Biography

2006 – 2010, BA, Trinity University, San Antonio, Texas, USA

2013 – 2015, MA, University of Neuchâtel

2015 – 2020, PhD Assistant, Institute of English Studies, University of Neuchâtel

2020 – 2023, Part-time Lecturer, Institute of English Studies, University of Neuchâtel

2020 – 2023, Part-time Lecturer, Department of English, University of Lausanne

2023 – 2024, Visiting Research Fellow, Department of Linguistics and English Language, Lancaster University, UK

2024 – 2025, Visiting Research Fellow, School of English, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK

2025 –, Part-time Lecturer, Institute of English Studies, University of Neuchâtel

LinkedIn

Scientific Activity

Swiss National Science Foundation, Postdoc.Mobility Project (P500PH_210773, CHF 130,850) “Impoliteness in the politics of Trump: A new normal for political rhetoric?”

Teaching

Language and Humor, Pragmatics, (Im)politeness in Discourse, Englishes around the World (Uni Lausanne), Introduction to English Language and Linguistics Tutorial (Uni Lausanne), English Composition: Linguistics (Uni Lausanne)  English Words: History and Structure, Change in Contemporary English, The History of English, Introduction to English Linguistics Workshop, ESL Courses (CELTA Certified Teacher of English).

Publications

Scientific Publications

Archer, D. and Bourgeois, S. (2026) ‘Accounting for (strategically) ambiguous facework using Trump as a case study’. Journal of Politeness Research: Language, Behaviour, Culture, 22(2) [In Press].

Bourgeois, S. and Bousfield, D. (2026) Pragmatics in contested interpretation: Varied audiences, varied implicatures, varied inferences. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.

Bourgeois, S. (2026) ‘‘Just saying it like it is’: A comparative study on the characterizations of Chris Christie and Donald Trump as tough-guy politicians’, Language and Literature: International Journal of Stylistics, 35(1), pp. 80–104.

Bourgeois, S. (2025) ‘On the conventionalization of impoliteness formulae: The case of Trump’s fake news insult’, Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict [Online-First Articles].

Bourgeois, S. (2022) ‘‘Oh yeah, one more thing: It’s gonna be huge’: On colloquial (inter)subjective uses of oh yeah in journalistic writing’, in Flach, S. and Hilpert M. (eds.) Broadening the spectrum of corpus linguistics: New approaches to variability and change. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins, pp. 197–225.

Bourgeois, S. (2021) ‘“Ok, qui d’autre na, nobody on the line right now?”: A Diasystematic Construction Grammar approach to discourse markers in bilingual Cajun speech’, in Boas, H.C. & Höder, S. (eds.) Constructions in Contact 2: Language change, multilingual practices, and additional language acquisition. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins, pp. 55–80.

Hilpert, M. and Bourgeois, S. (2020) ‘Intersubjectification in constructional change: From confrontation to solidarity in the sarcastic much? construction’, Constructions and Frames, 12(1), pp. 96–120.

PhD Thesis

Bourgeois, S. (2020) ‘Well, like, oh yeah…’: Non-dialogical functions of discourse markers in journalistic writing. PhD Thesis. University of Neuchâtel.

My research outputs are also available through Libra:

https://libra.unine.ch/entities/person/a116beba-72b3-4acb-a770-32e60f5e0491

Invited Talks and Conference Papers (Selection)

Bourgeois, S. and Bousfield, D. (2026). The Curious Case of Vance in Vermont: Creative Insulting as Resistant and Performative Identity Construction. PALA 2026 Conference, 22 August, Uppsala, Sweden.

Bourgeois, S. (2026) Tough-guy talk in American political discourse: Characteristics and functions. Invited speaker for the Aston Stylistics Research Group Seminar Series 2026 at Aston University, 21 January, Birmingham, UK.

Bourgeois, S. and Bousfield D. (2025) Pragmatics in contested interpretation: Varied audiences, varied implicatures, varied inferences. PALA 2025 Conference, 11 July, Birmingham, UK.

Bourgeois, S. (2024) Impoliteness in Trump’s politics: A new normal for  political rhetoric?(Contribution to the Language and social justice panel). Linguistics in Action: Celebrating 10 years of Linguistics Research at MMU, 26 June, Manchester, UK.

Bourgeois, S. (2024) The impoliteness of ‘tough guy politicians’: A comparative study of the impoliteness of Donald Trump and Chris Christie. EPICS XI Conference, 23 May, Seville, Spain.

Bourgeois, S. (2024) Ethnically charged impoliteness in Trump’s political rhetoric: How far was too far? Invited Speaker for Manchester Centre for Research in Linguistics at Manchester Metropolitan University, 21 March, Manchester, UK.

Bourgeois S. (2023) “He is Fake News, will always be Fredo to us.” On the proliferation of conventionalized insults: A case study of Fake News. Invited Speaker for DisTex Research Group at Lancaster University, 28 June, Lancaster, UK.