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PhD dissertations supervised
I'm also supervising BA, MA, and
Staatsexamen theses. Contact me if you're interested.
Future teaching
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Lecture series
'Contrastive
Linguistics: English-German'
University of Freiburg (summer term 12)
Contrastive linguistics is an approach in language
typology and applied linguistics that compares two languages with regard
to a variety of linguistic features. In this sprit, the lecture series
offers a comprehensive survey of the similarities and differences between
English and German, two closely related languages that are nonetheless
different in a number of interesting ways. Linguistic features and domains
that will be investigated include phoneme inventories, inflectional
morphology, tense and aspect systems, non-finite subordination, Wh-movement
and relativization, and the lexicon. An important aim of the lecture
series is to inform the teaching of English in German classroom settings.
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Graduate seminar
'Variationist
Sociolinguistics'
University of Freiburg (summer term 12)
This class is concerned with seminal and current
studies in variationist sociolinguistics, which is the branch of (socio)linguistics
that utilizes quantitative methods to probe systematic and inherent
variation in language. What takes center stage in this school of
sociolinguistics, in particular, is the interplay between
language-internal and language-external constraints on language variation,
the meaning of language variation in society and culture, and the link
between language variation and language change. We will read foundational
texts in sociolinguistic variation theory, discuss issues relating to data
collection and analysis (with a strong hands-on component), and explore
case studies of linguistic variables in phonology, morphology, syntax, and
discourse organization.
Current teaching
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Seminar 'Introduction
to Middle English'
University of Freiburg (winter term 11)
In this seminar, we will be interested in the Middle English period, which lasted roughly from the late 11th century to around 1500. We will study literary texts (e.g. Geoffrey Chaucer), religious prose (e.g. Bible translations), and historical documents to explore Middle English pronunciation, morphology, syntax, as well as the Middle English lexicon. To put the linguistic facts into perspective, we will also discuss in detail major social, political and cultural developments during the time -- from the Norman Conquest to the invention of the printing press.
Past teaching
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Lecture series
'Introduction to quantitative English linguistics'
(with Martin Hilpert)
University of Basel (fall term 10)
This lecture series offers an introduction to quantitative approaches within English linguistics. Quantitative approaches try to describe and explain linguistic phenomena with the help of verifiable, numerical measurements obtained from some data source, such as a corpus, an experiment, a survey, or a sound recording. While some linguistic facts may initially seem hard to measure, this lecture series will show that quantitative data can inform even questions about meaning, cognition, and language history
[...].
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Undergraduate seminar
'Second Language Acquisition'
University of Freiburg (summer term 10)
This introductory seminar will seek to familiarize students with the field of Second Language Acquisition (SLA). We will thus be concerned with how learners acquire additional languages in late childhood, adolescence, or adulthood, after the native language(s) has or have been acquired. Topics discussed will include (i) the issue of age, (ii) crosslinguistic influences, (iii) the linguistic environment, (iv) cognition, (v) the development of learner languages, (vi) foreign language aptitude, (vii) motivation, (viii) affect and other individual differences, and (ix) social dimensions of L2 learning.
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Undergraduate seminar
'Phonetics and phonology'
University of Freiburg (winter term 09)
This introductory seminar will seek to familiarize students with the study of phonetics and phonology. Topics discussed will include: the description of consonant and vowel sounds, allophonic variation, connected speech phenomena, syllable structure, strong and weak forms, and intonation.
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Graduate seminar
'Modern approaches to historical linguistics'
University of Freiburg (summer term 09)
Traditionally, there has been a strong interest among historical linguists in the description of how language change can be thought of as being subject to law-like, language-internal regularities, typically based on qualitative analyses of surviving historical documents. The past few decades, however, have witnessed a number of innovations in the field, with new research questions being asked, new methodologies being utilized, and new data sources being tapped. We will survey these modern approaches to historical linguistics, including the variationist approach to language variation and change, Greenbergian-typological approaches, and the corpus-linguistic approach to language change.
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Seminar 'A survey of Old English and Middle English'
University of Freiburg (winter term 07)
This seminar studies the most important developments in Old and Middle English. We will read historical texts and discuss in more detail features of Early English phonetics, phonology, morphology, and syntax, as well as major lexical developments. In addition, we shall investigate the social, political and cultural determinants of the major developments in the history of English.
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Graduate seminar
'Recent trends in corpus linguistics'
University of Freiburg (winter term 07)
Corpus Linguistics is a methodology that bases claims about linguistic phenomena on the study of large collections of authentic, naturalistic, machine-readable texts. This seminar is going to survey recent, cutting-edge research in this tradition. Topics covered will include historical corpus linguistics, corpus-based variationist sociolinguistics, corpus-based dialectology, corpus-based psycholinguistics, and corpus-based L2 acquisition research.
