Current PhD students

Abstract

This PhD research topic is twofold: First, it explores how protesters in Kosovo in the past and the present time have used language and discourse in the public space to advocate and negotiate social change regarding women’s rights in the country; secondly, it examines how these protests have been mediatized in the country’s news outlets and social media platforms. These two main points of inquiry will be answered using the methodological framework of LL and CDA. More particularly, the first point concerns the type of discourse strategies and linguistic devices which Kosovo Albanians have used during protests in the Kosovar linguistic landscape over the years to promote women’s rights and challenge the long-standing gender ideologies in Kosovar society. The second point of inquiry, conversely, examines the extent to which the mediatization of these protests in the country’s newspapers and social media platforms has resulted in or contributed to the cultural reconfiguration of traditional patriarchal society in Kosovo, the increase of feminism or feminine liberation, and the democratization of Kosovo’s society. The timeline for this study includes, but is not limited to, the protests which took place during 1998-2022 in Kosovo. Considering the lack of research regarding feminist discourse in Kosovo, this PhD research has the capacity to yield interesting and valuable information, as well as open path for more similar research to be conducted in the future. The contribution of this PhD research lies in documenting both the language of women’s rights’ protesters and the media’s choice of discourse to report on these protests in a highly complex setting such as Kosovo.

Supervisor: Prof. dr. Mieke Vandenbroucke (Universiteit Antwerpen) 

​Supervisor: Assist. Prof. dr. Uranela Demaj (AAB College)

Abstract

This project examines the linguistic construction of elite multilingualism in the international school. International schools are expensive and exclusive educational institutions which typically provide transnational education for expat children. In answer to the lack of academic knowledge on how language-based elitism manifests itself in/through concrete language use and on the legitimation of elite multilingualism, this project specifically looks at (i) how language-centered elitism is produced in observable linguistic practices in the school and in its policy-making; and (ii) how a hierarchization of language use is meta-pragmatically legitimized by social actors as a valuable, respectable and justifiable educational asset, in spite of its contributions to social stratification processes and the wider inequities it perpetuates in society at large. For this case study, a linguistic ethnographic and interactional sociolinguistic approach is adopted, which implies the triangulated analysis of a comprehensive dataset including but not limited to interviews, recordings of classroom interaction, policy documents, school signs, pupils’ diaries. 

Supervisor: Prof. dr. Mieke Vandenbroucke (Universiteit Antwerpen)

Co-supervisor: Prof. dr. Jürgen Jaspers (Université Libre de Bruxelles) 

Abstract

For many linguists, linguistic variation and change occurs at the level of speech communities. In this respect, variationist sociolinguists have advocated that individual speakers’ alignment with speech communities is such that individual variation can be considered to be “reduced below the level of linguistic significance” (Labov 2012: 265). However, when we ask how and why variation diffuses through a population in a specific time period it is difficult to ignore the role of individual speakers in diachronic change. As such, this project is concerned with both long-term population-level change in syntactic variation, and the role of individuality in this unstable diachronic variation. This project seeks to contribute to a theory of language as a complex adaptive system (Beckner et al. 2009), in which language is viewed as a self-organizing network which shows properties at the macro-level that are not recurrent at the individual micro-level, but nevertheless emerge out of complex behaviour at that individual level.

The time frame chosen for this project is the Late Modern English period (1700-1920). The phenomena which we focus on is variation in clausal verb complementation – in particular, the alternation/competition between finite and nonfinite complement clauses with selected Complement-Taking Predicates. The domain of verb complementation lends itself well to the study of (individual) cognitive motivations beyond population-level social factors, as syntax has been identified as a domain with many mixed-users and less social sensitivity to variation (e.g. Nevalainen et al. 2011).

The project uses data collected from 40 individuals (selected from the EMMA, ECCO-TCP and Hansard Corpora) clustered into 4 generations. Statistical analysis on the individual level and clustering methods taken from the field of Artificial Intelligence are used to investigate the following:

(i) the constraints on alternating complementation patterns found at the individual level;

(ii) the interaction between the linguistic behaviour of individuals and the (changing) distribution of grammatical variants at the population-level on the long term (across different time stages)

This is achieved through modelling the observed patterns of stability or diffusion in terms of the weakening and strengthening of grammatical and functional-semantic (cognitive) constraints within a socially homogeneous group.

