Phonology-Morphology Interfaces in English and German
Rhetoric & Stylistics
A Linguistic Approach to Political, Social, and Cultural Opposition: The Case of Texas Germans
The Acquisition of English and German
Introduction to Synchronic Linguistics of English and German
Contrastive Lexical Semantics
Language Contact and Language Death
Contrastive Syntax of English and German: A Construction Grammar Perspective
Expanding Construction Grammar and Frame Semantics
Frame Semantics
Undergraduate Courses
Introduction to Language
Language and Society in the German-speaking Countries
Introduction to Germanic Linguistics
Advanced German Grammar
Language and Politics
Documentation and Analysis of Texas German
Sprache und Politik (‘Language and Politics’)
The Texas-German Experience
The Texas German Dialect
German I
German II
Former Ph.D. Students
David James, Ph.D. 2003 (“The Second Generation: Language Use among Migrants in Berlin”). Currently employed as Lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania.
Heiko Wiggers, Ph.D. 2005 (“Dialect Death on the German/Dutch border”). Currently employed as an Associate Professor at Wake Forest University (tenured). After a severe illness, Heiko unfortunately passed away in April of 2024.
Karen Roesch, Ph.D. 2009 (“Texas Alsatian: Henri Castro’s Legacy”). Currently employed as Assistant Professor, Hoyt-Reichmann Scholar of German-American Studies, and Director of the Max Kade German American Resource Center at Indiana University – Purdue University at Indianapolis.
James Kearney, Ph.D. 2010 (“Friedrichsburg by Friedrich Armand Strubberg: Translated and Annotated by James C. Kearney”). Co-supervision with Janet Swaffar. Currently employed as lecturer at the University of Texas at Austin.
Guido Halder, Ph.D. 2011 (“A frame-semantic approach to selectional restrictions in German Support Verb Constructions: The case of [in X geraten]”). Currently employed as Assistant Professor at Washington and Jefferson College.
Anja Moehring, Ph.D. 2013 (“Argument marking with prepositions in German: A constructional approach to ‘auf’ (‘on’)”). Currently employed as lecturer at Baylor University.
Maggie Gemmell, Ph.D. 2015 (“Semantic role alignment in metaphor: A frame semantic approach to metaphoric meaning.”) Currently employed as Adjunct Instructor of German in the Division of Humanities and Culture at Southern Oregon University.
David Huenlich, Ph.D. 2016 (“The roots of multiethnolects: Effects of migration on the lexicon and speech of German”). Currently employed as a junior researcher at the Catholic University Eichstaett, Germany.
Ryan Dux, Ph.D. 2016 (“A usage-based approach to verb classes in English and German”). Visiting Assistant Professor of German and Linguistics at Bucknell University (2016-17), Mellon-Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute for the German Language (2017-2018), Employed as Assistant Professor (tenure-track) at Sam Houston State University (since 2018).
Annika VanNoy, Ph.D. 2017 (“Culture-specific aspects of semantic frames in multilingual frame descriptions”). Employed outside of academia.
Alexander Lorenz, Ph.D. 2018 (“Beliefs about grammar instruction among post-secondary second-language learners and teachers”). Employed as Assistant Professor (tenure track) at the University of South Carolina (Upstate) (since 2018).
Margo Blevins, Ph.D. 2022 (“The language-tagging & orthographic normalization of German-language contact varieties“). Employed as postdoctoral researcher at the University of Texas at Austin (since 2022).
Matthias Warmuth, Ph.D. 2023 (“Phonological convergence and variation in a dying language variety: The case of Texas German”).
Ellen Jones Schoedler, Ph.D. 2025 (““De Spraak achter Pott un Ploog: Gender and Identity in the Maintenance and Loss of Low German”).
Advising of visiting postdoctoral researchers
Bin Zhang, Dresden University of Technology, Germany. Research: Implementation of Construction Grammar in the foreign language classroom with a specific focus on pedagogical approaches to teaching German (Deutsch als Fremdsprache). (September 2025)
Laura Guse, University of Frankfurt, Germany. Research: Motion Constructions in Texas German. (March-April 2025)
Joren Somers, University of Ghent, Belgium. Research: Case marking on subjects. (Oct. 2024 – Sept. 2025)
Jun Li, Lecturer, Central China Normal University, P.R. China. Research: Construction Grammar, Corpus Linguistics, Cognitive Linguistics. (2024-2025)
Yubin Qian, Associate Professor, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, P.R. China. Research: Corpus-based narrative study: Discourse modeling from a multidimensional perspective. (August 2013 – February 2024).
