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Dr. Axel Bohmann

Dr. Axel Bohmann


bohmannPostdoctoral Research Fellow & Assistant Professor
Chair of English Linguistics | Mair


☎ +49 761 203-3329

R 4105 | KG IV

 

 

 

ACADEMIC BIO

I am an assistant professor at Christian Mair's Chair for English Linguistics. After completing a teaching degree in Freiburg in 2010, I obtained a PhD in English from the University of Texas at Austin in 2017. My doctoral dissertation, published by Cambridge University Press, investigates register variation in English worldwide on the basis of ten national sub-corpora of the International Corpus of English (ICE) project.

In Freiburg, I coordinate the Master of English Language and Linguistics and conduct research for my second book project, a study of multilingualism among recently arrived immigrants in Southwestern Germany. I also continue to work on corpus linguistics, computational and statistical methods. Between April 2020 and September 2021, I was lead investigator of the Volkswagen Foundation-funded project "Language as a complex adaptive system: Insights from physical modelling," together with Martin Bohmann and Lars Hinrichs.

Apart from my academic life, I am a long-term member of the maniACTs and take a keen interest in following the student theater scene in Freiburg. Among my other interests are rap music, trail hiking and spending time with my family.

 

PUBLICATIONS

Books

  • (in prep.) Axel Bohmann, Julia Müller, Mirka Honkanen, Miriam Neuhausen. Linguistic data science and the English passive: Modelling diachronic developments and regional variation. Under contract for the series “Language, Data Science, and Digital Humanities“ (Bloomsbury).
  • (2019) Axel Bohmann. Variation in English Worldwide: Registers and Global Varieties (Studies in English Language). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

 

Refereed Publications in Books & Journals

  • (submitted) Axel Bohmann. “’Jamaica is not the only Jamaica’: Language and place on Youtube”. In H. Paulasto, L. Meriläinen, S. Kaislaniemi, M. Laitinen (eds.). English Language Contacts and Change in the Digital Age. Brill.
  • (submitted) Axel Bohmann, Mirka Honkanen. “Writing Nigerian Pidgin on the web: Dynamic developments on a diasporic forum”. In H. Paulasto, L. Meriläinen, S. Kaislaniemi, M. Laitinen (eds.). English Language Contacts and Change in the Digital Age. Brill.
  • (accepted) Axel Bohmann. “Future-time reference in World Englishes”. World Englishes.
  • (accepted) Axel Bohmann. “Diatopic variation in digital space: A multidimensional analysis of Texas English Twitter data”. Scandinavian Studies in Language.
  • (accepted) Axel Bohmann. “Towards ’large and tidy’: Establishing internal structure in mega-corpora”. In S. Coats, V. Laippala (eds.). The March of Data: Linguistics across Disciplinary Borders. Bloomsbury.
  • (accepted) Axel Bohmann, Lotte Sommerer. “Quantitative methods in historical linguistics”. In R. Hickey, R. (ed.). New Cambridge History of the English Language, Vol II. M. Kytö, E. Smitterberg (eds.). Documentation, Sources of Data and Modelling. Cambridge University Press.
  • (accepted) Axel Bohmann. “Codeswitching in the Caribbean”. In K. Bolton (ed.). The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopaedia of World Englishes. Wiley-Blackwell.
  • (2023) Axel Bohmann, Adesoji Babalola. “Verbal past inflection in Nigerian English: A case for sociolinguistic compound vision”. In G. Wilson, M. Westphal (eds.). New Englishes, New Methods [Varieties of English around the World 68]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 16–41.
  • (2023) Axel Bohmann. “Contrastive usage profiling: A word vector perspective on World Englishes”. In B. Busse, N. Dumrukcic, I. Kleiber (Hrsg). Language and Linguistics in a Complex World [Discourse Patterns 32]. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, 11–30.
  • (2023) Axel Bohmann, Julia Müller, Mirka Honkanen, Miriam Neuhausen. “A large-scale diachronic analysis of the English passive alternation”. In B. Busse, N. Dumrukcic, I. Kleiber (Hrsg.). Language and Linguistics in a Complex World [Discourse Patterns 32]. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, 31–30.
  • (2022) Axel Bohmann & Wiebke Ahlers. “Stance in narration: Finding structure in complex sociolinguistic variation”. Journal of Sociolinguistics 26(1), 65-83. https://doi.org/10.1111/josl.12533.
  • (2022) Axel Bohmann. “ICE corpora, register, and omitted variable bias: A multidimensional perspective”. In M. Krug, O. Schützler, F. Vetter & V. Werner (eds.). Perspectives on Contemporary English [Bamberg Studies in English Linguistics]. Berlin et al.: Peter Lang, 155–183.
  • (2021) Axel Bohmann, Martin Bohmann & Lars Hinrichs. “Dissemination dynamics of receding words: A diachronic case study of whom”. Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence 4. https://doi.org/10.3389/frai.2021.654154.
  • (2021) Axel Bohmann. “Uprooted speakers’ grassroots English: Metalinguistic perspectives of asylum seekers in Germany”. In C. Meierkord & E. W. Schneider (eds.). World Englishes at the Grassroots. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 233–254.
  • (2021) Axel Bohmann. “Register in World Englishes research”. In B. Schneider & T. Heyd (eds.) Bloomsbury World Englishes, Vol 1: Paradigms. London: Bloomsbury, 80–96.
  • (2020) Axel Bohmann. “Situating Twitter discourse in relation to spoken and written texts: A lectometric analysis”. Zeitschrift für Dialektologie und Linguistik 87(2) (Special Issue “Lectometry” Hosted by M. Roethlisberger, L. Rosseel & K. Franco), 250-284. https://doi.org/10.25162/zdl-2020-0009.
  • (2020) Lars Hinrichs & Axel Bohmann. “Sociolinguistics”. In S. Adolphs & D. Knight (eds.). The Routledge Handbook of English Language and Digital Humanities [Routledge Handbooks in English Language Studies]. Milton Park: Routledge, 283–305.
  • (2016) Axel Bohmann. “Language change because Twitter? Factors motivating innovative uses of because across the English-speaking Twittersphere”. In L. Squires (ed.). English in Computer-Mediated Communication: Variation, Representation, and Change (Topics in English Linguistics 93). Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, 149–178.
  • (2016) Axel Bohmann. “‘Nobody canna cross it’: Language-ideological dimensions of hypercorrect speech in Jamaica”. English Language and Linguistics 20(1). 129–152. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1360674315000374.
  • (2015) Lars Hinrichs, Benedikt Szmrecsanyi & Axel Bohmann. “Which-hunting and the standard English relative clause”. Language 91(4). 806–836. https://doi.org/10.1353/lan.2015.0062.
  • (2013) Lars Hinrichs, Axel Bohmann & Kyle Gorman. “Real-time trends in the Texas English vowel system: F2 trajectory in GOOSE as an index of a variety's ongoing delocalization”. Rice Working Papers in Linguistics 4, http://scholarship.rice.edu/handle/1911/75162.
  • (2010) Axel Bohmann. “‘Red mal Deutsch, Hundesohn, ich halt nicht viel vom Spitten’: Cultural pressures and the language of German hip hop”. Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik 58(3), 203-228. https://doi.org/10.1515/zaa.2010.58.3.203.

