Academic interests
My research has a bottom-up empirical approach to how people do talk-in-interaction across cultures and speech communities. Starting from multi-modal corpora of naturalistic language-use, I explore universal and language-/culture-specific traits of everyday communication in English, Norwegian and Spanish. Comparing Norwegian with other languages gives a view from outside that has afforded the discovery of highly frequent traits of Norwegian everyday language-use not previously described or analyzed systematically (see Sbertoli-Nielsen, 2023), with possible consequences for the achievement of intersubjective understanding, structural alignment and (affective) affiliation.
In my project I engage with methodological-theoretical frameworks from Conversation Analysis and Interactional Linguistics, informed and inspired by research combining these with Linguistic Anthropology and Pragmatic Typology. The project yields insights of value for didactics in both English, Spanish and Norwegian, and will be of general interest for anyone seeking to overcome communicative challenges in intercultural relationships.
Background
My MA is in European Languages from the University of Oslo, including corpus linguistics and relevance theory in English language research, as well as multilingualism and discourse analysis, and a thesis on Norwegian-Spanish contrasts of politeness and conversational style. From earlier years, I have a BA in philosophy from the University of Oslo, with an emphasis on epistemology and the philosophy of language.
After attaining a general certificate of education (praktisk-pedagogisk utdanning) from the University of Oslo, I worked for four years as a teacher in a Norwegian upper secondary school, giving classes in Spanish and 'Communication and Culture'.
From 2009 until 2016, I worked as student counsellor and administrator of studies at the University of Oslo, mostly for Romance studies. My tasks included hosting information meetings, maintaining and developing web pages, time schedules and course admissions, and supporting the faculty in both their daily work and reform processes.
Cooperation
Locally, I participate in the research group for Conversation Analysis and Interactional Linguistics at the Department of Linguistics and Nordic Studies, University of Oslo. Regionally, I participate in the Nordic Network for Intercultural Communication (NIC). In a global, English-speaking context, I participate in an international group led by Richard Ogden (University of York), with established and early career researchers from the UK, France, Sweden and Israel. In a global, Spanish-speaking context, I participate in the Seminario Permantente de Análisis de la Conversación (SPAC), organized by the Conversanalista group for Conversation Analysis in Spanish, with participants based in California, New York, Peru, Chile, Mexico, Spain, Italy and Germany (and more).