Writing is not merely governed by conventions; it is also a particularly visible site of social regulation. Written forms are standardized and corrected, but they can also invite playful departures from established conventions. This talk brings together research from my cumulative habilitation project to investigate how norms acquire authority and what people do with them in everyday communication.
From a grapholinguistic perspective, the project connects comparative work on writing systems and orthographic standardization with empirical studies of how written language is evaluated in social interaction. Research on self-prescriptivism and unsolicited correction shows how normative expectations can be internalized and enforced by writers, often without any institutional mandate. Pragmatic work on orthographic shaming further demonstrates how judgments about writing can serve as proxies for judgments about the people producing it. Conversely, studies of critical metaprescriptivism and public debates surrounding typography reveal that the legitimacy of such judgments is itself open to challenge.
Throughout, I argue that normativity in writing cannot be reduced to formal prescriptions or questions of correctness. Choices about spelling and visual presentation may index social belonging or perceived competence, even where mutual understanding is not at stake. Yet normative expectations are not inherently oppressive. Shared conventions can facilitate communication and provide orientation, while deliberate departures from them may enable creativity or signal affiliation. Writers are therefore not simply subjected to external rules: they actively participate in shaping the normative conditions of their own communication.
The talk develops an integrative account of writing as an infrastructure of normativity: a medium through which social order is sustained, but also one in which that order remains negotiable. This perspective offers a way to understand prescriptivism as a diverse set of social practices rather than as a uniformly restrictive force.
Datum und Uhrzeit: 16.12.2026, 17:00h - 18:30h
Ort: Merangasse 70, 8010 Graz, SR 33.3.211
Teilnahme auch über Zoom möglich: https://uni-graz.zoom.us/j/66653336109?pwd=R8R1wzjPQUyvNU01vmstGC4MmzQh4x.1
Meeting-ID: 666 5333 6109
Kenncode: 950932
