Michael Meeuwis
Biographic Data
| ID | 737253 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Michael Meeuwis |
| GIVEN NAMES | Michael |
| FAMILY NAME | Meeuwis |
| SIGNATURE | MEEUWIS M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Ghent University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5060-9293 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 18 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 31 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 18 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1993 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Lingala only? A history of the D. R. Congo’s ideologies and counter-ideologies of monolingualism
This article investigates how ideologies of monolingualism have evolved over the course of Congolese history. Since King Leopold II’s Congo Free State (1885–1908), missionaries, linguists, and policymakers have made arguments to defend the top-down imposition of a singular language for vertical communication between the colonial state and the Congolese population. Similar debates remained at the heart of negotiations over state power throughout t…
Redeeming a killer language
Situated within the field of colonial and missionary linguistics, this paper discusses language-interventionist campaigns by Protestant missionaries working in the Belgian Congo, in particular their work on the languages Bangala and Lingala between 1900 and 1935. This time frame commences with a master plan to transform Bangala, by first “redeeming” it of its pidgin features, into “a killer language,” with the aim of supplanting all local languag…
A pragmatic perspective on contact-induced language change
Preview this article: A pragmatic perspective on contact-induced language change, Page 1 of 1 /docserver/preview/fulltext/prag.1.4.04mee-1.gif
Leniency and testiness in intercultural communication
As early as 1961, J.t..M. Trim made the following observation: "Onc (...) feels that the rise-fall used by many Poles in simple statements does denote intellectual arrogance, that the hea\y stress, syllable-by-syllable descent, and low level nucleus found in some North German statement sentences rs domineering. As a result, wc react sharply. The foreigner, bewildered, knows only that a promising friendship has foundcred for no apparent reason. Th…
Perspectives on intercultural communication
Preview this article: Perspectives on intercultural communication, Page 1 of 1 /docserver/preview/fulltext/prag.4.3.01mee-1.gif
Non-situational functions of demonstrative noun phrases in Lingala (Bantu)
This paper examines the non-situational (i.e., non-exophoric) pragmatic functions of the three adnominal demonstratives, óyo , wâná , and yangó in the Bantu language Lingala. An examination of natural language corpora reveals that, although native-speaker intuitions sanction the use of óyo as an anaphor in demonstrative NPs, this demonstrative is hardly ever used in that role. It also reveals that wâná , which has both situational and discourse-r…
We don’t need another Afrikaans’. Adequation and distinction in South-African and Flemish language policies
It has long been recognised that the similarity or difference between ways of speaking and their possible institutionalisation as ‘languages’ is an ideological matter, a matter of social opinions, rather than one of objective systemic relatedness. This paper emphasises that such language ideologies in any society are always to some extent competitive, that such lack of consensus is not a temporary stage in between moments of shared opinion but a …
Ethnicity and Language in the Run-Up to Congolese Independence in the 1950s
Abako (Alliance des Bakongo), one of the main political parties rallying for Congolese independence in the late 1950s, started off as a linguistic-cultural movement to promote the use of the Kikongo language and Kongo identity in Leopoldville against a dominance of the Lingala language and “Bangala.” In reaction to this, members of the “Bangala” elite also organised themselves, after which a series of ideological confrontations between “Bakongo” …
From the Cape to the Congo and back
The Belgian population living in the Congo during colonisation experienced a higher degree of linguistic inequality than in Belgium: although Dutch and French were declared co-official languages for the Congo in 1908, French was always privileged in practice. In their protests, some Flemish politicians regularly referred to the Afrikaners in South Africa and to the potential their presence had for Dutch in Africa. South African thinkers too, freq…
Language legislation in the Belgian Colonial Charter of 1908
Away with linguists! Normativity, inequality and metascientific reflexivity in sociolinguistic fieldwork
This paper addresses the fact that in spite of the descriptive and wellintentioned ambitions of much sociolinguistic-ethnographic research, members of studied groups often continue to interpret such research as a largely vertically organized socio-political activity that communicates a prescriptive social and linguistic normativity the researcher is inevitably taken to embody. We argue that while many researchers agree that sociolinguistic fieldw…
Away with linguists! Normativity, inequality and metascientific reflexivity in sociolinguistic fieldwork
This paper addresses the fact that in spite of the descriptive and well-intentioned ambitions of much sociolinguistic-ethnographic research, members of studied groups often continue to interpret such research as a largely vertically organized socio-political activity that communicates a prescriptive social and linguistic normativity the researcher is inevitably taken to embody. We argue that while many researchers agree that sociolinguistic field…