 

Reviews and other non-refereed publications

 

Outreach and Science Communication

 

TALKS

Invited Talks

  • “Anglophone West-African asylum seekers in Germany: Linguistic repertoires and lived experience“.
    Language Shift Discussion Group, 17 February 2023.
  • “Adventures in multidimensional analysis”.
    Quantitative Methoden in den Digital Humanities | postgraduate class, instructor: Andreas Baumann
    Universität Wien (Österreich), 16 November 2022.
  • “Collocational profiles of gendered pronoun subjects across 200 years of American English."
    Wiener Sprachgesellschaft, Universität Wien (Österreich), 15 November 2022.
  • “Linguistic dynamics of digital diaspora communities: The case of Nairaland”
    Digital Language Variation in Context Lecture Series 2022. Universität Hamburg, 27 October 2022.
  • “Word dissemination along the S-curve of linguistic change”
    Konstanz Linguistics Research Colloquium, Universität Konstanz. 30 June 2022.
  • “Diatopic variation in digital space: What Twitter can tell us about Texas dialect areas”
    (with Lars Hinrichs and Alex Rosenfeld). Linguistic Variation in European Languages - New Perspectives on Diasystematic Variation at the Occasion of the Centenary of Coseriu's Birth (1921-2021), Kopenhagen (Denmark). 25 November 2021.
  • “The promise of nine decades' worth of interviews: Building the Digital Archive of Texas English Speech”
    (with Lars Hinrichs). DIGI Colloquium, University of Georgia (USA). 22 January 2021.
  • “The sloth, the ant, and the invisible hand: Linguists looking to physicists for help”
    Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information an der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Ursin Group Retreat. 09 October 2020.
  • “Researching New Englishes with Twitter”
    New Englishes, New Methods, New Modes: Researching New Englishes online. Workshop organized by research network New Englishes, New Methods. Online. 19 June 2020.
  • “Language and the Nobel Prize in Physics”
    Geisteswissenschaften in den 2020ern / Humanities in the 2020s | Workshop at FRIAS
    Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, 19 February 2020
  • "English on Twitter worldwide“
    Language and the media | Undergraduate class, instructor: Lars Hinrichs
    The University of Texas at Austin, 19 March 2018
  • “‘Nobody Canna Cross it’: Jamaican sociolinguistics, language ideologies, and speaky spoky“
    Critical Issues in Linguistics | Lecture series
    Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster (Germany), 19 April 2016
  • “‘Nobody Canna Cross it’: Styling hyper-correct speech in Jamaica“
    English-based Pidgins and Creoles around the World | undergraduate class, instructor: Danae Perez
    University of Zurich (Switzerland), 24 November 2014
  • “Language change because Internet? A variationist examination of because X on Twitter“
    British English and American English: Corpus-Based Comparisons | Undergraduate class, instructor: Lars Hinrichs
    Universität Augsburg, 3 June 2014
  • “Language ideological dimensions of hyper-correct speech in Jamaica“
    Colloquium at the Department of Culture and Identity
    Roskilde University (Denmark), 14 May 2013

