Department of English

Teaching and research in linguistics at the English Department is particularly strong in the areas of language variation and change, varieties of English, sociolinguistics, corpus linguistics, phonetics and phonology as well as second and third language acquisition. In various projects, our researchers focus especially on the phonological, morphosyntactic and pragmatic characteristics as well as the status of English and attitudes towards it in the Caribbean, in Nigeria, in Pakistan and in Scotland. Moreover, they investigate the acquisition of English as a second language and as a third language by children and adults. For this, different language corpora including ICE Trinidad and Tobago, ICE Nigeria and ICE Scotland have been or are being compiled. In addition, we are involved in the development of digital teaching materials on English as a World Language. Our vibrant research community includes a large number of PhD students and Postdocs from all over the world.