current projects
English as a Lingua Franca in the Family
- Linguistic field: English as a lingua franca, multilingualism, variational linguistics, language acquisition, sociolinguistics
- Data: audio-recordings of multilingual family dinner table conversations, introspective interviews, language portraits
- Topic: the role of English as a lingua franca in multilingual families
- Focus: English in Europe, translanguaging
More about English as a Lingua France in the Family (FamiLingo)
Pragmatics of Namibian English (PraNamE)
- Linguistic field: variational pragmatics, World Englishes, pragmatic profiling
- Data: written questionnaire including discourse completion tasks, dialogue production tasks and multiple choice questions; role play data, interviews, focus group discussions, elicited metadiscourse, media communication
- Topic: variety-specific ways of using Namibian English in communication
- Focus: establishing a pragmatic profile of Namibian English based on norms and tendencies of communicative behavior in a range of social contexts
More about Pragmatic of Namibian English (PraNamE)
Pragmatic Profiling (PRA.PRO)
- Linguistic field: pragmatics, L2 learning, pragmatic competence
- Data: from the QEU: written questionnaire including discourse completion tasks, dialogue production tasks and multiple choice questions; L1 English, L2 English and L1 German data
- Topic: the role and development of pragmatic competence in the context of L2 English learning
- Focus: defining pragmatic competence and developing an instrument for assessing pragmatic competence
More about Pragmatic Profiling (PRA.PRO)
Academic Communication in Multimedia Environment (ACiME)
- Linguistic field: CMC
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Data: questionnaire on the use of various communication tools, sources of information, use of hyperlinks, and attitudes towards plagiarism; website analysis of online profiles of active linguists; screen-capture video material to gather hands-on information on what people do when using the
Internet for academic purposes
- Topic: features of today's scientific communication in multimedia settings
- Focus: use of hyperlinks, plagiarism, authorship
More about Academic Communication in Multimedia Environment (ACiME)
- The ACiME project has been completed and corresponding publications are in progress. Recently, a follow-up project has been accepted for funding by the Humboldstiftung, namely
Plagiarism in Academia vis-à-vis Ethical Aspects and Common Practice (more information on
this new project will follow soon).
Business English in International Organisations (BEIO)
- Linguistic field: English as a lingua franca, Business English, figurative language use, pragmatics
- Data: Corpus of naturally occurring business e-mails, web pages by international organisations, survey on Business English as a lingua franca in multi-national organisations
- Topic: Figurative language use and pragmatic features in English as a lingua franca in international business communication
- Focus: Idioms and linguistic features of business e-mails sent in an English as a lingua franca context between native and non-native business partners in a multi-national team; employees' experience of working in English as a lingua franca and possible difficulties they face
More about Business English in International Organisations (BEIO)
Emerging E-mail Etiquette (EEE)
- Linguistic field: Pragmatics, (im)politeness research, CMC, genre analysis
- Data: Corpus of naturally occurring student emails, writing tasks, rating tasks
- Topic: Textual norms of email communication in institutional contexts
- Focus: Formal, structural and pragmatic features of student emails sent to a professor and their perceptional evaluation
More about Emerging E-mail Etiquette (EEE)