Academic interests
- Grapholinguistics
- Digital philology
- Multilingualism and language contact
- Socioonomastics
- Personal names and migration
- Historical sociolinguistics
- Runology
- Historical cryptology
- History of the Germanic languages
- Second language learning and use in multidialectal contexts
Projects
- DESCRYPT: Echoes of History: Analysis and Decipherment of Historical Writings (2025–2032, deputy director, PI: Beáta Megyesi, funded by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, reference-number M24-0028)
- DECRYPT: Decryption of historical manuscripts (2018–2024, co-PI, PI: Beáta Megyesi, funded by the Swedish Research Council, grant-number 2018-06074)
- Variation and contact in historical personal names (PI, 2019-2023, funded by the Swedish Research Council, grant-number 2018-01556)
- History, Identity, and Linguistic Diversity (HILD), connected research community (2022-)
- Promoting Learner Autonomy in Higher Education, 2012-2014, PI, University of Teacher Education Zug in collaboration with SEEU Tetovo, North Macedonia, project funded by the foundation éducation 21, Education for Sustainable Development
- Techniken und Praktiken mittelalterlicher kontinentalgermanischer Schriftlichkeit, 2005-2011, PI: Prof. Dr. Elvira Glaser and Prof. Dr. Ludwig Rübekeil, NCCR Mediality, funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation, University of Zurich
- Sprachland. Lehrmittel für die Mittelstufe, 2007–2009, PI: Elsbeth Büchel and Ursina Gloor, University of Teacher Education Zurich
PhD supervision
- Wout Sinnaeve, Improving runic textual restoration with transformer-based NLP models, University of Oslo (2025-), main supervisor (with co-supervisor Andreas Fischer, Université de Fribourg)
- Lea Späti, Coping with diglossia in medical talk. A mixed-methods study on conversations between multilingual medical staff and patients in a standard-dialect environment at hospitals in German-speaking Switzerland, University of Gothenburg (2024-), main supervisor (with co-supervisors Magnus Ängsal and Stina Ericsson, University of Gothenburg)
- Martina Heer, Hanns Jm grund, ein sun Lienharts vff der Flů. Historische Personennamen – Benennungsformen, Benennungsvariation und Benennungspraktiken in Berner Urbaren des 16. Jahrhunderts,
University of Zurich (2020-2022), co-supervisor (with main supervisor Ludwig Rübekeil)
Teaching
- TYSK1000 – Tysk språk i teori og praksis (Bachelor)
TYSK2104 – Aktuelle tendenser i tysk språkvetenskap (Bachelor)
TYSK3010 – Bacheloroppgave i tysk
TYSK4118 – Tysk språk: Schrift im digitalen Zeitalter (Master)
TYSK4124 – Tysk språk: Sprache und Sprachvarietäten (Master)
TYSK4091 – Masteroppgave i tysk, lektorprogrammet
TYSK4193 – Masteroppgave i tysk språk
EUS1000 – Innføring i fremmedspråkstudier (Bachelor)
EUS4015 – Læringsressurser i fremmedspråk (Master)
EUS4100 – Second and third language acquisition and learner corpora (Master)
I have taught university courses at undergraduate, Master’s and PhD level (subjects: German, Scandinavian and English linguistics, medieval studies, language learning and teaching, cultural studies; and several cross-disciplinary courses) at universities in Switzerland, North Macedonia, Sweden, and Norway. I also have a BA in and teaching experience from primary education in Switzerland.
On bachelor and master level, I supervise theses within German linguistics with a focus on historical linguistics, grapholinguistics, sociolinguistics, multilingual studies, onomastics and foreign language learning and teaching, and within (digital) philology and medieval studies.
Background
- Professor, German linguistics, University of Oslo, since 2024
- Senior lecturer/associate professor of German linguistics and language acquisition at the University of Gothenburg, 2015–2023
- Senior teaching and research fellow (Oberassistentin) in German linguistics, University of Bern (Switzerland), 2014-2015
- Lecturer of German linguistics and language learning and teaching at the University of Zurich and the universities of teacher education in Zug and Zurich (Switzerland), 2004-2014
- Coordinator of the PhD program Mediality in Pre-Modern Times, Faculty of Humanities, and public outreach officer at the National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) Mediality, University of Zurich, 2011-2013
- PhD fellow in German linguistics and medieval studies, University of Zurich and NCCR Mediality, 2007-2011
Habilitation in German linguistics and language acquisition, University of Gothenburg (2019); PhD in German linguistics, University of Zurich (2011); MA in German linguistics and literature, Old Norse Studies and English linguistics (2007); BA in Primary Education, Teacher-Training College Luzern (2000).
