Liona Paulus

Dr. Liona Paulus is a sign language linguist and a state-certified interpreter. She completed her PhD in 2019 on conditional clauses in German Sign Language (DGS) and Brazilian Sign Language (Libras) at Georg-August University in Göttingen. She taught and researched in universities in Idstein/Frankfurt and Cologne. Since October 2023, she has been Professor of Sign Language Interpreting and Sign Languages at the Institute for German Sign Language (@idgs_uhh) at the University of Hamburg and her research focuses on the register of sign languages.

In sign languages, sociolinguistics is an emerging field, as research in this area reflects the actual linguistic reality of Deaf communities. This course covers the fundamentals of sociolinguistics, such as variation, multilingualism, multimodality, language contact and register, as well as the relevant methods already in use. However, further considerations regarding potential research methods and ethical aspects will also be discussed here.