2023

Date & Location:

When: 25. October 2023, 16:15 - 18:00h

Where: Unitobler F-107, University of Bern

Zoom: https://unibe-ch.zoom.us/j/67048645093?pwd=YkpaOXZ6Y05JVW4wM3pOYTJDeS8rZz09

While inclusive and gender-neutral language forms are not particularly new in Brazil, only recently have they drawn the attention of linguists and laypeople alike. In academic and public debates, these phenomena tend to be viewed as a matter of language change (in the rather restrictive sense of a linguistic form replacing another). Contra such a stance, in this talk I argue that the emergence of inclusive and gender-neutral language is better understood as a matter of stylization through which indexical orders that regiment ordinary views of gender in language and in society are repurposed. To do so, I scrutinize the forms, uses, and ideologies of inclusive and gender-neutral Brazilian Portuguese (BP) by attending to how social actors use innovative gender markings in texts published on social media platforms. The corpus consists of 169 texts collected from self-identified feminist and nonbinary social media pages, covering a time span of 3 years (2019-2021). The comparison between feminist and nonbinary uses of inclusive and gender-neutral forms will allow me to pursue two objectives. First, I will outline a typology of the different uses of inclusive and gender-neutral BP. Second, I will show that the variety of gender inflections in the texts under investigation is not random; rather, they happen in relatively ordered and discursively qualified ways. Such a diversity seems to be an outcome of metalinguistic and metapragmatic rationalizations which may explain both the variation of inclusive and gender-neutral uses as well as writers’ strategic choices. With this in mind, I will conclude that the diversity of inclusive and gender-neutral forms and uses seems to index the emergence of a style that distinguishes, on an ideological basis, speakers who use such forms from those who do not.

Rodrigo Borba is Professor of English Language and Applied Linguistics at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. His research focuses on the construction of identities, genders and sexualities from an interdisciplinary perspective, bringing together applied Linguistics, linguistic anthropology, interactional sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, conversation analysis, linguistic landscapes and the relationships between linguistics, feminism and queer theory. He has published widely on issues of political discourse, gender-inclusive language, "anti-gender" conspiracy theories, cisnormativity, and language use within Brazilian trans communities. Rodrigo is co-editor of the journal Gender and Language. 

Cecelia Cutler

Date: 05.04.2023

Time: 16:15 – 17:45 Uhr

Place: F-123, Unitobler

Abstract

The idea of the ‘habitus’ as embodied forms of accumulated cultural capital is one of Bourdieu's most influential concepts. It refers to the deeply ingrained habits, skills, and dispositions that we possess due to our life experiences, and which reproduce the social structure. But this is perhaps a very static way of viewing embodiment. More recent work frames embodiment as something much more agentive and flexible and inseparable from affect (Pratt 2021, de Certeau 1984). Affect can be described as the outward expression of subjective feelings and emotions. Citing Goffman (1978), Pratt (2021) writes that it is impossible to make an utterance that is devoid of some kind of perceivable affect. Indeed, as she observes, “Affect courses through the interactional moments wherein we produce and interpret stylistic variation, and in doing so it constitutes and reflects both conventionalized displays of emotion as well as the ideological rendering of styles and personae (2). In this talk, I explore the intersection of embodied and linguistic displays of affect in metadiscursive and metapragmatic comments about New York City English from YouTube. New Yorkers have been described as using a “high energy speech style” characterized by frequent interruptions, high-pitch, machine-gun style questioning, incessant talking, sudden change of topics, and complaining (Tannen 1981; 2005). In the paper, I show how the New York City conversational style gets iconically linked to particular kinds of affective display and personae.

Bio

Cecelia Cutler is Professor of linguistics at Lehman College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. She is currently serving as Executive Officer (chair) of the PhD/MA Program in Linguistics at the CUNY Graduate Center. Her work centers on language and identity, language in digital media, and language attitudes and ideologies. Her recent published work has an appeared in American Speech, Language Variation and Change, and World Englishes. Recent volumes include Multilingual youth practices in Computer-Mediated Communication (2018), co-edited with Unn Røyneland (Cambridge University Press) and Digital Orality co-edited with May Ahmar and Soubeika Bahri (2022) (Palgrave).

