The International Gender and Language Group, or IGALA, is an international interdisciplinary organization that promote research on language

Language

Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...

, gender

Gender

Gender is a range of characteristics used to distinguish between males and females, particularly in the cases of men and women and the masculine and feminine attributes assigned to them. Depending on the context, the discriminating characteristics vary from sex to social role to gender identity...

, and sexuality

Human sexuality

Human sexuality is the awareness of gender differences, and the capacity to have erotic experiences and responses. Human sexuality can also be described as the way someone is sexually attracted to another person whether it is to opposite sexes , to the same sex , to either sexes , or not being...

. The association was formed in 1999, and developed out of the graduate-student-run Berkeley Women and Language Group. IGALA holds a biannual conference and publishes the academic journal

Academic journal

An academic journal is a peer-reviewed periodical in which scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. Academic journals serve as forums for the introduction and presentation for scrutiny of new research, and the critique of existing research...

Gender and Language.

IGALA 7 will be held at Universidade do Vale dos Sinos (UNISINOS), São Leopoldo, Brazil, on June 20-22, 2012.

Taking place for the first time in South America, the conference will provide researchers worldwide with an opportunity to present their work and share ideas in the fields of language, gender, and sexuality.

With the theme *Resignifying Gender and Sexuality in Language and Discourse*, IGALA 7 aims to bring together scholars from diverse fields of knowledge as well as geographical regions who are interested in broadening and deepening our understanding of the complex relationships among language, gender and sexuality. In so doing, we encourage new ways of signifying these concepts and their interrelationships, in the following thematic areas:

1. Gender, sexuality, body and identities
2. Gender, sexuality and health
3. Gendered performances as discourse
4. Gender and (dis)empowerment
5. Gender, class, ethnicity and age
6. Gender, sexuality and institutions
7. Gender, media and technology
8. Gender and violence

For further information on Igala 7, please visit the website http://www.unisinos.br/eventos/igala/

External links

IGALA home page
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Igala-7/187800897935547
http://twitter.com/#!/igalabrazil