests: gender and sexuality, and identity, sociophonetics, Japanese, discourse analysis, trans linguistics, and linguistic anthropology
BA, Language, Culture and Society, UCSB (2022)
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Nicky Macias (she/ella)
PhD Student, Linguistics
Research interests: Sociocultural signed linguistics; signed language interpreting; trans interpreter communities; interpreter ethics; embodiment and interpreting; trans linguistics; signed sociophonetics; language ethnography
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Marissa Morgan (she/her)
PhD Student, Linguistics
Research interests: Sociocultural linguistics; linguistic anthropology; discourse analysis; African-American Language and Culture; embodiment; space and place; language and ritual; discourses of death, grief and mourning
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Cooper Bedin (they/them)
MA Student, Linguistics
Research Interests: sociophonetics, computational linguistics, English second-person pronouns, nonbinary identity talk, trans-affirming statistical methods
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Montreal Benesch (they/them)
MA Student, Linguistics
Reserach Interests: TBA
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Ece Genc (they/them)
BA student
Research interests: TBA
TRILL Alumnx
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Archie Crowley (they/them) [external]
PhD, Linguistics (2023), University of South Carolina
Dissertation: Language Ideologies and Linguistic Activism in Transgender Communities in the U.S. South
Current affiliation: Elon University
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Julien De Jesus (they/them)
MA, Linguistics (2023)
MA Thesis: “We Need to be Telling Our Own Stories”: Creating a Home for Filipinx Americans in Linguistics
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Brooke English (it/its)
MA, Linguistics (2022)
MA thesis: r/TransVoice: Emotions and Community-Based Voice Training
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Jazmine Exford (she/her)
PhD, Linguistics (2023)
Dissertation: Raciogendered Embodiment and Indexicality in the Acquisition Experiences of Racialized Spanish Language Learners
Current affiliation: Assistant Professor of Spanish Linguistics, Florida International University
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Aris Keshav (they/he)
MA, Linguistics (2021)
Current affiliation: Concordia University
MA thesis: I love you: Normativity, Power, and Romance in Metalinguistic Commentary
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Jordan Tudisco (they/them)
PhD, Comparative Literature (2024)
Dissertation: Staking Our Claim: Self-Making, World-Making and Survival in Trans-Authored Narratives
Current affiliation: UC Presidential Postdoctoral Scholar, UC Berkeley
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Chloe Willis (she/they)
PhD, Linguistics (2023)
Dissertation: The Theoretical and Methodological Implications of Bisexuality in Language and Sexuality Research
Reviews & testimonials
“Anthropology in ruins.”
–A review of the title (yes, just the title) of our AAA panel, “Pronouns, bottoms, cat-ears, and cuerpes, girl: For an intersectional trans linguistic anthropology” (2022)