Expertise

My primary research areas include second/foreign language acquisition and development (with a special focus on L2 German and formulaic language), study abroad, L2 pragmatics, intercultural pragmatics, and professional communication.

Technique

I use both quantitative and qualitative research methods.

Users

language teachers, researchers, journalists

Keywords

German, Pragmatics, Applied linguistics

My research is primarily informed by a cognitive-functional and usage-based approach to language, combined with a pragmatic focus on the analysis of actual language in use, mainly via the use of corpora. My main interests include tense/aspect/modality (in a variety of languages), the interface between grammatical constructions and pragmatics, and cognitive and “constructional” theories of grammar.

Technique

I have experience in the analysis of (written/spoken) corpora, including in languages other than English (e.g., pidgins/creoles), for the purpose of extracting meaningful patterns of use, in particular with regard to the use of grammatical constructions. I am also familiar with semantic analyses in a variety of linguistic frameworks, including Cognitive Grammar and Construction Grammar.

Users

Researchers in (applied) linguistics, including in such domains as language acquisition and learning, language disorders, anthropology/ethnography, organization studies, forensic linguistics, etc.

Keywords

Semantic change, English language, Corpus linguistics, Pragmatics, Tense/aspect, Cognitive grammar, General linguistics

I am a linguist interested in health communication. I study how patients, health providers, and people in general talk about health, illness and the body in clinical communication, in the media and in digital communication.

Technique

Discourse analysis Interaction analysis Qualitative coding Corpus-assisted discourse analysis Interview analysis Software: NVivo, Atlas.TI, MaxQDA, Antconc, Wordsmith, SketchEngine

Users

Linguists Health professionals/providers journalists interested in health care and health communication

Keywords

Language and culture, Health communication, Health

The central question of my research is how language users can constitute a representation of the world (or other fictive worlds) in and through their use of language, how they can refer to elements of the world (or fictive worlds) and how they can communicate about it. To answer these questions, I conduct or (mainly with respect to (iv)) develop research into (i) the meaning and use of expressions that contribute to reference or (as I prefer to call it) to the constitution of the world (or fictive worlds): - (mainly) French definite articles and demonstratives - (mainly) French markers of tense, aspect and mood - (mainly) French spatial prepositions (ii) theories of meaning and reference and on the relationship between the two, and more in particular on cognitive and semantic/pragmatic theories about - the “flexibility” of meaning - metaphor - implicatures (iii) the historical development of the expressions referred to under (i), amongst others within the framework of approaches to grammaticalization and theories of historical semantics (Blank, Koch, Geeraerts, etc.) (iv) more concrete applications, amongst others by looking into - the “framing” of messages - contextualisation and intertextuality - the application of (cognitive/usage-based) linguistics in teaching language (and linguistics)

Technique

Standard research methods in linguistics

Users

Linguists and other uses who are professionally or by their research interested in language and meaning.

Keywords

Semantic change, French language, General linguistics, Linguistic meaning and interpretation

1) Linguistic (distributional, semantic, pragmatic) analysis of mainly French data : evidential and epistemico-modal markers (tenses, verbs, prepositions, adverbs, ...), reported speech markers, tenses (modal-evidential uses of the conditional, futur tense), spatial prepositions, pairs of synonyms. 2) Epistemological and methodological study of linguistic notions (and there mutual relations) like : evidentiality and epistemic modality (notional differences, identification criteria for markers), enunciative commitment (conceptions), dialogism or linguistics polyphony (theories).

Technique

Corpusanalysis

Users

French linguists, journalists, students

Keywords

French language, French linguistics, Modality, Commitment, Evidentiality, Polyphony, Prepositions

I am a cognitive linguist with a keen interest in the semantics of grammatical constructions, primarily within the domain of tense, aspect and modality. Why, for instance, do speakers of Dutch prefer to say "Zit niet zo te zeuren" rather than "Zeur niet"? Or how come McDonald's chose "I'm loving it" as a slogan rather than "I love it"? What do these observations reveal about the function of language as a social and communicative toolkit? What is their cross-linguistic relevance? And in what way do our grammatical choices reflect general cognitive principles? In order to address these questions, I study natural-language data from a variety of languages, including (varieties of) English, Dutch, French and Slavic languages, both from a contemporary and a historical perspective. I model my analyses within a cognitive-semantic and cross-linguistically informed theoretical framework.

