Teaching and Supervision

Current Courses

 

Past Courses

In the last couple of years, I have been teaching the following courses at different universities (selection):

  • VL Modelling Syntax: From Minimalism to Construction Grammar
  • VL What does it mean to mean? Introduction to Semantics
  • VL Code, Cognition & Communication: Western Linguistics in the last 100 years
  • HS  Mechanisms of Language Change
  • HS Usage-based Cognitive Construction Grammar
  • HS  Collocations, Colligations and Semi-specified Constructions in English
  • HS The English Noun Phrase
  • HS Subjectification and Metaphorization in Early Modern English
  • MS Idioms, Collocations & Colligations
  • MS Linguistics in the Classroom: English-German differences
  • MS ‘I’m loving it! – Mechanisms of Language Change in Present Day English
  • MS HEL – History of English

Supervision of BA, MA and Zulassungsarbeiten

In case you are interested in writing your BA, MA or Zulassungsarbeit with Prof. Sommerer or Dr. Barthe Bloom, here are a couple of important things you need to know in advance:

Please make an appointment for one of our office hours to discuss your interests. Come prepared and have at least 3 suggestions for potential and rather specific topics ready.

Students need to be aware that we only accept theses which are corpus-based and empirical!!! This means you will have to analyse a word or construction or any linguistic phenomenon in a hands-on manner by conducting a corpus-based study using corpora like the COCA, COHA, BNC, EEBO, YCOE etc.

We generally supervise papers on Morpho-Syntax and Grammar (e.g. Models like Construction Grammar, Cognitive Grammar). You can also work on Phraseology/ Idioms, Noun Phrases, Prepositional Phrases, Clauses, Semantic Change, Metaphor/Metaphorization, Subjectification, Grammaticalization etc. All these papers can be diachronic in nature. We also supervise theses on Old English and comparative topics (German – English – Dutch – Scandinavian languages). Prof. Sommerer also tends to accept papers on World Englishes and English varieties and dialects as well as studies on English-based pidgins and creoles (Singlish, Tok Pisin etc).

After deciding on a topic, you will first have to submit a project proposal. The project proposal needs to provide information about the following (see attached file for detailed information):

  • Title
  • 3 Hypotheses/RQs
  • Planned Table of Content
  • Theoretical Background (lit review writing sample adhering to the departmental Style Sheet)
  • Methodology/Empirical research Plan
  • Bibliography (adhering to the departmental Style Sheet)

You will receive feedback on the proposal and then we go from there…

For orientation, find below a select list of BA and MA theses as well as Zulassungsarbeiten and papers that Prof. Sommerer has supervised in the last years:

  • MA theses (selected)
  • We’re done, if we’re done. A corpus-based constructional analysis of pleonastic conditionals.
  • A usage-based constructional investigation of the N is – construction.
  • A Construction Grammar approach to the zero article in English.
  • An Analysis of Nautical Metaphors in Early Modern English. A Conceptual Metaphor and Constructional Approach.
  • BA theses (selected)
  • A usage-based constructional approach to the ‘quotative like’ construction. Tracing its variation and diachronic development.
  • The get-passive: a corpus-based study on its function, historical development and genre distribution.
  • A corpus-based investigation of kind of and kinda: Investigating its diachronic development, distribution and function in the COCA and COHA.
  • Where idioms make you ‘go bananas’: investigating the development of [go X] constructions.
  • A collostructional analysis of the will- and be going to future construction.
  • Intensifier competition of very, really, absolutely: a quantitative corpus study in contemporary American English.