Prof. Dr. Robert Fuchs
Professor of Applied English Linguistics
Chair of Bonn Applied English Linguistics (BAEL), Department of English, American and Celtic Studies, University of Bonn, Germany
Email: rfuchs@uni-bonn.de
Phone: +49 228 73-82041
Office: 2.022, Rabinstr. 8, 53111 Bonn
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Office hours Prof. Fuchs
The next office hours will take place on (all online):
Fr 8 Nov 2 - 3.30 pm
Fr 22 Nov 2 - 3.30 pm
Fr 6 Dec 2 - 3.30 pm
Fr 20 Dec 2 - 3 pm
Please mention the topic of discussion when you register (possible until 24 hours before the appointment).
Students who would like to discuss topics for their term papers, Bachelor's or Master's theses should send a proposal at least two days in advance (earlier is welcome) to rfuchs@uni-bonn.de. Advice on how to write such a proposal is available here: https://sites.google.com/view/rflinguistics/studenttheses
Students who would like to discuss progress in their term papers, Bachelor's or Master's theses should prepare a document summarising this progress and prepare a list of questions. This document may also be sent in advance. All documents should be sent in an *editable format* (e.g. doc, dox, rtf, odt; NOT pdf or pages).
To sign up, click here.
Research Interests
World Englishes/postcolonial varieties of Englishes, corpus linguistics, gender and language, sociolinguistics, second language acquisition (esp. speech learning, tense and aspect), corpus-based discourse analysis, social media, acoustic phonetics and laboratory phonology.
The questions I investigate in my research include:
- Recent language change: How has the English language changed in the recent past and how is it likely to change in the near future? Who are the most innovative or progressive speakers in ongoing language change and why are these particular groups the most progressive? Does English change in similar ways in different places around the world?
- How does English vary structurally across age and gender groups?
- How does the context of the use of English and the structure of local varieties of English vary around the world?
- What consequences does the increasing use of English in many countries around the world have in terms of language attitudes?
- How is English learnt by speakers of diverse first languages and what structures of the English language are particularly easy or hard to learn?
- How is public discourse on sensitive topics structured and how does it affect real-world outcomes? (e.g. during the COVID-19 pandemic)