about

I am a linguist at the Georg-August University of Göttingen and a member of the Sign Lab Göttingen there.

Currently, I am working as PI in the DFG project “Processes of Stabilization in Gestures. A media-specific and cross-modal approach” which is part of the DFG Priority Program 2329 „Visual Communication. Theoretical, Empirical, and Applied Perspectives (ViCom)“.

The project focuses on the empirical investigation of recurrent gestures of German and their stabilization processes, which will be compared with grammaticalization and lexicalization processes of signs of German Sign Language (DGS). The project contributes to a media-specific and cross-modal approach to stabilization processes in gestures and signs.

I have worked in several interdisciplinary research projects on linguistic multimodality.

My research centers around the embodied nature of language. I study multimodality (verbo-gestural) from a linguistic perspective in the areas of pragmatics, cognitive grammar, cognitive semantics, and sign language research.  Another research interest is the dynamics of multimodal (affective and semantic) meaning emergence in interaction. I investigate these aspects from a linguistic and phenomenological perspective.