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Undergraduate seminar 'Semantics'
University of Freiburg (summer term 07)
This seminar will seek to familiarize students with the complex but intriguing field of semantics, which is the branch of linguistics devoted to the study of meaning in language. Topics addressed will include the logic of language; compositionality; contextual variability of word meanings; paradigmatic sense relations; syntagmatic relations; and grammatical sense relations. We shall also touch on pragmatics, that is, the study of meaning in context (deixis, speech acts, and conversational implicatures).
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Graduate tutorial 'Forschungspraxis / Research Design I'
University of Freiburg (summer term 07)
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Seminar 'Introduction to Old English and Middle English'
University of Freiburg (winter term 06)
This seminar studies the most important developments in Old and Middle English. We will read historical texts and discuss in more detail features of Early English phonetics, phonology, morphology, and syntax, as well as major lexical developments. In addition, we shall investigate the social, political and cultural determinants of the major developments in the history of English.
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Undergraduate seminar 'Syntax'
University of Freiburg (winter term 06)
The seminar is designed as an introduction to the major theories, concepts, and categories associated with the branch of linguistics known as syntax. Thus, we will cover a range of topics including: parts of speech; clause types; head words and phrases; constituent analysis; argument ordering; and syntactic processes, e.g. passivization and WH-movement. Naturally, the focus of the seminar will be on English syntax, although comparative data from other languages will be subject to discussion as well. Theoretical discussions will, whenever possible, be complemented by empirical investigations into the syntax of English on the basis of digital computer corpora.
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Tutorial 'LEO -- Linguistic Exercises online'
University of Freiburg (summer term 06 - summer term 09)
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Undergraduate seminar 'Interactional Sociolinguistics'
University of Freiburg (summer term 06)
The purpose of this course is to introduce students to theories and methods of discourse analysis as applied to dialogic or multi-party discourse. The course will provide reading and discussion of, and practice trying out on the basis of authentic conversation transcripts, a variety of approaches to the analysis of conversational discourse. The theoretical focus is primarily ethnomethodological. Topics will include discourse topic; turn-taking; adjacency pairs; repair; conversational style; involvement strategies; politeness, humor, and discourse markers.
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Graduate tutorial 'Forschungspraxis / Research Design II'
University of Freiburg (winter term 05)
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Seminar 'From Old English to Standard English'
University of Freiburg (winter term 05)
Why is modern English the way it is? This Proseminar will investigate the most important changes from Old English to today. We will read historical texts and discuss in more detail features of Old, Middle and Early Modern English phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics. We will also look at the social, political and cultural background of important developments in the history of English.
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Undergraduate seminar 'Language Variation and Change'
University of Freiburg (winter term 05)
This Proseminar will focus on those social variables that significantly influence the way people speak: social class, gender, age, ethnicity, etc. These variables can serve as diagnostics of recurrent patterns of linguistic change which can be observed with sociolinguistic methods. In addition to tracing some of the most striking recent developments in English, we will also look at historical patterns where sociolinguistic methods can be fruitfully applied.
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Graduate/Undergraduate seminar 'Formal and Functional Linguistics'
University of Freiburg (summer term 05)
There are currently two major approaches to the study of language. Formal linguists assume that linguistic structures are innate and that language structure can and should be explained using formal representations that aim to be maximally elegant. Functional linguists, by contrast, focus on the communicative purpose of language, seeking to explain language structure by reference to this purpose. This seminar will take a closer look at what divides and what unites the two approaches; topics covered will include language change, economy and simplicity, prototypes and syntactic theories, processing explanations and discourse-based explanations, and typology and innate Universal Grammar.
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Tutorial 'Corpus-linguistic Analysis'
University of Freiburg (winter term 04 | summer term 05)
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Undergraduate seminar 'Discourse Analysis:
Conversation'
University of Freiburg (winter term 03/04)
The purpose of this course is to introduce students to theories and methods of discourse analysis as applied to dialogic or multi-party discourse. The course will provide reading and discussion of, and practice trying out on the basis of authentic conversation transcripts, a variety of approaches to the analysis of conversational discourse. The theoretical focus is primarily ethnomethodological. Topics will include discourse topic; turn-taking; adjacency pairs; repair; conversational style; involvement strategies; politeness, humor, and discourse markers.
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Tutorial 'Linguistic Analysis'
University of Freiburg (summer term 03 | summer term 04 | winter term 04 | summer term 05)
This course is designed to prepare students for their intermediate exam in linguistics at the end of the term. We will review central aspects of synchronic linguistics; topics will include phonetics, phonology, morphology, word-formation, syntax, semantics, and social variation. In order to serve as a good preparation for the oral exam, the course will be practical in nature with a focus on training analytical skills rather than linguistic theory.
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Reading class 'Modern Historical Linguistics'
University of Freiburg (summer term 03)
This reading class will give students an opportunity to deepen their understanding of the issues in modern historical linguistics by discussing selected articles that illustrate a range of different approaches to the history of English.
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Tutorial 'Microeconomic Theory'
University of Freiburg (winter term 2000/01, summer term 01)
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