Background
I joined the Department of Languages and Literatures in 2015 as a senior lecturer in German Linguistics and Language Education. Before that, I worked at the universities of Zurich and Bern and the universities of teacher education in Zug and Zurich (Switzerland). I wrote my doctoral thesis on Continental runic inscriptions at the Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) "Mediality – Historical Perspectives" based at the University of Zurich, where I also worked as a research fellow for public outreach.
Research
My general research interests include Germanic language history – especially runology, the linguistics of historical writing, language contact and multilingualism, phonology and onomastics – and the learning and teaching of German as a second language. In my historical linguistic studies, I pursue an interdisciplinary approach in which I aim to combine philological and structural linguistic analysis with sociolinguistic and cultural-historical perspectives. Hence, I strive to embed the historical linguistic data in a broader cultural context.
My current project titled Variation and contact in medieval personal names concerns North Germanic personal names in Continental sources. Most of the names were written down by German or French scribes, some supposedly even by dictation. I study the scripting of the names in this multilingual environment from a system- and sociolinguistic perspective and plan to edit the corpus digitally. The project is funded by the Swedish Research Council.
I am also part of the interdisciplinary research environment DECRYPT/DECODE: Decryption of historical manuscripts lead by Beáta Megyesi at Uppsala University and funded by the Swedish Research Council.
Earlier projects include Techniken und Praktiken mittelalterlicher kontinentalgermanischer Schriftlichkeit, led by Prof Dr Elvira Glaser and Prof Dr Ludwig Rübekeil, University of Zurich (2005–2011); Sprachland. Lehrmittel für die Mittelstufe, led by Elsbeth Büchel and Ursina Gloor, PH Zurich (2007–2009); and Promoting Learner Autonomy in Higher Education, PH Zug in collaboration with SEEU Tetovo (2012–2014).
I initiated the seminar series Writing and Society and coordinate the Language in Society research area together with Johan Järlehed at the Department of Languages and Literatures.
Teaching
I have taught university courses at undergraduate, Master’s and PhD level (subjects: German, Scandinavian and English linguistics, medieval studies, language teaching and education, cultural studies ) and also have experience as a primary school teacher. At the University of Gothenburg, I teach undergraduate and Master’s courses, both on campus and online, in linguistics and language skills, and supervise students within the programme for German studies and the teacher training programme (German as a foreign language).