Technique

Corpus linguistics Native speaker surveys Fieldwork

Users

Students Language teachers Researchers

Keywords

English linguistics, General linguistics, Tense and aspect

1. Linguistics Analysis Analysis and description of grammatical phenomena, especially in the grammar/discourse interface (discourse markers, reference markers, conversation structure). 2. Foreign language teaching Syllabi and curriculum design of Spanish as a foreign language courses. Creation of Spanish as a foreign language learning materials, both textbooks and audiovisual materials (Difusión, SGEL). Creation of reference grammars for specific language users (Difusión). 3. Academic and Professional discourse Syllabi design of Academic and Professional Spanish courses (legal, tecnological, business). Creation of Academic and Professional Spanish learning materials (Ariel, Edicions UOC). Diagnose of discourse pathologies for specific professional groups (legal, tecnological). 4. Critical Discourse Analysis Linguistic analysis of socially relevant phenomena, with special interest in sex and gender.

Technique

Qualitative corpus analysis (written, spoken, learners corpus, professional discourse corpus).

Users

Researchers in different areas (especially Social Studies) in which discourse analysis can be an analytical tool. Professionals of different areas who need assistance on writing skills. Professionals of foreign language teaching (publishers, language schools, teachers).

Keywords

Communication skills training, Discourse analysis, Discourse, Language teaching, Language acquisition, Language for specific purposes, Grammar, Discourse particles

Emmanuelle Labeau joined the University of Antwerp in September 2024 as Professor of French Synchronic Linguistics. Until then, her whole career took place at Aston University (Birmingham, UK) that she joined on an initial 9-month contract as French Language Colloquial Assistant. The struggles her students encountered in using the French past tenses spurred her into starting a PhD on the acquisition of French past tenses by L1 English learners. Over the years, she has held research leadership positions including research enhancer for Languages, Translation and History and Director of the Aston Centre for Applied Linguistics where she launched CLIL Mondays, a monthly online seminar on content and language integrated learning, and hosted the Aston Interpreters Network. Emmanuelle has published extensively on the French verbal system from various perspectives: acquisition, evolution, variation... Her research has dealt with past tenses (including a recent monograph on the French simple past), come- and go-periphrases in a dozen of articles with Jacques Bres (Montpellier 3), and diatopic and diamesic variation with colleagues in North America such as Helene Blondeau (University of Florida) and Mireille Tremblay (Universite de Montreal). Emmanuelle's research is anchored in authentic documents and she launched with Anne Dister (St Louis / UCL)the Corpus de francais parle a Bruxelles (sister corpus of the Parisian CFPP2000) that has received funding from the British Academy, the Delegation generale a la langue francaise et aux langues de France and the FNRS. Emmanuelle was one of three national fellows for the future of language(s) research whose remit was to advise the Arts and Humanities Research Council on future funding directions. Emmanuelle's project, Birmingham Research for Upholding Multilingualism (BRUM), looked at the presence of and need for languages in the superdiverse context of Birmingham and resulted in collaboration with the City Council and the National Health Services. In Britain, Emmanuelle was a leading advocate for multilingualism and held several high profile positions including French Studies Representative at the University Council for Languages and Vice-President UK affairs of the Association for French Language Studies, She sat on the committees of the Society for French Studies, AUPHF+, AMLUK and UCGAL. Emmanuelle's current research focuses on the expression of the future, the use of tenses in advanced French such as social media and AI generated text. As in Birmingham, Emmanuelle is looking forward to making her research relevant to Antwerp, by exploring the position of French and multilingualism in the City. Emmanuelle speaks fluent English and French, and is working hard on developing her school Dutch!

Technique

Emmanuelle trained in Belgium and the UK and her work combines research in the Francophone and Anglo-Saxon traditions. Her work mixes theoretical insights from Guillaume, Damourette and Pichon and neo-Reichenbachian approaches with variationist sociolinguistics, Her work is anchored in authentic language, and she has explored a vast array of texts including sports reports, political speeches, weather forecasts, horoscopes and more. Emmanuelle delights in involving her students in real-life research projects, and the continuous interaction of research and teaching is her trademark.

