Grit Liebscher
Biographic Data
| ID | 1248270 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Grit Liebscher |
| GIVEN NAMES | Grit |
| FAMILY NAME | Liebscher |
| SIGNATURE | LIEBSCHER G |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Waterloo |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-2821-840X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 12 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 43 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 12 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2006 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Multimodal repair in the semiotic landscape for social and political commentary
In spoken interactions, repair–the process by which interactants identify and resolve communication trouble–has been studied extensively. Fewer studies have explored the inherently multimodal repair process in written interactions, and almost none have examined it within the semiotic landscape, that is, on publicly visible signs. From a corpus of around 5500 images collected in Germany and Iran, we present a qualitative analysis of six selected c…
Geb. (‘Born’) in Berlin, Germany
This paper is based on an analysis of heritage gravestones from three Canadian cemeteries that are not assigned to or used by any specific ethnic community in Waterloo Region, Ontario. Drawing on tools from semiotic landscape and historical sociolinguistics , the gravestones are analyzed for evidence of multilingual positioning through elements from German and/or (English-speaking) Canadian language and culture. This qualitative analysis reveals …
Multilingual variation and commodification
The English-origin phrase to go, as used in the German multilingual semiotic landscape, e.g. on public signs in cities, has developed meanings beyond its literal semantic meaning and with glocalised social connotations. This analysis shows that while it can be used at times almost equivalently to German zum Mitnehmen (‘to take away’), to go appears on written signs in Germany in new and playful localised ways. In addition, the connotation of to g…
Turn-taking in the interactive Linguistic Landscape
Building on Linguistic Landscape (LL) research that highlights its interactivity, we examine how interaction is a crucial element in the creation of meaning in the LL. Our analysis draws on the concept of turn-taking from conversation analysis, in applying the concept of turn , i.e. individual interactants’ contributions to conversation, and introducing its counterpart in the LL. Pairing this with the principles of geosemiotics and Ethnographic L…
Negotiating identities through pronouns of address in an immigrant community
This article investigates forms of address, in particular the T/V distinction in German, in conversational interviews with German-speaking immigrants to English-speaking Canada and their descendants. From among 77 interviews conducted in two urban areas in Canada, we discuss instances of both the interactional use of and metalinguistic comments on forms of address. Our analysis is largely guided by conversation analysis and interactional sociolin…
Contextualizing language attitudes
Language attitudes research has had a history spanning several decades largely influenced by quantitative approaches. More recently, interactional perspectives have added new impetus to the field. This article provides an overview of interactional approaches to language attitudes, which are divided into three main groups: (a) discursive psychology, (b) approaches that draw on conversational analysis and interactional sociolinguistics, and (c) app…
A comparison of heritage language ideologies in interaction
In Canada, the notion of a heritage language ideology is often conceived of as a natural by-product of official multiculturalism. By contrast, Germany has long struggled with its status as a multilingual and multicultural country. By comparing two corpora of interviews with immigrants to each of these two countries (Canadians of German heritage and Germans of Vietnamese heritage), this paper aims to explore to what extent these different language…
Language and Human Relations
Germans from Different Places
This paper deals with the role of the distinction between Germans from speech islands (the so-called Volksdeutsche ) and Germans from Germany (the so-called Reichsdeutsche ) in conceptualizing the German community in urban Canada. First, 64 interviews with members of this community were analyzed for stretches of talk in which that distinction was made relevant. Then, a subset of these was chosen for the analysis presented here. Our analysis of th…
Language attitudes, migrant identities and space
In a previous paper (Liebscher and Dailey-O'Cain, Dialect use and discursive identities of migrants from the west in eastern Germany, Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), we posited that attitudes toward language are not merely static thoughts in people's minds, but are constantly constructed in interaction. Following on this work, in this paper we investigate the ways in which German-speaking migrants and their descendants in urban Canada use language att…
Language attitudes in interaction1
This paper discusses the observation of language attitudes in interaction and argues that these approaches provide invaluable insights for the study of language attitudes. In the first half of the paper, the three different kinds of discourse-based methods of analysis that scholars have used to analyse language attitudes (content-based approaches, turn-internal semantic and pragmatic approaches, and interactional approaches) are discussed. In the…
Language learners' use of discourse markers as evidence for a mixed code
Against the backdrop of the language classroom as a bilingual community of practice, this paper focuses on learners' use of discourse markers in one advanced German language classroom. As in other bilingual communities, the learners in the data exhibit phenomena that are characteristic for various stages along the continuum from codeswitching to mixed code (Auer, 1998). In analyzing the data for functional distribution of pairs of German and Engl…
Language attitudes in interaction1
This paper discusses the observation of language attitudes in interaction and argues that these approaches provide invaluable insights for the study of language attitudes. In the first half of the paper, the three different kinds of discourse-based methods of analysis that scholars have used to analyse language attitudes (content-based approaches, turn-internal semantic and pragmatic approaches, and interactional approaches) are discussed. In the…
A comparison of heritage language ideologies in interaction
In Canada, the notion of a heritage language ideology is often conceived of as a natural by-product of official multiculturalism. By contrast, Germany has long struggled with its status as a multilingual and multicultural country. By comparing two corpora of interviews with immigrants to each of these two countries (Canadians of German heritage and Germans of Vietnamese heritage), this paper aims to explore to what extent these different language…