The project fills the gaps in the currently available research by combining ideas from previous research in synchronic cognitive linguistics, (historical) sociolinguistics, and historical functional linguistics, with computational methods. The aim of this is to provide an account of syntactic change which carefully considers both population dynamics and formal linguistic constraints while working with a large multi-generational homogenous data set.

Supervisor: Prof. dr. Peter Petré (Universiteit Antwerpen)

Supervisor: Prof. dr. Hubert Cuyckens (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven)

Supervisor: Dr. Lauren Fonteyn (Universiteit Leiden)

Abstract

The proposed project sets out to investigate the entextualization and standardization processes in 18^th and 19^th century witness depositions and suspect interrogations used in trial cases held at Flemish courts. Additionally, it aims to advance our understanding of institutional discourse from a diachronic perspective and explore different facets of credibility in historical courtroom proceedings. The material for the study contains originally speech-based depositions committed to paper by legal scribes and used as such for the case decision-making.

The first part of the project entails an in-depth study of orality and literacy markers (Biber 1988, Chafe & Tannen 1987, Rutten & van der Wal 2014). By using both qualitative and quantitative research methods, we hope to determine whether the written depositions are credible in reflecting the spoken interaction of the actual interrogation.

For the second study, we analyze linguistic variables used to mark argumentative discourse intended to persuade the addressee (such as modal verbs, suasive verbs and conditional subordinators) and frame our findings against the background of source credibility construction (McCroskey & Young 1981, Whitehead 1968). This will allow us to explore the strategies used by speakers to establish and validate their own credibility as reporters of facts.

The third and final part of the project investigates epistemic evidentiality and aims to answer the question about the credibility of information provided by the witnesses. We set out to establish the sources of information the speakers rely on and analyze the evidential marking used to carry out different pragmatic functions.

Ultimately, we hope to arrive at a more fine-grained picture of entextualization and standardization processes and shed more light on the institutional discourse in the 18^th and 19^th century Flanders.

Supervisor: Prof. dr. Mieke Vandenbroucke (Universiteit Antwerpen)

Supervisor: Prof. dr. Rik Vosters (Vrije Universiteit Brussel)

Abstract

This project focuses on the exploitation of certain linguistic structures in order to convey a sense of unconventionality. In principle, there are countless ways in which language users of different languages can make use of the conventional properties of linguistic items (words, intonation etc.) in order to stand out, yet this project sets out to demonstrate that they can also resort to syntax for these purposes. We focus, more specifically, on three such syntactic constructions: the progressive (expressed by 'be + -ing' in English), GO-constructions, and COME-constructions. Our cross-linguistic study reveals that, irrespective of their degree of entrenchment in a given language, these constructions are being recruited not to encode, say, duration or motion, but simply to convey a sense of unconventionality. The main objective is thus to show that apparently unconventional grammatical choices are not random and unpredictable when looking at them from a cross-linguistic perspective.

Supervisor: Prof. dr. Astrid De Wit (Universiteit Antwerpen) 

Co-supervisor: Prof. dr. Peter Petré (Universiteit Antwerpen) 

Abstract

Previous research on verbal interruptions in parliaments has suggested the speaker’s gender has an influence on the quantity and quality of verbal interruptions occurring during their speech. However, the corpora investigated in these studies were far too small and none of them combined quantitative statistical methods and qualitative methods to analyse a large diachronic data set. The proposed project aims to contribute to closing this gap in research by analysing a data set of 90,000 verbal interruptions collected from the plenary protocols of the German federal parliament from three different time periods, i.e. the 1950s, 1980s and 2010s, quantitatively with regard to differences in the treatment of female and male speakers. We want to investigate whether, parallel to the increased emancipation and participation of women, (1) the frequency of interrupting female (vs. male)speakers changes, as well as (2) the way they are addressed. The qualitative analysis of a smaller data set of verbal interruptions collected from debates on the gendered topic of abortion will rely on linguistic politeness theory and will take a closer look at fine-grained differences between interruptions targeted at female and male speakers respectively. By doing this, the project hopes to lay bare how gradual but fundamental societal changes with respect to female emancipation are reflected in the linguistic dynamics of public interaction in an established political institution.

