Distinguished Professors’ Lectures
The Distinguished Professors’ Lectures Series features internationally renowned scholars visiting the Faculty of English to share their research and professional expertise with the faculty and students.
We have had the honour to host
- Prof. Brian D. Joseph (The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio) — “Neogrammarians Revisited: Lessons to be Learned in the 21st Century from 19th Century Ideas” —
- Prof. Michael Kula (The University of Washington Tacoma, USA) — “Research, Creatively: A Bricolage Approach to Making Meaning” —
- Dr. Søren Wichmann (University of Kiel, Germany) — “On the Diversification and Spread of Languages” –
- Prof. Michael Bamberg (Clark University, Worcester) — “Identity, Storytelling, and Positioning” —
- Prof. Tom Güldemann (Humboldt University, Berlin) — “A revised assessment of linguistic diversity in Africa and some implications” —
- Prof. Horst Simon (Freie Universität Berlin) — “Early Modern Foreign Language Textbooks: Perspectives for Historical Linguistics and for the History of Knowledge” —
- Prof. Stano Kong (Tunghai University, Taiwan) — “Crosslinguistic Influence in Early L3 German: Determiner Phrase and Adjective Placement Acquisition by Chinese Speakers of Advanced English” –
- Prof. Christine Mallinson (University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC)) — “What does language do and what can we do with it?” —
- Prof. Nikolaus Ritt (University of Vienna) — “Historical linguistics in the age of AI: Why it matters” —
- Prof. Zygmunt Frajzyngier (University of Colorado, Boulder) —“Semantic structure encoded in the grammatical system and its consequences for syntax” —
- Prof. Raymond Hickey (University of Limerick) — “Life and Language Beyond Earth” —
- Prof. James Kirby (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich) — “The role of the voice in language structure” —
- Prof. Luc van Doorslaer (University of Tartu, KU Leuven) — “City Translation: The Case of Central Europe” —
- Prof. Ernst Håkon Jahr (University of Agder, Kristiansand, Norway) — “Clara Holst (1868–1935) — an important but long forgotten Norwegian linguistic and woman pioneer” —
- Prof. Mary Ellen Curtin (American University in Washington DC) — “A Black Woman Reimagines Power: Barbara Jordan And The Art Of Political Persuasion” —
- Dr. Éva Dékány (HUN-REN Hungarian Research Center for Linguistics and Eötvös University (Budapest)) — “Constituency in classifier phrases” —
- Prof. Chantal Zabus (Université Sorbonne Paris Nord), Faculty Advisory Board (FAB) Member — “Translects And Postcolonial Identity: Transgender Narratives In South African And Nigerian Autofictions” —
- Prof. Jeff Bremer (Iowa State University, USA) — “A New History of Iowa” —
- Prof. Argiris Archakis (University of Patras, Greece) — “The representations of racism in immigrant students’ essays in Greece: The “hybrid balance” between legitimizing and resistance identities” —
- Prof. dr hab. Krzysztof Jassem (AMU Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science) — “Human translator vs. machine translation - competition or cooperation?” —
2023
- Prof. Christine Mallinson (University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC)) — “Decolonization and Inclusion for a Liberatory Linguistics” — 2023-06-05
- Prof. Roel Vismans (University of Sheffield (School of Languages and Cultures)) — “Address and politeness. A theoretical exploration?” — 2023-04-18
- Prof. Trena Paulus (East Tennessee State University (ETSU)) — “Creating reflexive digital research workflows” — 2023-04-14
- Prof. Jessica Nina Lester (Indiana University Bloomington) — “Engaging Reflective Interventionist Conversation Analysis for Studying and Transforming Interactional Practices” — 2023-03-24
- Prof. Lynne Bowker (Michigan State University) — “Beyond Open Access: Can machine translation and plain language help to make research even more accessible?” — 2023-01-20
2021
- Prof. Shawn Loewen (Michigan State University) — “Online language learning: How effective is it?” — 2021-12-17
