At the Leibniz-Institute for the German Language, the project Empirical Gender Linguistics (https://www.ids-mannheim.de/lexik/pb-l3/empirische-genderlinguistik/) explores how language and gender interact from a quantitative, corpus-linguistic perspective. In parallel, our work within the DFG-Network Queerlinguistik (https://www.netzwerk-queerlinguistik.uni-hamburg.de/netzwerk.html) extends this perspective to questions of queer language and identity.

In my talk, I will provide an overview of these projects, focusing on two central lines of research that are particularly relevant to the lecture series:

1. Gender-inclusive language and corporate communication:

 

Is the use of gender-inclusive language in corporate contexts a case of pinkwashing or a form of authentic corporate activism? Drawing on a recently published preprint (Müller-Spitzer et al. 2025), we examine the relationship between gender-inclusive language on corporate websites and in shareholder letters and the proportion of women in leadership positions. Our findings suggest that inclusive language is not used as a substitute for other equality measures but rather accompanies them—indicating genuine engagement rather than mere linguistic tokenism.

1. Approaching ‘queer’ language empirically:

 

How can we study queer linguistic practices from a corpus-based point of view? I will introduce the Queer Corpus—a new resource comprising 28 queer media outlets from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland covering the past 30 years (Rüdiger & Ochs 2025). This corpus enables empirical investigations into queer labels, identities, and discursive practices. First analyses focus on the use of the label queer and the discourse surrounding same-sex marriage.

Overall, the talk illustrates how corpus-based approaches can enrich research on gender and queer linguistics: by grounding debates about language and identity in large-scale empirical evidence.

References

Müller-Spitzer, Carolin, Samira Ochs, Virginia Sondergeld & Katharina Wrohlich. 2025. Gender-Inclusive Language in the Corporate Communication of German Companies: Authentic Corporate Activism or Pinkwashing? Berlin: DIW Discussion Papers 2135. www.diw.de/de/diw_01.c.971560.de/publikationen/diskussionspapiere/2025_2135/gender-inclusive_language_in_the_corporate_communication_of___rman_companies__authentic_corporate_activism_or_pinkwashing.html. (19 August, 2025).

Rüdiger, Jan Oliver & Samira Ochs. 2025. Das Queere Korpus (QK): Vorstellung einer neuen Korpusressource und Beispielanalysen am Thema „Ehe für Alle“. Aptum. Themenheft: Diversitäts- und Inklusionslinguistik 21(1). 139–160. https://doi.org/10.46771/9783967694604_7.

Bio

Samira Ochs is a PhD candidate and researcher at the Leibniz-Institute for the German Language in Mannheim, Germany. She works in the projects Empirical Gender Linguistics and GENELLI, focusing on corpus-based approaches to the classification and quantification of personal nouns in German. Her dissertation explores morphological and syntagmatic aspects of person reference, with particular attention to compounds, pair forms, gender symbols, and suffixation. She is also a member of the DFG network on queer linguistics, where she contributes corpus studies and quantitative methods. Samira will be a visiting ENGAGE.EU Research Fellow at the Department of Business Communication from November to December 2025.