Grammar and Pragmatics

Upcoming events

Upcoming lectures ​

  • October 27. 13: 00, Room S.E. 207 (above the Agora cafe). Pauline Malenga Mwanga (University of Antwerp): "Tracing Colonial Legacies Through Language: Postcolonial Subjectivities Among the Congolese Diaspora in Belgium"

Abstract: Belgium counts an estimated 80,000 people of Congolese descent, yet research on their history and lived experiences remains limited. This PhD project, addresses that gap by focusing on adults aged 20 to 40 from the Congolese diaspora in Belgium, most of whom were born in Belgium or arrived at a young age. Drawing on historical perspectives to better understand contemporary dynamics, it examines how they navigate the interplay between language and identity. The project historicizes language transmission and investigates shifting attitudes towards Congolese languages, viewing language not only as a medium of communication but also as a historically situated socio-political and affective process. It explores how these attitudes reflect and (re)shape identity negotiations over time. Identity is framed as an active force that shapes how languages are valued and whether they are passed on. Particular attention is given to how the vitality of Congolese languages is negotiated within Belgium's multilingual, postcolonial context. Their (re)valuation or rejection is embedded in a longer history of disruption, from forced assimilation under colonial rule to post-independence migration. That history still resonates in the racialized hierarchies of contemporary Belgian society. Combining historical research with linguistic ethnography, the study draws on semi-structured interviews with members of this generation and with cultural and content producers, complemented by family interviews that add an intergenerational perspective. Fieldwork in Brussels and the Dender region allows for a comparison between the predominantly French-speaking capital and a Dutch-speaking region. Using language as a critical lens, the project aims to shed light on how this generation confronts and challenges inherited narratives about race and belonging, and to contribute to a deeper understanding of how diasporic communities (re)shape their identities within societies marked by colonial histories.



  • ​November 5. 12:30, Room S.A.107. Catherine Tebaldi (University of Luxembourg) : "Shut Up Princess: Gendered Metapragmatics and online advice cultures"

Catherine Tebaldi is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Luxembourg Culture and Computation Lab. She is PI on the research project, Digital Traditionalism, which focuses on how new media brings back old ideologies.

This talk analyzes “feminine not feminist” video content to understand how metapragmatic prescription and evaluation of feminine speech connects to a broader call for traditional gender roles. Digital communities present gendered dominance as gendered difference; central to this is the uptake of lifestyle content such as dating and romance, fashion and aesthetics, health and wellness. Drawing on examples from four parts of the emerging “femosphere” tradwives, redpill women dating fora, femininity coaches and “princess treatment” media, it shows how old advice about women’s language (Lakoff 1975) are made to recirculate on new media.

Building on my (Tebaldi 2024) work on tradwives, and the framework of cycles of rhematization, in which lifestyle discourses are drawn on to transform hierarchy into complementarian frameworks of masculine and feminine difference, this paper looks specifically at metapragmatic prescriptions for, and evaluations of women’s speech. These range from calls to tradwives contrasting beautiful talk to crazy feminists, to “femininity coaches” teaching speaking softly to attract success or “princess treatment” which calls on women to let men speak for them in public. In these, gendered ways of speaking including speed, tone, volume, speech roles and attitudes are prescribed: above all she is asked not to talk, to “STFU” and listen admiringly.

These prescriptions also shape how women are evaluated, and the rewards imagined for compliance, further shaping how gendered metapragmatics online (Bridges 2017) links individual modes of talk to changing visions of the social world, so that even the silliest TikTok shapes ideological connections between speech and social order.




Upcoming conferences