Short Bio:
Verena Weiland studied French, Political Science and German at Heidelberg University and the École Normale Supérieure de Lyon. In july 2014, she started working on her PhD thesis in the department of Romance Linguistics (chair: Prof. Dr. Sybille Große, Romanisches Seminar, Heidelberg University). In her research she focuses on discourse analysis, semantics and Sprachkritik. Her PhD project is about new methods of discourse linguistics.
Project:
French discourse linguistics in a perspective of international research desiderata – Methodological enhancements using the example of the discourse about ,surveillance and security in public places’ in France (fr.: L’analyse du discours en France face aux enjeux de recherche internationaux – Exemple d’un extrait de discours concernant ,la surveillance et sécurité de l’espace public en France’)
Regarding the methods and the content, the characteristics of French discourse linguistics are distinct from those of the German and English speaking areas. Respective to each country, there are different approaches. Due to the fact that the overall reception is lacking, the PhD project focuses on the following research desiderata:
- A methodological review and a synthesis of the current state of research in French discourse analysis.
- A combination of different methodological approaches, also inspired by methods coming from cognitive science in order to analyse social structures of knowledge.
- An enlargement of the object of investigation referring to the linguistic levels as well as to the content dimension.
- The analysis of discourse actors and so called “discoursive centres“ (German: “agonale Zentren”) as they focus on general areas of conflict.
- Analysis of corpora including spoken language.
Subsequent to these new developed approaches, the methods will be exemplified by analysing the French media discourse on the subject of security and surveillance in public places which fits into the research domain of the Netzpolitik AG.
Talks:
09/2015: Combining quantifying and qualitative methods based on French linguistic approaches to discourse analysis, DiscourseNet International Congress #1: Discourse: Language, Society, Critique, University of Bremen.
09/2015: Analysing discourses by bringing together different methods, Congress: Text and discourse in confrontation in Europe, University of Metz (France).
12/2014: Culturemes as signs of transnational-semiotic creation of meaning – A multilingual media discourse analysis about the football World Cup 2014, Congress: Discourse – semiotic, organized by the network Discourse – interdisciplinary, Institute for German Language (IDS) Mannheim.
10/2014: French discourse analysis facing an international perspective, Workshop: Political discourse in the Romance speaking countries: new perspectives at the crossroads of linguistics and social sciences, University of Stockholm.
09/2014: Language paradigms of social perception in the French media press by the example of the reactions to the NSA scandal between June and August 2013, Frankoromanistenkongress 2014, University of Münster.