Users

Emmanuelle is an expert in French language and linguistics, and she is interested in language-related issues in Contemporary society. She has taught modules on the History of the French Language, feminisation and neutral language, the linguistic conflict in Belgium, regional varieties of French and linguistic landscapes. She ran an international training network on content and language integrated learning; she worked with Birmingham City Council and the National Health Services to train civil servants in working with an interpreter and she acted as a research assessor in Belgium, Canada, France and the UK. Emmanuelle is happy to work with teachers, social servants, health professional or refugees alike on language-related matters. She has also done some work with the press.

Keywords

Language multimedia, Vulnerable groups, French language, Standard language

- Corpus linguistic expertise with respect to the use of modal verbs, future auxiliaries and aspectual markers in German, English an Dutch. - Various aspects of German grammar (from a descriptive perspective) - German grammar teaching - Gender (in its different meanings: Genus, Sexus and social gender) and language

Technique

Corpus linguistics

Users

Journalists, other researchers, students of German

Keywords

Modality, Corpus linguistics, Linguistics, Corpus-research, Teaching, Aspect, German linguistics, Modal verbs

Diachrony of Dutch and other Germanic languages, with main focus on semantic change in the domain of modal exspressions. Semantic analysis of modality and related categories.

Technique

Corpus analysis.

Users

Researchers.

Keywords

Semantic change, Dutch linguistics, General linguistics

My primary focus in research revolves around a functional and usage-based perspective on language. I am particularly interested in variation across geographical regions and the interaction between grammatical and pragmatics.

Technique

Corpus analysis

Users

Researchers

Keywords

Spanish as a foreign language, Spanish, Language contact, Language courses, Language acquisition, Spanish language

Language change. Broad expertise on, mostly, English (all periods, both at the aggregate level and that of individual mental grammars), but also (selectively) Dutch, German, French, and language change generally. Quantitative and qualitative corpus methods, including scripting (Perl), concordancing software, statistics (R), best practices.

Technique

Language change is researched by processing and analyzing actual language use: compilation of balanced/representative corpora, retrieval of data by means of regular expressions or parsing, analysis of retrieved data along various functional/semantic and formal parameters (both manual and automated), development of customized research to answer specific theoretical challenges.

Users

Linguists, members of the Digital Humanities community, historians, literary scholars.

Keywords

Historical linguistics, Cognitive grammar, Cognition, Philology, Corpus linguistics, Grammaticalisation, English language

I. Educational Sciences (1) German and English Teaching Methodology: German and English as a Foreign Language (DaF, TEFL) (2) Multilingual education: Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) (3) General pedagogy: urban education, multiple perspective learning, differentiated instruction II. Linguistics (1) Applied linguistics (cf I.) (2) Variational linguistics of German

Technique

Research methods in Education and Applied Linguistics: - qualitative and ethnographic research (observation, interview, CA, grounded theory) - case studies - (quasi-)experiments - meta-analysis and reviews - action research - mixed methods Research Methods in Variational Linguistics: - Empirical Research: survey, interview - Corpus Analysis

Users

- Teacher Educators - Language Teachers and Learners - (Applied and variational) Linguists

Keywords

Language variation, Applied linguistics, Foreign language learning

Synchronic syntactic-semantic variation in Italian dialects. Sociolinguistic aspects of Italian dialects. Grammaticalisation of auxiliary verbs. Cross-linguistic similarities in 'do'-support. Semantics of 'do'-support. English syntax, semantics, and sociolinguistics.

Technique

Elicitation techniques for syntactic-semantic-sociolinguistic variation in living speakers of modern dialects. Corpus linguistic studies of syntactic-semantic-sociolinguistic variation in historical texts (in training). Native speaker of British (and American) English (for acceptability/grammaticality judgements) Good understanding of Camuno, a northern Italian dialect.

