Research at the School of Applied Linguistics
Language matters. At the School of Applied Linguistics, we research the key role played by language and communication, enabling practitioners and society at large to reap practical benefits from linguistics.
The two strategic areas of energy research and societal integration shape the ZHAW research agenda, and the School of Applied Linguistics incorporates related topics into its own projects and labs. For example:
- Swiss-AL, a web corpus of Swiss sources, has been compiled by the School of Applied Linguistics and is used by researchers and students to conduct data-supported and data-driven research on public discourses in multilingual Switzerland, including monitoring the energy discourse.
- In the LAIC Lab – Language Accessibility and Inclusive Communication Lab, our researchers collaborate with service providers, target group representatives and relevant associations to develop practical, needs-based solutions. These draw on well-established research about communication modes that foster societal inclusion for everyone.
The ZHAW is a member of CLARIN – Common Language Resources and Technology Infrastructure. It is a pan-European research infrastructure aiming to render accessible all digital language resources and tools from all over Europe through a single sign-on online environment.
Professorships and labs
In the professorships at the School of Applied Linguistics, we conduct research on language use in domain-specific communication, language-mediated cross-domain communication and media-mediated public communication.
Domain-specific communication
- German as a Foreign/Second Language (Prof. Dr. Liana Konstantinidou, Prof. Dr. Karin Madlener-Charpentier)
- Digital Linguistics (Prof. Dr. Philipp Dreesen, Prof. Dr. Cerstin Mahlow)
- Intercultural Studies and Linguistic Diversity (Prof. Dr. Christiane Hohenstein)
- Language Management and Globalisation (Prof. Dr. Patrick Studer)
- Professional Literacy (Prof. Dr. Marlies Whitehouse)
Language-mediated cross-domain communication
- Applied Discourse Studies (Prof. Dr. habil. Ulla Kleinberger)
- Accessibility Studies (Prof. Dr. Sarah Ebling)
- Interpreting Studies (Prof. Dr. Michaela Albl-Mikasa)
- Human–Machine Communication (Prof. Dr. Alice Delorme Benites)
- Technical Communication (Prof. Dr. Dipl.-Ing. Catherine Badras)
- Translation Studies (Prof. Dr. Caroline Lehr)
Media-mediated public communication
- Journalism Studies (Prof. Dr. Vinzenz Wyss)
- Media Literacy (Prof. Dr. Guido Keel)
- Media Linguistics (Prof. Dr. Aleksandra Gnach, Prof. Dr. Wibke Weber)
- Organisational Communication and Management (Prof. Dr. Nicole Rosenberger Staub)
- Organisational Communication and Public Spheres (Prof. Dr. Peter Stücheli-Herlach)
The labs at the School of Applied Linguistics bring researchers in the professorships together with stakeholders from all areas of society. These experts from academia and professional practice collaborate to develop innovative and sustainable solutions for the benefit of society.
Projects
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Swiss-AL: Linguistic Open-Research-Data Practices for Applied Sciences
The ZHAW School of Applied Linguistics develops Swiss-AL (Applied Linguistics), an ex- tensive collection of text data in all Swiss national languages, a linguistic processing pipe- line, and a browser-based analysis workbench, enabling researchers to explore copyright- protected data on public language use. ...
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Developing the Framework for a Sustainable Swiss Global Competence Certificate
This project is submitted by ZHAW on behalf of the Swiss Global Competence Lab (SGCL), a consortium of four HEIs (BFH, HES-SO, SUPSI, ZHAW) joining together to develop innovation in internationalization. The objective of this project is to propose a conceptual framework underlying a Certificate of Global Competence ...
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Machine translation for crisis communication
This project investigates how machine translation services can help employees from administrations, NGOs and education to communicate with refugees. Providing public services to newly arrived refugees is a linguistic challenge: interprets are expensive and not available for all languages. Although machine ...