About us

The Trier Center for Language and Communication (TCLC) brings together a broad range of high-profile, interdisciplinary research in linguistics and in related disciplines at our university. We are dedicated to supporting networking and fostering synergies between research projects at Trier University for both established and early-career researchers. Our collaborative project Patterns. Linguistic Creativity and Variation in Synchrony and Diachrony was awarded the status of a High-Potential Research Area by the Research Initiative Rhineland-Palatinate 2019–2023.

The aim is, on the basis of a quite deliberately broad-based pattern concept and in interdisciplinary co-operation, to conduct extensive empirical research beyond established disciplinary boundaries into linguistic patterns and at the same time to develop an applicable theory of linguistic patterning. Members of the TCLC work in the following disciplines:

Linguistics
• English Studies, German Studies, Yiddish Studies, Romance Studies, Slavic Studies
• Computational Linguistics and Digital Humanities
• Phonetics

Media Studies
• Digital and Audio-Visual Media
• Media, Communication and PR

Related disciplines
• Cognitive Psychology
• Survey Statistics

 

Central to the project are:

  • Investigation and comparison of linguistic patterns at different structural levels (words – texts – discourses) and in different languages.
  • Making new data accessible for linguistic pattern research which are not contained in traditional text corpora but which play an important role for speakers, (e.g. informal conversations, non-standard languages and language forms).
  • Investigation of the natural conditions for the use and emergence of patterns, which we consider to be a significant component of an applicable empirical description and theoretical modelling of patterning. Such contexts are as a rule multimodal.
  • The employment of a variety of different methods and approaches adapted to the data under investigation.

A detailed description can be found here.

A press article about our research program can be found here

Project description

Board and Coordination

Prof. Dr. Sabine Arndt-Lappe
English Linguistics
Speaker of the TCLC
arndtlappe@uni-trier.de

 

Prof. Dr. Andre Klump
Romance Linguistics
TCLC board member
klump@uni-trier.de

 

Prof. Dr. Claudine Moulin
German Linguistics  & Trier Center for Digital Humanities
TCLC board member
moulin@uni-trier.de

Prof. Dr. Christian Nuernbergk
Media Science
TCLC board member
nuernbergk@uni-trier.de

 

Jun.-Prof. Dr. Katharina Zahner-Ritter
Phonetics
Speaker of the TCLC
k.zahner-ritter@uni-trier.de

Dr. Jacek Kudera
Coordination
kudera@uni-trier.de

 

Sonja Böker
Coordination
patternscor@uni-trier.de

 

Senior Members

Prof. Dr. Sabine Arndt-Lappe
English Linguistics
arndtlappe@uni-trier.de

Focus of research:
Productivity and variation in the lexicon,
Phonology-morpholgy interaction,
Boundaries of morphology: acronyms & blends,
Analogical models of word formation

Dr. Christof Barth
Media Science
barthc@uni-trier.de

Focus of research:
Social media,
  Media quality,
  Reception research,
  Qualitative methods of media research, especially in digital media

 

Prof. Dr. Alexander Bierich
Slavonic Linguistics
bierich@uni-trier.de

Focus of research:
Cognitive semantics of Slavic languages,
Contrastive lexicology of Slavic languages,
Phraseology and phraseography of Slavic languages,
Historical-etymological exploration of lexical and phraseological units 

Prof. Dr. Angelika Braun
Phonetics
braun@uni-trier.de

Focus of research:
Sociophonetics: language and emotions,
Gender-specific language behaviour,
Voice/language and noxes;
Forensic phonetics;
Contrastive phonetics: Hawaiian phonetics

Dr. rer. pol. Florian Ertz
Political Economy
ertz@uni-trier.de

Focus of research:
Econometric modelling of complex survey data,
Generating synthetic micro data for simulation entites,
Asset surveys 