Yu Miao, Assistant Professor, Sichuan University, Chengdu, P.R. China. Research: Multilingual Motivation in Second Language Learning. (August 2023 – July 2024)
Sun Yu, Associate Professor, Heilongjang Bayi Agricultural University, P.R. China. Research: Cultural pragmatics, second language acquisition. (January 2023 – December 2023)
Wu Wei, Professor, Zhongkai University of Agriculture and Engineering, P.R. China. Research: Psycholinguistics, lexical semantics, second language acquisition. (March 2023 – February 2024).
Verena Sauer, Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin, University of Kiel, Germany. Research: German Dialectology, Language Contact, Frame Semantics. (October 2022-October 2023).
Jun Li, Lecturer, Central China Normal University, P.R. China. Research: Construction Grammar, Corpus Linguistics, Cognitive Linguistics. (2019-2020; research stay interrupted by Covid-19 pandemic, March 2020)
Wang Yagang, Lecturer, Ningbo University, P.R. China. Research: Cognitive-functional linguistics, constructionalization, evaluative constructions. (July 2019 – March 2020).
Ayodele Ayotunde, Associate Professor, Lagos State University, Nigeria. Research: Discourse Analysis and Online Communication. (August 2019)
Zhan Min, Associate Professor, Zhejian Financial College, P.R. China. Research: Critical Discourse Analysis. (May 2019 – August 2019).
Yuanyuan Huang, Lecturer, China Pharmaceutical University, P.R. China. Research: Construction Grammar and Second Language Acquisition. (Dec. 2018 – Dec. 2019).
Zhou Xiatao, Lecturer, Shanxi University, P.R. China. Research: Semantics, Cognitive Linguistics, Psycholinguistics, Language Testing. (August 2018 – August 2019).
Wang Xiaohui, Lecturer, Ningbo University, P.R. China. Research: Construction Grammar and idiomatic constructions. (October 2018 – April 2019).
Hasebe Yoichiro, Associate Professor, Doshisha University, Japan. Research: Cognitive Linguistics, Construction Grammar, Contrastive Linguistics, Corpus Linguistics. (August 2018 – August 2019).
Zhang Xiangming, Associate Professor, Guangdong University of Finance and Economics. P.R. China. Research: Bilingual Lexicography, Lexical Semantics, Contrastive Linguistics.(August 2018 – August 2019)
Han Guochun, Lecturer, Hangzhou Dianzi University, P.R. China. Research: Second Language Acquisition and Assessment, CALL, Corpus Linguistics, Cognitive Linguistics.(August 2018 – August 2019).
Thomas Schmidt, Director of the Division of Spoken Language Corpora, Institute for the German Language, Mannheim, Germany. Research: Archiving of Spoken Data (February – April 2018)
Duan Shi-ping, Associate Professor, Zhongyuan University of Technology, P.R. China. Research: Lexicography, Corpus Linguistics, Second language acquisition. (August 2017 – August 2018)
Hsu Ting-Ting, Assistant Professor, Chung Yuan Christian University, Taiwan. Research: Cognitive Linguistics, Corpus Linguistics, Contrastive Analysis. (July 2017 – July 2018).
Liu Jiang, Associate Professor, Dalian University, P.R. China. Research: Cognitive Linguistics, Construction Grammar, Contrastive Linguistics. (April 2017 – April 2018).
Karen Roesch, Assistant Professor, IUPUI, Indianapolis, IN. Research: German language Islands (August-December 2017).
Ruiliang Tang, Associate Professor, Southwest University, P.R. China. Research: Cnstruction Grammar and Language Change. (February 2016 – February 2017).
Fujikawa Katsuya. Associate Professor, University of Toyama, Japan. Research: Cognitive Linguistics and Construction Grammar. (September 2016-September 2017)
Katharina Mucha, Postdoctoral researcher, Paderborn University, Germany. Research: Cognitive Sociolinguistics and Construction Grammar. (Sept. 2016 – August 2017).
Shen Lei, Associate Professor, Nanjing Xiaozhuang University, PR China. Research: Pragmatics and Cognitive Linguistics. (September 2016 – August 2017).
Liu Qi, Associate Professor, Hangzhou Dianzi University, PR China. Research Topic: Contrastive Construction Grammar. (August 2015 – June 2016).
Shuguang Li, Associate Professor, Nanjing Normal University, PR China. Research Topic: Construction Grammar, FrameNet, and language teaching. (August 2014-August 2015).