- Prof. John Harris (University College London) — “Where does phonological knowledge stop? – Simplicity versus naturalness in the learnability of phonotactic patterns” — 2021-03-26
- Prof. Ocke-Schwen Bohn (Aarhus University) — “Core aspects of the revised Speech Learning Model (SLM-r)” — 2021-01-15
2020
- Prof. Noah Riseman (Australian Catholic University in Melbourne) — “Serving in Silence? Australian LGBTI Military Service since 1945” — 2020-06-26
- Prof. Dr. Katja Sarkowsky (Augsburg University) — “The Reason You Walk": Indigenous Life Writing and Differentiated Citizenship” — 2020-02-28
- Prof. William Kretzschmar (University of Georgia, Athens) — “Language and Complex Systems in Text Analysis” — 2020-01-17
2019
- Prof. H. Floris Cohen (Utrecht University) — “Copernicus and the rise of modern science: a partly dissenting view” — 2019-11-15
- Prof. Willie Burger (University of Pretoria) — “Writing literary history in the transnational moment” — 2019-10-25
- Prof. William Kretzschmar (University of Georgia, Athens) — “Digital Humanities for Linguistics and Literature” — 2019-10-18
- Prof. Michal Starke (Masaryk University) — “From syntax to the structure of thought” — 2019-03-28
- Prof. Charles Chang (Boston University) — “Integration and dynamicity in bilingual speech perception” — 2019-03-21
- Prof. Dr. Peter Siemund (University of Hamburg) — “Are multilinguals the better academic EFL users? Evidence from a questionnaire study measuring self-assessed proficiencies” — 2019-02-27
- Prof. Adrian Holliday (Canterbury Christ Church University) — “Revisiting culture and language: Crossing borders and national identity” — 2019-01-31
2018
- Barbara M. Bernhardt and Joseph P. Stemberger (University of British Columbia) — “Investigating phonological development: An international crosslinguistic study” — 2018-11-08
- prof. Thomas H. Bak (University of Edinburgh) — “From Neuroplasticity to Terrorism” — 2018-09-25
- Prof. Bryan Reynolds (University of California, Irvine) — “Political Play: Children as Vanguards of Cultural Resistance and Change” — 2018-07-05
- Prof. Michael D. Tyler (Western Sydney University) — “Perceived phonological overlap and the discrimination of non-native phones” — 2018-06-21
- Prof. Dr. Isabelle Buchstaller (University of Duisburg-Essen) — “Language Change Across the Lifespan” — 2018-04-26
- prof. dr hab. Marta Dynel (University of Łódź) — “Humour and (Un)truthfulness” — 2018-04-19
- Prof. Ronald C. Arnett (Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) — “Crisis, Conflict and Communication Ethics” — 2018-03-15
2017
- Prof. Jacob Juntunen (Southern Illinois University) — “Making the Radical Palatable: The Political Effects of U.S. Mainstream Drama” — 2017-11-09
- Prof. Guillaume Thierry (Bangor University) — “Neuropoetry: How Shakespeare tempest the brain and how poetry catches the mind” — 2017-05-18
- Prof. Frans Hinskens (Meertens Instituut) — “Ethnolects. Where language contact, language acquisition and dialect variation meet” — 2017-03-16
2016
- Prof. Janet Schofield (University of Pittsburgh) — “Teaching and Learning as Social Processes: Insights from Social Psychology” — 2016-12-01
- Prof. Harald Clahsen (University of Potsdam) — “Morphology in Child and Adult Learners’ Spoken Language Comprehension” — 2016-11-24
- Prof. Giorgio Mariani (Sapienza University of Rome) — “Peacefighting in American Literature: from the Revolution to the Iraq War” — 2016-11-10
2015
- Prof. Lionel Posthumus (University of Johannesburg) — “Time and tense reckoning in language: Some misconceptions and some principles” — 2015-12-03
- Prof. Thomas Austenfeld (University of Fribourg) — “Robert Lowell and the History of Poetic Self-Revelation” — 2015-03-27
- Prof. Srikant Sarangi (Aalborg University) — “Communication expertise and medical/professional practice” — 2015-03-26
2014
- Prof. John Dean (University of Versailles) — “Selling America: Social Persuasion and the Deliberately Ambiguous Powers of Words & Images in U.S. Civilization” — 2014-12-04