Recruiting a nonlocal language for performing local identity
This article describes discursive processes by which inhabitants of the Congolese border town Goma attribute new indexical values to Lingala, a language exogenous to the area of which most Goma inhabitants only possess limited knowledge. This creative reconfiguration of indexicalities results in the emergence of three “indexicalities of the second order”: the indexing of (i) being a true Congolese, (ii) toughness (based on Lingala's association w…
The origins of Belgian colonial language policies in the Congo
The literature on colonial policies in general acknowledges that, for its colonisation of the Congo, Belgium sided with England and Germany in opting for a policy of adaptationism (indirect rule), rather than for assimilationism, which was espoused by France and Portugal in their African possessions. However, the juncture in history at which, the reasons why and the ideological backgrounds against which the Belgian authorities decided on this are…
Bilingual inequality
The Lingála-Kiswahili border in north-eastern Congo. Its origins in Belgian colonial state formation of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
Nonnative-nonnative intercultural communication
Article Nonnative-nonnative intercultural communication: An analysis of instruction sessions for foreign engineers in a Belgian company was published on January 1, 1994 in the journal Multilingua (volume 13, issue 1-2)
Nationalist ideology in news reporting on the Yugoslav crisis
The origins of Belgian colonial language policies in the Congo
The literature on colonial policies in general acknowledges that, for its colonisation of the Congo, Belgium sided with England and Germany in opting for a policy of adaptationism (indirect rule), rather than for assimilationism, which was espoused by France and Portugal in their African possessions. However, the juncture in history at which, the reasons why and the ideological backgrounds against which the Belgian authorities decided on this are…
The Lingála-Kiswahili border in north-eastern Congo. Its origins in Belgian colonial state formation of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
Recruiting a nonlocal language for performing local identity
This article describes discursive processes by which inhabitants of the Congolese border town Goma attribute new indexical values to Lingala, a language exogenous to the area of which most Goma inhabitants only possess limited knowledge. This creative reconfiguration of indexicalities results in the emergence of three “indexicalities of the second order”: the indexing of (i) being a true Congolese, (ii) toughness (based on Lingala's association w…
Nonnative-nonnative intercultural communication
Article Nonnative-nonnative intercultural communication: An analysis of instruction sessions for foreign engineers in a Belgian company was published on January 1, 1994 in the journal Multilingua (volume 13, issue 1-2)
Nationalist ideology in news reporting on the Yugoslav crisis
Away with linguists! Normativity, inequality and metascientific reflexivity in sociolinguistic fieldwork
This paper addresses the fact that in spite of the descriptive and wellintentioned ambitions of much sociolinguistic-ethnographic research, members of studied groups often continue to interpret such research as a largely vertically organized socio-political activity that communicates a prescriptive social and linguistic normativity the researcher is inevitably taken to embody. We argue that while many researchers agree that sociolinguistic fieldw…
Away with linguists! Normativity, inequality and metascientific reflexivity in sociolinguistic fieldwork
This paper addresses the fact that in spite of the descriptive and well-intentioned ambitions of much sociolinguistic-ethnographic research, members of studied groups often continue to interpret such research as a largely vertically organized socio-political activity that communicates a prescriptive social and linguistic normativity the researcher is inevitably taken to embody. We argue that while many researchers agree that sociolinguistic field…
Bilingual inequality
Nationalist ideology in news reporting on the Yugoslav crisis
Nonnative-nonnative intercultural communication
Article Nonnative-nonnative intercultural communication: An analysis of instruction sessions for foreign engineers in a Belgian company was published on January 1, 1994 in the journal Multilingua (volume 13, issue 1-2)
The Lingála-Kiswahili border in north-eastern Congo. Its origins in Belgian colonial state formation of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
Bilingual inequality
The origins of Belgian colonial language policies in the Congo
The literature on colonial policies in general acknowledges that, for its colonisation of the Congo, Belgium sided with England and Germany in opting for a policy of adaptationism (indirect rule), rather than for assimilationism, which was espoused by France and Portugal in their African possessions. However, the juncture in history at which, the reasons why and the ideological backgrounds against which the Belgian authorities decided on this are…
Away with linguists! Normativity, inequality and metascientific reflexivity in sociolinguistic fieldwork
