Dr. Katharina von Elbwart

Forschungsschwerpunkte

Research interests:

Language regard and perceptual dialectology, Varieties of English (focus on American English), Educational linguistics, Language attitudes, Language teacher identity, Teaching Linguistics

Current projects:

Language ideologies in a multiethnic community: In line with previous research on language regard in South Florida, this project explores language ideologies in a multiethnic and multilingual context. It complements research on non-linguists’ beliefs about language in a linguistically diverse setting by showcasing how this context fosters language ideologies and whether diversity plays a role in forming representations of linguistic landscapes among Floridian residents. Data sets based on transcribed interviews are analyzed against the sociolinguistic variables of age, gender, and ethnicity and allow for a variationist approach to language ideologies (2023 - today).

Language Teacher Identity (LTI) and Language (Teacher) Attitudes: This is an ongoing qualitative research study on emerging LTIs which explores avenues of how teachers’ ideologies towards the use of language emerge in preservice academic contexts. Our research uses a mixed-methods approach and combines short narratives with an online attitude survey to be completed by respondents before and after a 15 week-long course in TESOL. As part of this project, one strand explores emerging and changing attitudes future teachers of English hold towards the use of English in class (before and after in-service training). This includes attitudes towards the use of English vs. other languages (heritage languages and/or German), but also towards the use of different (nonstandard) varieties of English in the context of Global Englishes and language teaching (2022 - today).

Teaching Language Internationally: International teaching and research collaboration together with W. Dunn (University of Alberta, Canada) and D. Keatinge (UPB), originally funded by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) as part of the OWL-Alberta cooperation We CAN virtuOWL. Current research investigates the role of student feedback and teaching in international collaborative online environments. More information on the virtual exchange can be found here: https://www.daad.de/de/der-daad/kommunikation-publikationen/presse/pressemitteilungen/digitale-chancen-auch-in-der-internationalen-hochschulzusammenarbeit-nutzen/ (2021 - today).

Completed projects:

mittelalt & literarisch: Production of an educational podcast series “mittelalt & literarisch” on Middle High German language and medieval culture, in collaboration with G. Herchert (University of Duisburg-Essen) and K. Winter (University of Münster), funded by University of Duisburg-Essen (2020-2021).

Language regard in Florida: Dissertation project on perceptual dialectology and language attitudes in Florida, USA. Sociolinguistic fieldwork which included interviews, questionnaires and perceptual data collection (2016-2019).

Academic writing in linguistics: Teaching project to develop students' abilities to compose linguistic research papers in cooperative learning environments. Awarded with Innovations in Teaching Award/Innovationspreis der Lehre 2016 (UDE).