Supervisor: Prof. dr. Tanja Mortelmans (Universiteit Antwerpen)

Supervisor: Prof. dr. Reinhild Vandekerckhove (Universiteit Antwerpen) 

Abstract

Persistent and widespread conflicts exploded in many Indonesian regions in the last two decades have triggered interests in the advocacy of religious tolerance in many aspects of life. Until recently, however, the promotion of tolerance in English language classrooms had not been given massive attention it deserves. In such a pedagogical setting, tolerance as a moral value has not been adequately considered because the classes mostly focus on improving the students' linguistic proficiency. The research aims at capturing and elucidating the extent to which religious tolerance is (implicitly) incorporated in English language classrooms through the use of literature. The project attempts to scrutinize the multifaceted nexus of tolerance, intercultural competence, and English language teaching, the use of literature, and the extent to which they intertwine with English lecturers’ identity as moslems teaching in an Islamic university. This interdisciplinary research brings together critical perspectives of applied linguistics, literature, and education. The research applies critical paradigm in the field of ELT in which English language classrooms are seen as potential educational spheres that should lead the students to be aware of their social responsibility, learning and acting for a better world that upholds respect, tolerance, equality, and solidarity among people of diverse cultural backgrounds. This qualitative research employs Linguistic Ethnography (LE) approach. The ‘case’ of teaching tolerance through literature is studied in the daily, natural ELT practices in an Indonesian Islamic Higher Education. As the research setting is already familiar to the researcher, the use of LE approach is likely to facilitate him to (re)problematize the prevalent discourses and traditions of ELT in the institution, justify his immersion to the research context to collect and review field data while keeping a distance to reduce blind subjectivity (consider the principles of ‘making the strange familiar’ and ‘making the familiar strange’), and find tacit-yet-important patterns of the incorporation of tolerance through literature in the mundane ELT practices. The research focuses on classroom interaction, scrutinizing teacher-learner talk-in interaction in English language classrooms that leads to achievement of the institutional ‘primary’ aim (to improve students’ English language proficiency) and its ‘hidden’ agenda (to introduce religious tolerance). Orientation towards institutional goals is the main characteristic of classroom interaction, which determines the turn-taking organization, repair, and sequence performed by both the teacher and the learners during the systematic classroom talks. The data are collected through participant observation, interview with the lecturers (informal, semi-structured, individual), document study of the educational policies, curriculum, and syllabus, and group discussion with students. The interactional data are examined using Conversation Analysis as developed by, for example, Flanders (1970), Byrne (1987), and Walsh (2011). 

Supervisor: Prof. dr. Tom Smits (Universiteit Antwerpen)

Co-supervisor: Prof. dr. Mieke Vandenbroucke (Universiteit Antwerpen)

Co-supervisor: Prof. dr. Helge Daniëls (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven) 

Abstract

Descriptive and acquisitional studies on discourse markers (DM) tend to distinguish between connectives used in expository-argumentative written texts (e.g. however, in addition, therefore), and DM used in conversation (e.g.wel/, you know, so). Connective devices used in different/other discourse genres do not usually receive the same attention (González Condom 2004). Moreover, acquisition studies mostly focus on a series of elements previously defined as discourse markers in the target language leaving aside expressions fulfilling an analogous function in non-native discourse.

The goal of this project is twofold: first, we analyze the devices used for modal and discourse marking used by non-native speakers of Spanish in unplanned oral narratives. Secondly, we propose a didactic intervention for the teaching of these elements/DM in the Spanish as a foreign language classroom. To do this, we will compare two different corpora: the narratives produced by native speakers of Spanish, and those produced by intermediate (B2) Spanish learners (L1 Dutch). Native texts will be selected from the Corpus Audiovisual Plurilingüe, CAP (Multilingual Audiovisual Corpus) (Payrató and Fitó 2008). This corpus consists of 360 texts produced by 12 informants whose L1 is Catalan and/or Spanish. Non-native oral narratives will be collected in a non -Spanish-speaking context, more specifically, our L2 corpus will be produced by Dutch-speaking students from the University of Antwerp (levels A2, B1, B2, C1).

From a methodological point of view, this research proposes two major innovations.  First, it will be based on a broad functional definition of modal and discourse marking (Cuenca 2006, 2013, Gras et al. 2020), which identifies three major discourse functions: Propositional, Structural, andModal. On the one hand, this definition allows to account for elements that work bath at the discourse and at the sentence level. On the other hand, it also allows to account for non-canonical L2 forms/DM (¿cómo decir?=how to say?, sí=yes) which serve to perform one of the three mentioned discursive macro-functions. Our approach is also innovative in that we use form-function correspondences as a tool to analyze L2 learners' use of DM. We will discriminate between cases in which learners and native speakers use the same markers to perform the same functions (such as porque (=because) tor expressing cause in L1 and L2 Spanish), and cases when a form is used for the expression of a specific function (such as casual como (=since) in L1 Spanish, or causa! por eso (=/or that (reason) in L2 Spanish). Following this vein, L2 form and functions are considered non-canonical based on actual comparison with actual L1 uses.