Guo Xia, Lecturer, University of Sichuan, PR China. Research Topic: Resultative Constructions in Chinese. (August 2014 – July 2015)
Jianing He, Professor, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, PR China. Research Topic: Business English FrameNet dictionary for Chinese learners. (August 2014 – July 2015).
Heiko Wiggers, Assistant Professor, Wake Forest University, North Carolina. Research Topic: German language islands. (August – December 2012)
Liusheng Xi, Associate Professor, Wenzhou University, PR China. Research Topic: Resultative constructions in Chinese. (January – May 2012)
Soojung Kim, Assistant Professor, Changwon National University, S. Korea. Research Topic: Phonetics of English and Korean / Maritime Language. (August 2011 – May 2012)
Rove Chishman, Associate Professor, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Lingüística Aplicada Unisinos, Brazil. Research topic: Multilingual Lexicography. (January – May 2009)
Chin-Do Kim, Associate Professor, Department of Germanic Languages and Literature, Konkuk University, South Korea. Research topic: Polysemy of Korean and German Adjectives and Prepositions. (January – May 2002)
Advising of visiting Ph.D. students
Hong Xia, Ph.D. student, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, Guangzhou, P.R. China. Research: Cognitive Linguistics, Second Language Acquisition (Oct. 2024 – Sept. 2025).
Caroline Reher, Ph.D. student, Technical University of Dortmund, Germany. Research: Relative clauses in Chilean German, Namibian German, and Texas German (March – April 2023).
Silu Siltaloppi, Ph.D. student, University of Helsinki, Finland. Research: Construction Grammar and Sign Languages. (September – November 2019).
Mansoureh Delaramifar, Ph.D. student, Sistan and Baluchistan University, Islamic Republic of Iran. Research: Computational Linguistics, Lexical Semantics, Historical Linguistics, Dialectology. (February – August 2018).
Diego Spader de Souza. Ph.D. student, Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos, Brazil. Research: Frame Semantics, Cognitive Linguistics, Digital Lexicography. (September 2017 – January 2018).
Tatiane Silva Tavares, Ph.D. student, Federal University of Juiz de For a, Brazil. Research: Frame Semantics, Construction Grammar, Lexicography, Machine Translation. (August 2017-December 2017).
Deng Lin, Ph.D. candidate, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, P.R. China. Research: Lexicography, Corpus Linguistics, Lexical Semantics. (August 2017 – August 2018)
Mayowa Akinlotan, Ph.D. student, Free University of Brussels, Belgium. Research: New Englishes and Corpus Linguistics (May 2017-May 2018).
Gan Qingfeng, Ph.D. student at Shanghai University, PR China. Research topic: Contrastive Construction Grammar. (August 2015 – August 2016).
Anna Shadrova, Ph.D. student at the Humboldt-University Berlin. Research topic: Verbs and constructions in German as a foreign language. (March – June 2015).
Alba Luzondo, Ph.D. student at the University of La Rioja, Spain. Research topic: “Construction grammar and Frame Semantics.” Stay sponsored by the Spanish ministry of education. (Aug. – Dec. 2010. )
Nuria Del Camo Martinez, Ph.D. student at the University of La Rioja, Spain. Research topic: “Construction grammar and Frame Semantics.” Stay sponsored by the Spanish ministry of education. August–December 2010.
Anderson Bertoldi, Ph.D. student at UNISONOS University, Brazil. Research topic: “Multilingual FrameNets.” Stay sponsored by Brazilian Federal Research Agency CAPES.(Jan. 2010–Dec. 2010).
Han-Chun Huang, Ph.D. student at the National Tsung Hua University, Taiwan. Research topic: “Resultative Constructions in Mandarin, Taiwanese, and Hakka.” Stay sponsored by the Taiwanese Science Foundation. (September 2006-April 2007).
New publication in the Yearbook of German American Studies! A co-authored paper on Exploring Past and Present Texas German Voices, written together with Jana Weiss, Margo Blevins and Verena Sauer.
October 27th, 2025
This week, I’m happy to welcome Rufus H. Gouws (Stellenbosch University) to UT Austin to give a talk on “Dictionary structures in the transition from print to online lexicographic products” and to advise on our ongoing project to compile a dictionary of Texas German.
Today, I gave a plenary talk at the wonderful German Abroad 6 conference: “Kontakt und Wandel des Deutschen in Texas im Kontakt mit dem Englischen.” (‘Contact and change in Texas German in contact with English’). Porto Alegre, Brazil. October 1-3, 2025.
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