Language goes beyond verbal expression

Dr. Andrea Chagas López · Sociolinguist · Creolistics · Language & Embodiment

Language is a way of categorizing the world. But categories are never neutral — they carry histories, power structures, social imaginaries, and deeply embodied experiences.

My research asks: what does language do to us, and what do we do with language?

The Work

My Research

My research examines how linguistic forms and practices construct, negotiate, and transform social identities. I work across disciplines — cognitive linguistics, creolistics, postcolonial studies, and performance theory — to understand language not as a neutral code, but as a living, contested social practice.

Speakers are not simply sources of linguistic data — they are architects of social meaning, navigating complex ideological landscapes with every utterance.

— Core research philosophy

Areas of Inquiry

Research Areas

Cognitive Sociolinguistics

How linguistic variation is perceived, evaluated, and socially organized in the mind and in social interaction.

Postcolonial Language Ecologies

Multilingual societies shaped by colonial legacies, with a focus on Equatorial Guinea and the Afro-Hispanic diaspora.

Creolistics & Linguistic creativity

Investigating the production, circulation, negotiation of linguistic innovation (creativity) in postcolonial, post migrant settings

Language & Embodiment

The relationship between linguistic practices, and arts. How does the medium of expression shapes the content and reception

Methodology

Research in the Field

Fieldwork is not a methodology — it is a disposition. I enter the spaces where language lives: bars, rehearsal studios, parks, classrooms. I listen to what people say, how they say it, and what they refuse to say. My methods are ethnographic, multimodal, and deeply collaborative.

Research

Current Projects

Ongoing

Creativity in Contact

The emergence, circulation, and conventionalization of sociopragmatic innovations in Papiamentu/Papiamento-speaking contact ecologies.

The project asks:

Which formal, sociopragmatic, and multimodal features characterize creative innovations?
How are innovations collaboratively produced in interaction?
How do creative forms circulate across social networks and digital platforms?
How do language ideologies, mobility, or marginalization shape creativity?
Why do some innovations become socially recognized while others fade?

Methodologically, the project combines ethnography, multimodal interaction analysis, corpus pragmatics, language-biographical interviews, perceptual research, digital ethnography, and participatory mapping.

Research and public knowledge

Through Borderless Voices, selected dimensions of this research are translated into documentary and participatory formats. Research data, public storytelling, and community-oriented outputs remain ethically and institutionally distinct, while contributing to a shared infrastructure for knowledge circulation.

Publications

Monograph

Chagas López, Andrea (2025): The Oral Enregisterment of Equatoguinean Spanish: A Sociocognitive and Perceptual Approach to Linguistic Variation and Its Social Meanings. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter. ISBN 978-3-11-143473-5. DOI: 10.1515/9783111434827

Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles

Chagas López, Andrea / Hilß, Hannah / Müller, Sebastian (2025): Neural Machine Translation and a Queer Perspective on Gender Bias: A Qualitative Study of How Different Strategies of Écriture Inclusive Are Translated into German by DeepL and Google Translate. The Mouth 12. DOI: 10.18716/ojs/the_mouth.11977

Chagas López, Andrea / Cotgrove, Louis / Rüdiger, Jan (2025): ‘Othering’ Queer Relationships in the Plenary Records of the German Bundestag: A Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis. APTUM 21(1), 123–139. DOI: 10.46771/978-3-96769-460-4

Book Chapters

Chagas López, Andrea (2023): Migration and Linguistic Repertoire: Supervernacular Spanish and the Variational Perception of the Equatoguinean YouTuber Monanga Bueneke and Her Community of Practice. In: Sandra Issel-Dombert / Ignacio Andrés Soria (eds.): Language, Migration and Multilingualism in the Age of Digital Humanities. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter.

Chagas, Andrea (2021): The Linguistic Landscape of Chile: Language Contact and Linguistic Varieties. In: Eva-Martha Eckkrammer (ed.): The Manual of Spanish in the Americas. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter.

Edited Publications

Zapf, Miriam / Chagas López, Andrea / Jansen, Silke (eds.) (2025): Out of the Norm?! Producing, Evaluating, and Perpetuating Gender Difference through Language Practice. The Mouth 12 (special issue).

Zapf, Miriam / Chagas López, Andrea / Jansen, Silke (2025): Introduction: Out of the Norm?! Producing, Evaluating, and Perpetuating Gender Difference through Language Practice. The Mouth 12, 7–16. DOI: 10.18716/ojs/the_mouth.11975

Research and Policy Reports

Arnold, Lena / Bader, Noemi / Dollmann, Jörg / Chagas López, Andrea / Granato, Nadia / Reitz, Hannah / Soiné, Hannah / Waltersbacher, Emma / Weißmann, Markus (2026): Integration at the Local Level: Municipal Actors and Regional Differences in Baden-Württemberg. MZES Fokus. Mannheim: MZES. Forthcoming.

Arnold, Lena / Bader, Noemi / Dollmann, Jörg / Chagas López, Andrea / Granato, Nadia / Reitz, Hannah / Soiné, Hannah / Waltersbacher, Emma / Weißmann, Markus (2026): Municipal Integration Officers as Key Actors: Responsibilities, Challenges, and Best Practices. DeZIMinutes 17. Berlin: DeZIM. Forthcoming.

Ministry of Social Affairs, Health and Integration Baden-Württemberg (ed.) (2026): Baden-Württemberg State Integration Report 2025. Stuttgart. With contributions by Andrea Chagas López et al. Forthcoming.

Ministry of Social Affairs, Health and Integration Baden-Württemberg (ed.) (2025): Baden-Württemberg Action Plan for Acceptance and Equal Rights. Stuttgart. With contributions by Andrea Chagas López, Katrin Hofner, and Lisa Schlode.

Editorial Work

Eva-Martha Eckkrammer (ed.): The Manual of Spanish in the Americas. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter.

Research lives in unexpected places — a bar menu, a novel read on a flight, an encounter that opens a door.