Supervisor: Prof. dr. Pedro Gras (Universiteit Antwerpen)

Co-supervisor: Prof. dr. Elisa Rosado (Universidad de Barcelona)

Abstract

In this project, we focus on the use of English as a lingua franca, in both same-language or interpreted communication, as a linguistic mediation strategy between an institutional officer and a non-Belgian applicant in a high-stakes institutional procedure: the marriage fraud investigation. In doing so, we topicalise not only the impact of hybridity and variation in (interpreted) spoken language use and its written reflection as evidence in the case report on the multi-phased investigation, but also the degree of (meta- )linguistic and language ideological awareness by the institution and its officers of the complexitiesinherently at play when adopting English as a(n) (interpreted) language in Belgian institutional casework.

Supervisor: Prof. dr. Mieke Vandenbroucke (Universiteit Antwerpen) 

Supervisor: Prof. dr. Frank Brisard (Universiteit Antwerpen)

Abstract

This project examines interpreting practices in marriage fraud investigations conducted by Belgian authorities, in which a complex chain of interviews and reports results in the decision whether a transnational couple's marriage application is genuine or fake. Both professional and non-professional interpreters are relied on to interpret the statements and answers given by the applicants not proficient enough in Dutch or French during an interview with a municipal officer and later on with a police officer. During the interpreter-mediated interaction, a written statement and interview report is noted down by the interviewer. The project incorporates two analytical foci, each of which entailing a PhD project: one about the spoken interpreting practice and one about the role of the interpreter in the entextualised codification of spoken evidence. The descriptive objectives pertain to the role of the interpreter in their spoken interpreting practice and the cross-sectional differentiation in entextualisation involvement. The theoretical objective of the project aims to further our understanding of how the context and function of an interpreter-mediated encounter influences the behaviour of the interpreter, irrespective of his/her professional status. The project's final, applied objective is to increase awareness of the significant role and complexities involved in interpreter selection and entextualisation in marriage fraud investigations by Belgian authorities.

Supervisor: Prof. dr. Mieke Vandenbroucke (Universiteit Antwerpen) 

Co-supervisor: Prof. dr. Bart Defrancq (Universiteit Gent) 

Abstract

The default function of a present-tense construction would appear to be locating situations at the time of speaking. Yet language-specific and contrastive research has demonstrated that, in various languages, the present tense turns out to do anything but evoke the time of speaking when it combines with event verbs. This phenomenon, called the "present perfective paradox", has been analyzed as a consequence of the interaction of the present tense with specific types of aspectual constructions which convey a bounded perspective on a situation. The current project sets out to analyze the manifestation of the present perfective paradox in a typologically adequate sample of languages. On the one hand, the project has descriptive objectives: it will chart the characteristics of present-tense constructions and the way they interact with different types of aspect, on the basis of existing grammars, questionnaires and advanced elicitation techniques. This description will provide a unique perspective on the meaning types that can be expressed by means of so-called present-tense constructions across languages. In addition to these descriptive goals, the project aims to offer theoretical contributions to the study of tense and aspect across languages, as it will provide cognitive-functional explanations for the patterns attested, both cross-linguistically and within specific languages. Ultimately, this typological investigation will allow us to come up with a semantic connectivity map, reflecting theoretically plausible patterns of polysemy and diachronic change for present-tense constructions.

Supervisor: Prof. dr. Astrid De Wit (Universiteit Antwerpen)​

Abstract

Service encounters have been defined as oral or written interactions in which a transaction takes place between a service provider (e.g. a salesperson or a counter clerk) and a service seeker (e.g. a customer or a visitor) (Félix-Brasdefer 2015). They are considered institutional interactions because they concern asymmetric task- and goal-oriented interactions between a representative of an institutionalized setting and an ‘ordinary’ participant, i.e. the service seeker (Drew & Heritage 1992, Márquez-Reiter & Bou-Franch 2017).

In spite of their task- and goal-orientedness, interactions in service encounters are hardly ever restricted to mere transactional talk. Generally, they also contain a more or less significant proportion of speech that is, strictly speaking, not obligatory for the transaction to take place, but essentially serves to smoothen the interpersonal relationship between the interlocutors (Kerbrat-Orecchioni 2005). This kind of ‘relational work’ covers the negotiation of face through politeness strategies (e.g. the attenuation of requests (Brown & Levinson 1987)) but it also includes more creative, individualised social talk such as small talk, humour and language play (Félix-Brasdefer 2015).

