Research
Research interests
language variation & change
language complexity
language typology & evolution
digital discourse & CMC
Research activity
My research is rooted in quantitative variationist linguistics.
Much of my research focuses on language complexity, its variation and its relationship to extra-linguistic pressures. Thus, I work at the interface of information-theory, sociolinguistics, cross-language typology, language evolution, second language acquisition research, and historical linguistics.
I am also interested in digital language use and grammatical variation in emerging registers of computer-mediated communication. Recent projects explore, for instance, subjectivity, opinion and evaluation in computer-mediated communication. This strand of research unites quantitative methods with discourse analytic and text linguistic approaches.
Current projects
Complexity, causality, change: Testing extra-linguistic triggers as causal mechanisms (CoCa)
(funded by the Baden-Württemberg Stiftung, Stuttgart, Germany)
Extra-linguistic triggers of Morphosyntactic Variation in Englishes (MoVE)
(funded by the Fritz Thyssen Foundation, Cologne, Germany)
Past projects
Language complexity meets discourse analysis: exploring the interplay of complexity and subjectivity
Are online comments like conversations? Defining a new register
(funded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Bonn/Berlin, Germany)
PhD project
An information-theoretic approach to language complexity: variation in naturalistic corpora
(funded by the Cusanuswerk, Bonn, Germany)