 

Refereed Conference Presentations

  • “Women sew and men thunder: Gendered pronoun subjects as a window into culture”
    BICLCE 9. Univerza v Ljubljani, Ljubljana (Slovenia), 16 September 2022.
  • “A dynamic perspective on diasporic social media communication”
    (mit Fatlum Sadiku und Panagiota Papavasileiou). BICLCE 9. Univerza v Ljubljani, Ljubljana (Slovenia), 15 September 2022.
  • “Genre coherence and distinctiveness in the International Corpus of English: A quantitative approach”
    Methods in Dialectology XVII. Johannes Gutenberg-Universitäat, Mainz, 05 August 2022.
  • “The future of World Englishes: will versus BE going to in the International Corpus of English”
    ICAME 43. Anglia-Ruskin University, Cambridge (UK), 30 July 2022.
  • “Register variation in Reddit comments - A multidimensional analysis”
    (poter presentation with Hanna Mahler, Gustavo Maccori Kozma und Rafaela Tosin). Digital Humanities 2022, Tokyo (Japan), 27 July 2022.
  • “Linguistic dynamics in dynamically developing virtual communities - A corpus-linguistic perspective“
    (mit Mirka Honkanen). New Englishes, New Methods: Corpora in New Englishes Research, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, 25 March 2022.
  • “Register variation in Reddit comments - A multidimensional analysis”
    (poster presentation with Kyla McConnell, Hanna Mahler, Gustavo Maccori Kozma und Rafaela Tosin). CMC-Corpora 2021, Radboud-Universität Nijmegen (Niederlande), 25 October 2021.
  • “Texas English on Twitter: Beyond lexical-geographic variation”
    NWAV 49, Austin, Texas (USA), 23 October 2021.
  • “Initiation of the low-back-merger shift in Texas English: Testing mechanistic accounts”
    (poster presentation with Lars Hinrichs). NWAV 49, Austin, Texas (USA), 21 October 2021.
  • “'Jamaica is not the only Jamaica' - Language and place on YouTube”
    ISLE 6, University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu (Finland), 02 June 2021.
  • “Varieties of English worldwide: A lexical-semantic perspective”
    ICAME 41, Heidelberg, 20-23 May 2020
  • “A large-scale diachronic analysis of the English passive alternation”
    (with Julia  Julia Müller, Mirka Honkanen & Miriam Neuhausen)
    ICAME 41, Heidelberg, 20-23 May 2020
  • “A diachronic look at the English passive: Distributional semantics of be vs get“
    (with Julia Müller, Miriam Neuhausen & Mirka Honkanen)
    Poster presentation at IRG 2020, Fribourg (CH), 6-8 February 2020
  • “Like finding that one tree in a forest: Markers of stance in narration“
    (with Wiebke Ahlers)
    Poster presentation at NWAV 48, Eugene, 11 October 2019
  • “ICE corpora, register, and omitted variable bias: A multidimensional perspective“
    BICLCE 8, Bamberg, 28 September 2019
  • “‘Like she says like I -like’: Markers of stance in narration“
    (with Wiebke Ahlers)
    SLE 52, Leipzig, 21 August 2019
  • “Asylum seekers’ discursive construction of communicative breakdowns“
    iMean6, Wellington, 17 April 2019
  • “Global system, local langscape: The interplay of emergent norms and perduring indexical relations in asylum seekers’ ELF communication“
    ELF 11, London, 7 July 2018
  • “Dimensions of variation in World Englishes“
    ISLE 5, London July 18, 2018
  • “Orienting towards German with English linguistic resources: Observations on the communicative repertoires of English-speaking asylum seekers in Germany“
    ISLE 5, London, 17 July 2018
  • “When communication fails: Asylum seekers’ discursive construction of communicative breakdowns“
    Zurich Conference on Colonial and Postcolonial Language Studies – Changes and Challenges, Zürich, 5 June 2018
  • “Geographic and register variation in World Englishes: Methodological issues“
    Workshop "Statistical standards for scientific discovery in linguistics: a practical introduction", Zürich, 6 June 2017
