Dr. Silva H. Ladewig
I am a linguist at the Georg-August University of Göttingen and a member of the Sign Lab Göttingen there.
Here, I research the embodiment and conventionalization of meaning in gestures, especially within my DFG project "Processes of Stabilization in Gestures," which is part of the priority program "Visual Communication. Theoretical, Empirical, and Applied Perspectives (ViCom)“. My project focuses on the analysis of recurrent gestures in German, their stabilization, and comparison with the signs of German Sign Language (DGS).
My research interest is the embodied nature of language and the dynamics of multimodal meaning emergence in interaction. To this end, I have worked in various interdisciplinary projects, investigating linguistic multimodality from a linguistic perspective in the fields of pragmatics, cognitive grammar, cognitive semantics, sign language research, and phenomenology.
Additionally, I am engaged in science communication, for example with the podcast Talking Bodies, the social media channel GestikInsights and my blog.
Scientific career
since 09/2022 | PI of the projcet „Stabilization processes in gestures. A media-specific and cross-modal approach“ (German Resarch Foundation), Georg-August-Universität Göttingen | Gepris |
since 01/2020 | Co-cordinator in the project "Multimodal Stancetaking: Expressive Movement and Affective Stance. Political Debates in the German Bundestag and the PolishSejm’” (funded by “Beethoven”; German Research Foundation / NCN). | Gepris |
10/2016-09/2022 | Post-Doc at the Chair of Language Use and Multimodal Communication, European University Viadrina | |
10/2015-09/2016 | Substitute for the Professorship for Language Use and Multimodal Communication (W3), European University Viadrina | |
02/2018-08/2022 | Head of the Viadrina Gesture Center | |
10/2011-09/2015 | Post-doc at the Chair of Language Use and Multimodal Communication, European University Viadrina | |
10/2009-09/2011 | Post-doc and co-head of the sub-project "Meaning Emergence in Language and Gesture", joint project "Body Language of Movement and Dance: Meaning Emergence, Linguization and Therapeutic Use" (BMBF) | |
07/2012 | PhD with the thesis "Syntactic and semantic integration of gestures in language - structural, cognitive and conceptual aspects" at the European University Viadrina, Frankfurt (Oder), grade: summa cum laude | |
08/2006-09/2010 | Research assistant in the interdisciplinary research project "Towards a grammar of gesture: Evolution, brain, and linguistic structures", funded by the Volkswagen Foundation, | |
07/2006 | Master's degree from the Free University of Berlin (English, General and German Linguistics) | |
04/2004-03/2006 | Tutor at the Chair of Psycholinguistics at the Free University of Berlin (Prof. Dr. Gisela Klann-Delius) | |
10/2001-07/2006 | Member of the FU Gesture Project |