Users

Non-native English speakers for acceptability/grammaticality judgements Linguists interested in Italian dialects

Keywords

Crosslinguistic research, Dialectology, English linguistics, Sociolinguistics, Historical linguistics, General linguistics, Diachronic linguistics, Comparative romance linguistics

Jennifer Thewissen specialises in learner corpus research and second language acquisition. She actively researches the concept of accuracy and its development across proficiency levels (https://uclouvain.be/fr/instituts-recherche/ilc/accuracy-across-proficiency-levels-a-learner-corpus-approach.html). Using error-annotated learner corpus data from different mother tongue groups at different proficiency levels (from B1 to C2), she has shown that learners' errors do not de facto necessarily decrease as proficiency increases but that different error types develop differently across the proficiency groups. This research has concrete implications for the language teaching and testing fields as empirical findings about accuracy profiles at different levels can be fed into the current Common European Framework descriptors of language competence which are labelled as overly vague. To gain further insight into learner language development, Jennifer Thewissen is currently investigating the development of syntactic and lexical complexity across proficiency levels to (1) determine whether these constructs help discriminate between learner writing at different levels and (2) analyse how they interact with the construct of accuracy. She is also investigating the impact of individual learner variables on L2 learner performance and how these variables can be measured and included in learner corpora. She has also fostered the development and cohesion of a team of researchers at the UAntwerpen who all work on aspects of learner language analysis, thus providing more visibility for this area of research at the university. Jennifer Thewissen has been actively working with the Louvain School of Management (UCLouvain) and has co-authored several papers on the linguistic aspects of entrepreneurial communication and how they impact subsequent ICO funding success.

Technique

Techniques associated with corpus linguistics: - learner corpus compilation - learner corpus analysis - learer corpus annotation - error annotation

Users

Target groups: - Language teachers - Language testers - Second language acquisition experts - NLP specialists - Textbook developers - Language learners

Keywords

Learner corpus research, Accuracy, Proficiency levels

De omgang met (stedelijke) meertaligheid in institutionele contexten, met een empirische focus op communicatieve en talige processes (i.e. gesproken interacties, taalbeleid, vertaling/tolkpraktijk, entekstualisering en categoriseringsprocessen). Institutionele contexten binnen de expertise zijn: gemeentelijke diensten, juridische contexten, maatschappelijk werk, onderwijs, bedrijven.

Technique

Linguistic ethnography Interactional analysis / conversation analysis Institutional discourse analysis

Users

Linguists Stakeholders in the respective context topicalised in the research

Keywords

Language policy, Institutional contexts, Multilingualism, Categorization

I have engaged with applied linguistic questions for the past forty years, following Alan Davies (Edinburgh) who defines applied linguistics as a discipline ‘to propose a solution to social problems involving language’. I am still intrigued by a wide array of topics in foreign language learning for academic and professional purposes and carry out studies on the development of communication awareness, knowledge and skills. In my research I use mixed methods and strive for applicability (R&D).

Technique

The research unit for Applied Language Studies ranges over the following research techniques: Online and offline questionnaires, empirical research (data collection) with control groups, interviews (face-to-face, telephone, focus group, etc.), error analyses, introspection, pre- and posttesting, statistical analyses and reporting.

Users

The expertise is available for institutions/individuals with research interests in the area of language skills and language pedagogics for adult educated learners. The users are mainly language centres, teaching institutions and language policy makers. However, this expertise is also often required in language skills research and language methodology by a broad range of institutions, e.g. tertiary education, the service sector, governmental departments, the European Commission.

Keywords

Language multimedia, Foreign language and academic context, Computer assisted language learning, Foreign language learning, Effectiveness of language learning, Academic literacy, Autonomous learning, Dutch for non-natives

Discourse analys, Material development, second/foreign language development, land and culture studies, intercultural business communication, professional communication

Technique

Corpus linguistics, qualitative research

Users

Applied linguists

Keywords

Linguistics

My work focuses on the circulation and articulation of expert knowledge in society. That means I study language, discourse, and communication in a range of contexts from the perspective of participants to grasp how expertise is performed, audiences are anticipated, and social events get represented. My work has been published in scientific journals, edited volumes, digital media outlets and popular media.

Technique

Discourse analysis, linguistic ethnography

Users

Knowledge workers such as journalists, consultants, entrepreneurs, politicians, and scientists

Keywords

Media studies, Expertise, Knowledge society, Journalism, Discourse analysis, Identity, Professional communication

Multilingualism and intercultural interactions on the work floor. Research can be developed as specific case studies as well as global evaluations of language policies and language management strategies

Technique

ethnographic analysis; qualitative research (interview); quantitative research (survey)

Users

companies, policy makers

Keywords

Multilingualism, Sociolinguistics