  • “Investigating geographic and register variation in World Englishes“
    ICLaVE 9, Málaga, 6 June 6 2017
  • “A cross-varietal study of (ing) in written computer-mediated discourse”
    Sociolinguistics Symposium 21, Murcia (Spain), 17 June 2016
  • “Mapping the social meanings of /str/-palatalization in Texas English”
    (with Lars Hinrichs, Wiebke Ahlers, Alexander Bergs, Erica Brozovsky, Kirsten Meemann & Patrick Schultz)
    Poster presentation at Sociolinguistics Symposium 21, Murcia (Spain), 17 June 2016
  • “Sibilants and ethnic diversity: A sociophonetic study of palatalized /s/ in STR clusters among Hispanic, White, and African-American speakers of Texas and Pittsburgh English”
    (with Lars Hinrichs, Erica Brozovsky, Noli Chew, Kirsten Meemann & Patrick Schultz)
    Texas Linguistic Society 16, The University of Texas at Austin (USA), 19 February 2016
  • “Sibilants and ethnic diversity: A sociophonetic study of palatalized /s/ in STR clusters among Hispanic, White, and African-American speakers of Texas and Pittsburgh English”
    (with Lars Hinrichs, Alexander Bergs, Erica Brozovsky, Brian Hodge, Kirsten Meemann & Patrick Schultz)
    NWAV 44, University of Toronto (Canada), 23 October 2015
  • “Enquoting voices on Twitter: A multi-local study of quotative be + like in computer-mediated discourse”
    BICLCE 6, University of Wisconsin-Madison (USA), 20 August 2015
  • “‘Nobody Canna Cross it’: Ideological Aspects of Hyper-correct Speech in Jamaica”
    GAPS 2015, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster (Germany), 16 May 2015
  • “Which-hunting and the Standard English relative clause”
    (with Lars Hinrichs & Benedikt Szmrecsanyi)
    iMean 4, The University of Warwick (UK), 11 April 2015
  • “Enquoting voices on Twitter: A multi-local analysis of be + like in computer-mediated discourse”
    ISLE 3, University of Zurich (Switzerland),  26 August 2014
  • “Null complementizers in Spanish and the use of Twitter as a tool for corpus-based linguistic research”
    (with Adrian Riccelli)
    Workshop on Social and Business Analytics, The University of Texas at Austin (USA), 28 March 2014
  • “The interactional dynamics of speaky spoky”
    ICLCE 5, The University of Texas at Austin (USA), 27 September 2013
  • “Unusually strong impact of prescriptive rules on language use: The case of object-function restrictive relativizers in written Standard English”
    (with Lars Hinrichs & Benedikt Szmrecsanyi)
    The Fourth Conference on Prescriptivism, Universiteit Leiden (Netherlands), 12 June 2013
  • “Discourse in motion: A mixed-methods case study from Jamaica”
    ISLE (Post-)Doctoral Spring School, University of Freiburg (Germany), 15 April 2013
  • “Dialect leveling in Texas English: A mixed-method approach to real-time change in the goose vowel”
    (with Lars Hinrichs)
    SALSA 21, The University of Texas at Austin (USA), 13 April 2013
  • “Degree of fronting and F2 trajectory type in the Central Texas goose vowel“
    (with Lars Hinrichs)
    NWAV 41, Indiana University Bloomington (USA), 27 October 2012
  • “The contested role of African American English in German rap discourse”
    Hip Hop Literacies, Ohio State University, Columbus (USA), 10 May 2012
  • “The /u/s of Texas: goose-fronting in 1980s Austin speech”
    SALSA 20, The University of Texas at Austin (USA), 14 April 2012
  • “Local appropriations of global English: The case of German hip hop culture”
    ICLCE IV, Universität Osnabrück (Germany), 21 July 2011
  • “Sacred that and wicked which: Prescriptivism and change in the use of relativizers”
    SALSA 19, The University of Texas at Austin (USA), 16 April 2011
  • “Origins of the American short story: ‘The desperate negroe’”
    Black Odyssey Continued – International Symposium of American Studies, Palacký University, Olomouc (Czech Republic), 14 November 2009

 

TEACHING