The strong presence and the repetitive, rule-bound nature of this relational component has been interpreted as evidence for the existence of normative expectations regarding interactional practices in such situations (e.g. Kerbrat-Orecchioni 2005, Márquez-Reiter & Bou-Franch 2017). It has also led researchers to adopt a cross-cultural perspective, examining to which extent these normative expectations may vary between different ‘lingua cultures’ (Márquez-Reiter & Bou-Franch 2017), mostly understood as ‘language communities’ (Schneider & Barron 2008) and/or ‘national groups’ (Spencer-Oatey & Franklin 2009) speakers belong to.

This cross-cultural perspective is at the heart of our research project. More specifically, our research will focus on Belgium – an understudied region in Politeness theory despite being located at the intersection of Romance and Germanic cultures – by analysing oral interactions between employees and visitors of tourists offices in Flanders and Wallonia, compared to the neighbouring countries the Netherland and France. This way, we will examine whether language cultures prevail over national cultures and vice versa and, in this case, if and to what extent the Belgian regions are united by the same ‘belgitude’ as far as communication/interaction is concerned.

Moreover, although many studies on service encounters described differences between (national) ‘lingua-cultures’ and between regional varieties of the same language, until now, no studies have cogently addressed the question to which extent ‘lingua-culture’ truly matters. Typically, cultural differences are studied separately from other macro- and micro-social factors, leaving interactions with those variables out of the picture. Therefore, our research will examine the relative weight of potential impact factors such as (sub)nationality, language, gender and age in order to uncover to which extent (sub)national culture is actually a relevant structuring factor in human communicative behaviour.

In concrete terms, this study will examine which pragma-linguistic strategies interlocutors use in realising ‘relational work’ in specific parts of the service encounter: request-sequences, openings, closings and the core of the interaction. Furthermore, our research will also determine how features of relational work correlate and evolve between the different building blocks of the interaction. For these purposes, a mixed methods design will be used: the qualitative analysis consists of (i) interpretative work during the annotation of the textual data and (ii) ethnographic documentation of the research in order to explain outliers and other deviant results. The quantitative analysis is also twofold: (i) the influence of individual social parameters on the pragma-linguistic response variables will be measured on the basis of bivariate analyses whilst (ii) generalised linear (mixed) models will be used in order to examine which factors have the strongest impact and how these factors interact with each other.

​Supervisor: Prof. dr. Els Tobback (Universiteit Antwerpen)​

Supervisor: Prof. dr. Mieke Vandenbroucke (Universiteit Antwerpen) 

Supervisor: Prof. dr. Reinhild Vandekerckhove (Universiteit Antwerpen) 

Abstract

In recent years, there has been an increased interest in linguistic landscape research, particularly in multilingual and multi-ethnic settings, as it symbolizes the spiritual and historical culture of the nation and its ethnic groups. In this Ph.D. project, I will focus on the current status of minority languages' use in linguistic landscapes in China by examining Kazuo (Mongolian Autonomous Region) and Yanji (Korean Autonomous Region). The over-arching research questions for this Ph.D. project are:

1. What are the characteristics of the linguistic landscapes of Yanji and Kazuo?

2. Does translanguaging occur in Yanji and Kazuo's linguistic landscapes, and if so what is its geographical distribution and linguistic manifestation?

3. Why does translanguaging occur in the linguistic landscapes of Yanji and Kazuo and how is it used by sign authors and interpreted by sign readers?

The study adopts a mixed-method approach. The field observation method of photographing will yield a corpus of photographic data of instances of multilingual language use, and then the corpus will be quantitatively analysed. In addition, qualitative methods to gauge perceptions and opinions will be applied, including semistructured interviews and qualitative in-depth questionnaires, aiming to include both the perspectives of the sign authors and the sign readers in the emergence of multilingual signs.

From the study, it is believed that protecting minority languages from the perspective of the linguistic landscape is essential. Hopefully, the results of the Ph.D. project will lead to the formulation of references and recommendations for language policy measures concerning ethnic minorities in China.

 
Supervisor: Prof. dr. Mieke Vandenbroucke (Universiteit Antwerpen)
Co-supervisor: Prof. dr. Dieter Vermandere (Universiteit Antwerpen)