Speaking of sex work: Setting a research agenda

Programmatic in nature, this introduction aims to establish an interdisciplinary research agenda for the investigation of language within sex work settings. To do so, it engages, on the one hand, the social scientific literature on sex work to pinpoint areas of sociolinguistic interest and, on the other, it discusses how sociolinguistic approaches to identity, power, embodiment and agency add empirical nuance to current understandings of commercial sex. We highlight points of theoretical convergence between sex work research and sociolinguistics to establish a field of inquiry we refer to as the sociolinguistics of sex work. This introduction also provides key background information and historical contexts to the topic of sex work as a cultural and linguistic practice, setting the scene for the following chapters. As such, the introduction unpacks the theoretical and epistemological rationale for a volume dedicated to the language of/about sex work and what this attention to language can tell us about various intersectional nexus points (gender, sexuality, race, class, etc.) and agency (or lack thereof). The introduction attends to pertinent themes arising from the chapters and concludes by considering how the work contained in this collection can potentially advance interdisciplinary and necessary discussions on the topic of sex work in multiple disciplines, such as feminism, anthropology, sociology, public health, policymaking and sociocultural linguistics.