Prof. Dr. Sebastian Hoffmann
English Linguistics
hoffmann@uni-trier.de

Focus of research:
Corpus linguistics,
Syntactic change,
The development of World Englishes,
The historical development and present-day use of tag questions,
Verb complementation,
Corpus linguistic methodology, in particular the methodological and practical issues involved in using internet-derived data for corpus linguistic analyses,
Aspects of fixedness 

Prof. Dr. Andre Klump
Romance Linguistics
klump@uni-trier.de

Focus of research:
Varieties in Hispanic America,
Grammaticalisation in French,
The bilingual Grammaire Espagnolle by César Oudin,
Language and politics in the Romance-speaking world,
Spanish in Equatorial Guinea,
Status and usage of the Ladin language,
Plurilingualism in the Franco- and Hispanophony,
Foreign language didactics at school and university 

Dr. Judith Manzoni-Luxenburger
Phonetics
manzoni@uni-trier.de

Focus of research:
Prosody: intonation of Luxembourgish,
Articulatory and acoustic phonetics contrastive: Luxembourgish/German,
Segmental & suprasegmental interferences

Prof. Dr. Claudine Moulin
German Linguistics & Trier Center for Digital Humanities 
moulin@uni-trier.de

Focus of research:
Historical linguistics,
Language change,
Grapholinguistics,
Language theory &amp cultural history,
Language contact 

Prof. Dr. Marion G. Müller
Media Science
muellermg@uni-trier.de

Forschungsschwerpunkte:
Visual communication,
Political communication,
Intercultural communication,
Crisis and conflict communication,
Visual methods

Prof. Dr. Ralf Münnich
Social Accounting
muennich@uni-trier.de

Forschungsschwerpunkte:
Survey statistics. sample designs, variance estimation and data quality in complex surveys,
Computer-intensive stastistics and Monte-Carlo-methods,
Small area estimation,
Methods for statistic indicators,
Microsimulation methods and applications,
Numeric algorithms in survey statistics 

Prof. Dr. Simon Neuberg
Yiddish Studies
neuberg@uni-trier.de

Focus of research:
Yiddish language,
Language history and literature 

Prof. Dr. Christian Nuernbergk
Media Science
nuernbergk@uni-trier.de

Focus of research:
Public media communication,
Journalism and social media,
Structures, networks and dynamics of digital publicity,
Politics/journalism interaction patterns 

Prof. Dr. Achim Rettinger
Computer Linguistics & Digital Humanities
rettinger@uni-trier.de

Focus of research:
Machine Learning of Knowledge Representations,
Semantic Technologies and Knowledge Graphs,
Natural Language Processing,
Computational Media Analytics 

Prof. Dr. Andrea Sand
English Linguistics
sand@uni-trier.de

Focus of research:
English-based pidgins and creoles,
Varieties of English; Caribbean English,
Corpus-based linguistic research 

Prof. Dr. Stephan Stein
German Linguistics
stein@uni-trier.de

Focus of research:
Phraseology and formulaicity/preformedness respectively linguistic patterns,
Dying, death and grief in language and communication,
Word formation in German,
Text linguistics and typology,
Orality and scribality

Prof. Dr. Martin Wengeler
German Linguistics
wengeler@uni-trier.de

Focus of research:
German language history after 1945,
Linguistic criticism,
Argumentation analysis,
Political language,
Linguistic discursive history,
Linguistics as cultural science 

Jun.-Prof. Dr. Katharina Zahner-Ritter
Phonetics
k.zahner-ritter@uni-trier.de

Focus of research:
Production and perception of prosody,
Cross-linguistic aspects of prosody & meaning,
Early language acquisition (phonological development),
Prosodic aspects of second language acquisition 

Early Career Researchers

The aim of the Early Career Network is to support scientific exchange and training.  We organize regular workshops and colloquia, and meet for social events. Everyone is welcome to join. Please contact us: patternscor@uni-trier.de

Doctoral Students

Associated Members