This paper addresses the fact that in spite of the descriptive and wellintentioned ambitions of much sociolinguistic-ethnographic research, members of studied groups often continue to interpret such research as a largely vertically organized socio-political activity that communicates a prescriptive social and linguistic normativity the researcher is inevitably taken to embody. We argue that while many researchers agree that sociolinguistic fieldw…
Away with linguists! Normativity, inequality and metascientific reflexivity in sociolinguistic fieldwork
This paper addresses the fact that in spite of the descriptive and well-intentioned ambitions of much sociolinguistic-ethnographic research, members of studied groups often continue to interpret such research as a largely vertically organized socio-political activity that communicates a prescriptive social and linguistic normativity the researcher is inevitably taken to embody. We argue that while many researchers agree that sociolinguistic field…
Recruiting a nonlocal language for performing local identity
This article describes discursive processes by which inhabitants of the Congolese border town Goma attribute new indexical values to Lingala, a language exogenous to the area of which most Goma inhabitants only possess limited knowledge. This creative reconfiguration of indexicalities results in the emergence of three “indexicalities of the second order”: the indexing of (i) being a true Congolese, (ii) toughness (based on Lingala's association w…
Language legislation in the Belgian Colonial Charter of 1908
From the Cape to the Congo and back
The Belgian population living in the Congo during colonisation experienced a higher degree of linguistic inequality than in Belgium: although Dutch and French were declared co-official languages for the Congo in 1908, French was always privileged in practice. In their protests, some Flemish politicians regularly referred to the Afrikaners in South Africa and to the potential their presence had for Dutch in Africa. South African thinkers too, freq…
Ethnicity and Language in the Run-Up to Congolese Independence in the 1950s
Abako (Alliance des Bakongo), one of the main political parties rallying for Congolese independence in the late 1950s, started off as a linguistic-cultural movement to promote the use of the Kikongo language and Kongo identity in Leopoldville against a dominance of the Lingala language and “Bangala.” In reaction to this, members of the “Bangala” elite also organised themselves, after which a series of ideological confrontations between “Bakongo” …
We don’t need another Afrikaans’. Adequation and distinction in South-African and Flemish language policies
It has long been recognised that the similarity or difference between ways of speaking and their possible institutionalisation as ‘languages’ is an ideological matter, a matter of social opinions, rather than one of objective systemic relatedness. This paper emphasises that such language ideologies in any society are always to some extent competitive, that such lack of consensus is not a temporary stage in between moments of shared opinion but a …
A pragmatic perspective on contact-induced language change
Preview this article: A pragmatic perspective on contact-induced language change, Page 1 of 1 /docserver/preview/fulltext/prag.1.4.04mee-1.gif
Leniency and testiness in intercultural communication
As early as 1961, J.t..M. Trim made the following observation: "Onc (...) feels that the rise-fall used by many Poles in simple statements does denote intellectual arrogance, that the hea\y stress, syllable-by-syllable descent, and low level nucleus found in some North German statement sentences rs domineering. As a result, wc react sharply. The foreigner, bewildered, knows only that a promising friendship has foundcred for no apparent reason. Th…
Perspectives on intercultural communication
Preview this article: Perspectives on intercultural communication, Page 1 of 1 /docserver/preview/fulltext/prag.4.3.01mee-1.gif
Non-situational functions of demonstrative noun phrases in Lingala (Bantu)
This paper examines the non-situational (i.e., non-exophoric) pragmatic functions of the three adnominal demonstratives, óyo , wâná , and yangó in the Bantu language Lingala. An examination of natural language corpora reveals that, although native-speaker intuitions sanction the use of óyo as an anaphor in demonstrative NPs, this demonstrative is hardly ever used in that role. It also reveals that wâná , which has both situational and discourse-r…
Redeeming a killer language
Situated within the field of colonial and missionary linguistics, this paper discusses language-interventionist campaigns by Protestant missionaries working in the Belgian Congo, in particular their work on the languages Bangala and Lingala between 1900 and 1935. This time frame commences with a master plan to transform Bangala, by first “redeeming” it of its pidgin features, into “a killer language,” with the aim of supplanting all local languag…
Lingala only? A history of the D. R. Congo’s ideologies and counter-ideologies of monolingualism
This article investigates how ideologies of monolingualism have evolved over the course of Congolese history. Since King Leopold II’s Congo Free State (1885–1908), missionaries, linguists, and policymakers have made arguments to defend the top-down imposition of a singular language for vertical communication between the colonial state and the Congolese population. Similar debates remained at the heart of negotiations over state power throughout t…
Sociology (13 works) · Linguistics (12 works) · Multilingual Education and Policy (12 works) · Political science (11 works) · Politics (10 works) · Law (9 works) · Philosophy (9 works) · Philosophy (8 works) · Ideology (6 works) · Law (6 works)