A Neopragmatist Model of Grammatical Leverage

Abstract

This article proposes the concept of grammatical leverage as a neopragmatist and anticolonial model of normative, conceptual, and affective transformation within forms of life marked by domination and exploitation. Drawing on Wittgenstein (1953, 1969) and Brandom (1994, 2000), in dialogue with peripheral and quilombola perspectives (Nascimento 2021), we argue that reversing unjust language-games requires not only conceptual reconstruction but also affective reorientation—such as the conversion of shame into collective pride among oppressed groups. Inspired by Wittgenstein’s hinge epistemology, we understand grammar as a system of normative hinges, that is, fulcrums of meaning and value that sustain forms of life. To leverage grammar is to redirect these fulcrums, shifting tacit certainties that naturalize racial, patriarchal, and colonial hierarchies. We critically reinterpret Brandom’s semantic inferentialism and logical expressivism to include the affective and embodied dimensions of normativity, conceiving meaning as part of a shared inferential landscape. We propose five levels of normative resistance—from semantic awareness to grammatical sovereignty—and three modalities of leverage: interfixal (conceptual redefinition), inter-resistant (community creation), and inter-potent (affective reversal). Thus, to leverage grammar is to move the world: language ceases to be a site of captivity and becomes a territory of resistance, authorship, and collective self-determination.