European Linguistics Centre

Heidelberg University and the Institute for the German Language (IDS) in Mannheim are stepping up their collaboration with plans for a joint European Linguistics Centre. Both sides have signed a cooperation agreement on the foundation of the centre, which is designed to dovetail the research work done by the IDS and the university’s Faculty of Modern Languages. The aim of the new institution is to coordinate linguistic research in Germany, most of which is geared to the investigation of individual languages, and to situate it in a European context. With this perspective, the centre has the potential to rapidly become one of Europe’s top locations for linguistic research.

The Mannheim Institute, a member of the prestigious Leibniz Association of German Research Institutes, and the Faculty of Modern Languages at Heidelberg University can look back on a long tradition of collaboration in the form of research networks, integrated research projects and joint publications. In most of these ventures the IDS has cooperated notably with the Department of German Studies. In addition, IDS scholars regularly offer seminars at the university and this has led to the joint supervision of doctoral dissertations and numerous cooperative projects. The new centre is designed to intensify and expand this kind of collaboration. The numerous working contacts maintained by the IDS and departments of the Heidelberg Modern Languages Faculty with universities and research institutions abroad will be instrumental in enhancing the potential for cross-cultural language research.

Central tasks for the new institution are joint research on individual European languages from a multilingual perspective, teaching cooperation and joint support for the upcoming generation of linguistics scholars. The scholars involved will be developing project ideas on which to base applications for third-party funding. Alongside joint classes and the supervision of theses, there are also plans to step up activities in the field of supervision and support for PhD students. In academic terms, the mainstays of the research centre are lexicology and lexicography, interaction and discourse analysis and comparative grammar with reference to European languages.

The centre’s board of directors is a threesome made up of the director of IDS and the two linguistics professors at the Heidelberg Department of German Studies. At present, these are Prof. Dr. Ludwig M. Eichinger (Institute for the German Language) and Prof. Dr. Jörg Riecke and Prof. Dr. Ekkehard Felder (Heidelberg University).

Contact
Prof. Dr. Ekkehard Felder
Prof. Dr. Jörg Riecke
Department of German Studies
phone: +49 6221 543240
ekkehard.felder@gs.uni-heidelberg.de

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