Contextualizing language attitudes
Language attitudes research has had a history spanning several decades largely influenced by quantitative approaches. More recently, interactional perspectives have added new impetus to the field. This article provides an overview of interactional approaches to language attitudes, which are divided into three main groups: (a) discursive psychology, (b) approaches that draw on conversational analysis and interactional sociolinguistics, and (c) app…
Language attitudes, migrant identities and space
In a previous paper (Liebscher and Dailey-O'Cain, Dialect use and discursive identities of migrants from the west in eastern Germany, Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), we posited that attitudes toward language are not merely static thoughts in people's minds, but are constantly constructed in interaction. Following on this work, in this paper we investigate the ways in which German-speaking migrants and their descendants in urban Canada use language att…
Language learners' use of discourse markers as evidence for a mixed code
Against the backdrop of the language classroom as a bilingual community of practice, this paper focuses on learners' use of discourse markers in one advanced German language classroom. As in other bilingual communities, the learners in the data exhibit phenomena that are characteristic for various stages along the continuum from codeswitching to mixed code (Auer, 1998). In analyzing the data for functional distribution of pairs of German and Engl…
Language attitudes in interaction1
This paper discusses the observation of language attitudes in interaction and argues that these approaches provide invaluable insights for the study of language attitudes. In the first half of the paper, the three different kinds of discourse-based methods of analysis that scholars have used to analyse language attitudes (content-based approaches, turn-internal semantic and pragmatic approaches, and interactional approaches) are discussed. In the…
Germans from Different Places
This paper deals with the role of the distinction between Germans from speech islands (the so-called Volksdeutsche ) and Germans from Germany (the so-called Reichsdeutsche ) in conceptualizing the German community in urban Canada. First, 64 interviews with members of this community were analyzed for stretches of talk in which that distinction was made relevant. Then, a subset of these was chosen for the analysis presented here. Our analysis of th…
Language attitudes, migrant identities and space
In a previous paper (Liebscher and Dailey-O'Cain, Dialect use and discursive identities of migrants from the west in eastern Germany, Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), we posited that attitudes toward language are not merely static thoughts in people's minds, but are constantly constructed in interaction. Following on this work, in this paper we investigate the ways in which German-speaking migrants and their descendants in urban Canada use language att…
Language and Human Relations
A comparison of heritage language ideologies in interaction
In Canada, the notion of a heritage language ideology is often conceived of as a natural by-product of official multiculturalism. By contrast, Germany has long struggled with its status as a multilingual and multicultural country. By comparing two corpora of interviews with immigrants to each of these two countries (Canadians of German heritage and Germans of Vietnamese heritage), this paper aims to explore to what extent these different language…
Contextualizing language attitudes
Language attitudes research has had a history spanning several decades largely influenced by quantitative approaches. More recently, interactional perspectives have added new impetus to the field. This article provides an overview of interactional approaches to language attitudes, which are divided into three main groups: (a) discursive psychology, (b) approaches that draw on conversational analysis and interactional sociolinguistics, and (c) app…
Negotiating identities through pronouns of address in an immigrant community
This article investigates forms of address, in particular the T/V distinction in German, in conversational interviews with German-speaking immigrants to English-speaking Canada and their descendants. From among 77 interviews conducted in two urban areas in Canada, we discuss instances of both the interactional use of and metalinguistic comments on forms of address. Our analysis is largely guided by conversation analysis and interactional sociolin…
Turn-taking in the interactive Linguistic Landscape
Building on Linguistic Landscape (LL) research that highlights its interactivity, we examine how interaction is a crucial element in the creation of meaning in the LL. Our analysis draws on the concept of turn-taking from conversation analysis, in applying the concept of turn , i.e. individual interactants’ contributions to conversation, and introducing its counterpart in the LL. Pairing this with the principles of geosemiotics and Ethnographic L…
Multimodal repair in the semiotic landscape for social and political commentary
In spoken interactions, repair–the process by which interactants identify and resolve communication trouble–has been studied extensively. Fewer studies have explored the inherently multimodal repair process in written interactions, and almost none have examined it within the semiotic landscape, that is, on publicly visible signs. From a corpus of around 5500 images collected in Germany and Iran, we present a qualitative analysis of six selected c…
Geb. (‘Born’) in Berlin, Germany
This paper is based on an analysis of heritage gravestones from three Canadian cemeteries that are not assigned to or used by any specific ethnic community in Waterloo Region, Ontario. Drawing on tools from semiotic landscape and historical sociolinguistics , the gravestones are analyzed for evidence of multilingual positioning through elements from German and/or (English-speaking) Canadian language and culture. This qualitative analysis reveals …
Multilingual variation and commodification
The English-origin phrase to go, as used in the German multilingual semiotic landscape, e.g. on public signs in cities, has developed meanings beyond its literal semantic meaning and with glocalised social connotations. This analysis shows that while it can be used at times almost equivalently to German zum Mitnehmen (‘to take away’), to go appears on written signs in Germany in new and playful localised ways. In addition, the connotation of to g…
Multilingual Education and Policy (11 works) · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies (9 works) · Linguistics (9 works) · Sociology (8 works) · German (7 works) · Linguistic Variation and Morphology (6 works) · Computer Science (5 works) · Conversation (5 works) · Discourse Analysis in Language Studies (5 works) · Gender Studies (5 works)