Elizabeth Lanza

Date: 26.04.2023

Time: 16:15 – 17:45 Uhr

Place: F-123, Unitobler

Abstract

With increased transnational migration in recent years, especially as experienced in Europe, raising children with more than one language has become more and more common as people cross borders, integrate into new cultural-linguistic landscapes, form intermarriages and partnerships, and establish multilingual families. Home language maintenance and language development in these multilingual families have become highly complex, given the social, cultural and linguistic changes brought about by contemporary globalization with new communication technologies and changes in the political and economic landscape. The family as a context for the child’s learning of language(s) has been addressed from various epistemological stances. Developmental psycholinguistics has held a long tradition in studying children’s language development in the home with a more recent focus on input and experience. On the other hand, sociolinguistics has increasingly turned its attention to children’s language learning in the home through the burgeoning field of family language policy, which draws on theoretical frameworks of language policy, language socialization, literacy studies, and child language acquisition. The field of family language policy has evolved from its earlier emphasis on the question of what (socio)linguistic environments are conducive to the learning of two or more languages in the family to more critical perspectives on family, identity and ideology, and the impact this has on the child’s language development and use and, more generally, on the family and family language practices. In my talk I will present and discuss new directions in the study of multilingual families, as demonstrated in the evolving field of family language policy. This includes a critical perspective on the notion of ‘family’ and, with a focus on Norway, on how families with a migrant background navigate public and private discourses on the transnational family.

Bio

Elizabeth Lanza is Professor Emerita of Linguistics and former Director of the Center for Multilingualism in Society across the Lifespan (MultiLing) at the University of Oslo – a Centre of Excellence financed by the Research Council of Norway. She is also an elected member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. Lanza has published widely on multilingualism, addressing issues of language socialization, family language policies and practices, migrant narratives, language ideology, language policy, linguistic landscape, and research methodology.

If you're interested you can find out more on her website!

Innocent Chiluwa

Date: 08.03.2023

Time: 16:15 – 17:45 Uhr

Place: F-123, Unitobler

Abstract

This study shows what online activism by women’s rights groups in Nigeria and Ghana looks like, especially by exploring their online advocacy and campaign approaches. Applying the new social movement theories with methodological insights from pragmatics and discourse analysis, the study examines and analyses how gender issues such as political participation, human trafficking and violence against women are mediated discursively. The study further assesses the roles of social media in the campaign programmes of the women’s rights groups (WRGs) under study. One group each from Nigeria and Ghana are selected for the study. These WRGs exist both online and offline but engage in some unique and interesting discursive advocacy practices that campaign for gender equality, human rights, and women’s political empowerment.

Keywords: discourse, digitization, activism, campaign discourse, political participation, women’s rights groups, Nigeria, Ghana.

Bio

Innocent Chiluwa is a Professor in English Linguistics and Media/Digital Communications in the Department of Languages & General Studies, Covenant University, Nigeria. He is a Georg Forster Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (AvH) (Bonn), and a Humboldt scholar & visiting Professor in the Department of English, University of Freiburg. He is also an associate member of the Africa Centre for Transregional Research (ACT) at the University of Freiburg, Germany.  He is currently on a fellowship at the Center for Advanced Internet Studies (CAIS), where he is investigating the role of digitization in activism and political campaigns of women’s rights advocacy groups in Europe and Africa.

He has published books and edited volumes in media discourse, social media and society, discourse and conflict studies and deception studies. His most recent edited books include Discourse, media and conflict (Cambridge University Press, 2022), and Discourse and Conflict, (Palgrave, 2021).

Prof. Chiluwa is on the Editorial Boards of Discourse & Society (SAGE), Journal of Multicultural Discourses (Routledge) and the Journal of International and Intercultural Communication (Taylor & Francis).