César Félix-Brasdefer

J. César Félix-Brasdefer is Professor of Spanish and Linguistics at Indiana University Bloomington’s College of Arts & Sciences. He also serves as Adjunct Professor in Linguistics, Second Language Studies, and the Cognitive Science Program, and holds administrative roles as Associate Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education and Academic Director of the IU Mexico Gateway. His research focuses on pragmatics, discourse analysis, and second language acquisition, with an emphasis on cross-cultural communication and pragmatic variation across Spanish-speaking contexts.

• Education: Ph.D. in Linguistics (University of Minnesota, 2002), M.A. in Spanish (University of Illinois at Chicago, 1996), B.A. in Spanish (Universidad Autónoma de Tlaxcala, 1991)

His research explores pragmatic variation in Mexico, Costa Rica, and Spain, focusing on politeness, impoliteness, and speech act sequences in service encounters. His 100+ publications include nine books, such as Pragmática del español (Routledge, 2019) and The Language of Service Encounters (Cambridge, 2015), alongside edited volumes like New Directions in Second Language Pragmatics (De Gruyter, 2021) and The Routledge Handbook of Spanish Pragmatics (2021). He investigates pragmatic development in study abroad contexts, epoliteness in digital interactions, and methodological innovations in data collection.

Recent projects analyze pragmatic variation across Spanish varieties and teaching pragmatics in FL classrooms. His work integrates sociolinguistic frameworks with applied linguistics, influencing pedagogical approaches to intercultural competence and pragmatic assessment. He has received multiple awards, including the Provost’s Award for Undergraduate Research (2012, 2014) and CARLA Fellow (2000–2001).