Research areas

Human interaction is social
My research since 1990 is in the area of interaction analysis or “conversation analysis” in the tradition of Harvey Sacks, Emanuel Schegloff and Gail Jefferson. The overall goal of this line of research is to understand how people shape their social relationships through language, nonverbal communication and their physical environment. We audio- or video-tape situations in which people do what they would also do if the camera were not there, i.e. we strive to keep the interaction as natural as possible.


Human interaction in different contexts and cultures
All aspects of human interaction in all kinds of contexts and cultures are studied in interaction analysis. My research has focused on private settings, intercultural communication, language proficiency interviews, psychiatry settings, and business meetings. My latest research interest is in understanding how hearing loss and the use of hearing aids impacts communication.


Some examples
Based on a video analysis of these settings I have worked on different topics. In all these settings my special interest has been on hearing and understanding problems (“repair”). Other topics have been group processes in which a conversation splits up in more than one parallel conversation (“schisming”), special characteristics in the interaction of first and second language speakers, the interactional representation of anxiety, and most recently, communication with hearing loss. Some of my research has concentrated on how the meaning of single words is related to non-lexical aspects, such as eye gaze, affiliation or a claim to the interactants’ shared knowledge. In the analysis of German conversation, my research has shown that some words are used quite differently than the dictionaries and lexica describe them.


My current project: "Hearing aids Communication"
Since 2008 I have worked on setting up a network of researchers and practitioners in communication studies, audiology and design with the goal of understanding and improving communication with hearing loss and hearing aids. Currently we are colleagues in Denmark, Finland, Germany, Sweden and the USA who are conducting pilot studies on how people describe their hearing loss to the hearing aid fitter, how people communicate with hearing loss, and how the technology of a hearing aid impacts the interaction.

CV

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UNIVERSITY DEGREES

2002   "Habilitation" in Germanic Linguistics, Carl-von-Ossietzky-Universität Oldenburg, Germany

1993   Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics, University of California Los Angeles, USA

1987   M.A. in German as a Foreign Language, English, Pedagogy, Universität Bielefeld, Germany

1986   M.A. in Foreign Language Education, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA 


UNIVERSITY POSITIONS (full time)

since 1/05   Associate Professor for Communication and German
                      University of Southern Denmark, Institute for Business Communication and Information Science

4/98-12/04  Assistant/Associate Professor (non-tenure) for German as a Foreign Language, Communication
                      Carl-von-Ossietzky-Universität Oldenburg, Institute for Education and Communication in Migration Processes

8/93-4/98   Assistant Professor of German Applied Linguistics
                    University of Texas at Austin, Department of Germanic Studies

9/87-8/88   Lecturer for German
                    University of Jyväskylä, Finland, German Department

Affiliations

• - - Associate Professor
• SPIRE - Associate Professor

Publications

PUBLISHED

Activities