Language and the Body

Language is produced through and shaped by bodies, and it is through language that bodies are expressed, understood, and recognized.

Language and the Body places this relationship at the center of inquiry, bringing together language research and disability studies, two fields rarely in sustained conversation. The volume develops this conversation through three interconnected dimensions. The first, language as embodied experience, shows how language emerges from particular ways of being in the world and extends through the technologies, people, and settings that carry it. The second, language as strategic tool, examines how speakers use linguistic and bodily resources to make invisible conditions visible and legible to institutions that assess them. The third, language as discursive practice, traces how talk creates and transforms the social meanings attached to different bodies. Chapters address topics including augmentative and alternative communication, special education, dementia, chronic pain, disability accommodation, gender-based violence, sexuality, body norms, and neurodivergence. Contributors draw on discourse analysis, ethnography, prosodic analysis, and participatory research across multiple languages and countries.

This innovative book will be of interest to students and scholars in sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, linguistic anthropology, discourse analysis, disability studies, health communication, medical humanities, and gender and sexuality studies.