Research Interests
- Language variation and ongoing change
- Morpho-syntax and construction grammar
- World Englishes
- Early and Late Modern English
- Corpus linguistics
- Psycho-linguistic experimentation
Short Bio
Marianne Hundt has been Professor of English Linguistics at Zürich University since 2008. Prior to that she held a chair of English Linguistics at Ruprecht-Karls-Universität, Heidelberg (2003-2008). She obtained her doctoral and post-doctoral degrees at Albert-Ludwigs-Universität, Freiburg and was a visiting scholar at Portland State University, Oregon (USA), Victoria University, Wellington (New Zealand) and Kyoto University (Japan).
Marianne Hundt’s research is in the field of cognitive, corpus-based modelling of variation and change [1, 2]. As part of her work on World Englishes [3, 4, 5, 6], she has contributed both conceptually and methodologically to research on epicentres [7, 8]. Since 2013, she has been editor of the journal English World-Wide [9].
A major part of her work on variation and change in EModE, LModE [10] and World Englishes is rooted in construction grammar [11,12] (see also the ProPoS-A-L and PEAS projects). One of her main research concerns is to query the connection between statistical and theoretical modelling of complex processes of variation and change [13]. She has a strong track record in interdisciplinary research (see ProPoS-A-L and SPARCLING projects; the co-edited foundational volume on psycholinguistic approaches to language change [14]) and is increasingly combining corpus-methodology with psycholinguistic experimentation [15].
Recent Activities
Past and current SNF-funded projects
- Prototypes and Parts-of-Speech: A cross-linguistic, multi-methods approach to categorization with a focus on Adjectives (ProPoS-A-L) https://www.linguistik.uzh.ch/de/forschung/ProPoSaL.htmlPrepositions in English Argument Structure (PEAS) https://www.prepcomp.uzh.ch/en.html
- Large-Scale Annotation and Alignment of Parallel Corpora for the Study of Linguistic Variation (SPARCLING) https://www.es.uzh.ch/en/Subsites/Projects/SPARCLING.html
Outreach
- SNF-funded AGORA project Citizen Linguistic https://www.linguistik.uzh.ch/fr/forschung/agora.html
Invited lectures (selection)
- 2021 From the Page to the Screen: Digitising Manuscripts for Research in Linguistics. (Invited expert lecture to the SFB1102 [Information Density and Linguistic Encoding] Language Science Colloquium, 22 July, 2021).
- 2019 Revisiting the emergence of N-is focaliser constructions. (Keynote lecture at the English Noun Phrase Workshop, Vienna, 12 July, 2019).
- 2019 On models and modelling. (Plenary at the IAWE conference, Limerick, 22 June, 2019).
- 2017 Morphosyntactic Variation in World Englishes - The Corpus-Based Approach. (Plenary at the ISLE Summer School, University of Regensburg, 5 October, 2017).
- 2016 My language, my identity: Negotiating language use in the Fiji-Indian diaspora in New Zealand. (Plenary at the 2nd International Conference on the Sociolinguistics of Immigration, Rapallo, 23 September 2016).
Teaching
I have been teaching English linguistics since the spring of 1992. My classes have covered a broad range of topics in English linguistics (introductory courses on synchronic and diachronic linguistics, courses on cognitive linguistics, socio-linguistics, corpus-linguistics, World Englishes; lecture courses at the introductory and advanced level in synchronic and diachronic linguistics; a broad range of research seminars and project-based teaching [https://www.es.uzh.ch/en/Subsites/Projects/toolboxForManuscripts.html]).
Supervision(Sample)
In addition to numerous BA and MA theses, I have supervised 10 doctoral theses (main supervisor). Recently completed projects are (sample)
“Verb-Dependent Prepositional Phrases in Varieties of Englishes: A Variationist Construction Grammar Perspective” | Laetitia van Driessche; 2024 |
“Subject Omission in English: A Corpus-Based Approach” | Sophie Willimann; 2023 |
“Interaction and Language Change: Noun Phrase Referring Expressions in Spoken Task-Based Dialogue” | Rahel Oppliger; 2021 |
“Variable Article Use; A Contrastive Study of English and German” | Ellena Callegaro; 2017 |
"Creating Belonging in San Francisco Chinatown’s Diasporic Community” | Adina Staicov; 2016 |