Research Areas
- Varieties of English
- Creole languages
- Sociolinguistics
- Language in the media
- Variational Pragmatics
- Language attitudes
- Linguistic Landscaping
Doctoral Thesis
Linguistic variation in Jamaican radio
- Supervisor
- Professor Dr. Dagmar Deuber
- Doctoral Subject
- Englische Philologie
- Doctoral Degree
- Dr. phil.
- Awarded by
- Department 09 – Philologies
In recent years interest in media texts as sources for sociolinguistic analysis has grown but the media domain remains underresearched for Creole using communities. A study taking into account the comprehensive range of varieties, from Creole to Standard with the often diffuse distribution, and their interaction is missing. For Jamaica and the wider Anglophone Caribbean, radio broadcasting is the mass media genre with the most diverse linguistic variation – various varieties come into conflict on the air but also complement each other. This complex variation proves radio broadcasting in Jamaica very worthwhile for linguistic research. The aim of this PhD project is to detect the varieties used on the air, analyze their interaction, and study how this linguistic variation is constrained. In order to establish a more comprehensive picture of the linguistic variation on the air, the project combines the analysis of different aspects of radio broadcasting: The radio texts themselves are analyzed, the production of radio texts is taken into account and the project also seeks to find out how the listeners perceive the linguistic variation in radio broadcasting in Jamaica.CV
Education
- Post-doc University of Münster
- Phd University of Münster
- M.A. University of Freiburg
- Exchange student at the University of the West Indies in Mona, Jamaica
Positions
- Acting Professor for English Language Teaching at the University of Greifswald
- Research assistant, Chair of variation linguistics, University of Münster
Honors
- Dissertationspreis – Deutscher Anglistenverband
- GAPS Graduate Award – Association for Anglophone Postcolonial Studies
- Faculty award 2009 of the Philological Faculty of the University of Freiburg for the MA thesis A History of Jamaican Creole in the Jamican Broadcasting Media – Philologic Faculty of the University of Freiburg
External Functions
- Deutscher Anglistenverband e.V.
- Discourse-Pragmatic Variation & Change (DiPVaC) Research network
- ISLE The International Society for the Linguistics of English
- Treasurer of GAPS (Association for Anglophone Postcolonial Studies)
- GAPS (Association for Anglophone Postcolonial Studies)
-
Teaching
- Kolloquium: Postgraduate Class: (Linguistics) [090870]
- Seminar: National and Transnational Aspects of English Worldwide [090866]
- Seminar: Teaching Nigeria [090850]
- Seminar: The Politics of English [090777]
- Seminar: Teaching Nigeria [099129]
- Vorlesung: Introduction to Pragmatics [099056]
- Kolloquium: Postgraduate Class (Linguistics) [093017]
(in cooperation with Ka Lau) - Seminar: The Politics of English [093046]
- Seminar: National and Transnational Aspects of English Worldwide [093045]
(in cooperation with Ka Lau) - Seminar: Global Englishes Language Teaching [092988]
- Workshop: Independent Study Group (Linguistics)
- Kolloquium: Postgraduate Class (Linguistics) [090748]
- Seminar: Global Englishes Language Teaching (nicht G) [090726]
- Kolloquium: Postgraduate Class (Linguistics) [098738]
(in cooperation with Ka Lau) - Seminar: Teaching English as an International Language [098680]
- Seminar: Arabic and Islamic Studies [098733]
(in cooperation with Ka Lau) - Workshop: Global Englishes in English Language Teaching in Germany
(in cooperation with Philipp Meer) - Workshop: Linguistic Workshop
- Seminar: World Englishes in the English language classroom [096671]
- Vorlesung: The evolution of Englishes [096669]
- Workshop: Linguistic Workshop
(in cooperation with Philipp Meer) - Kolloquium: Postgraduate Class (Linguistics) [094720]
(in cooperation with Ka Lau) - Seminar: National and Transnational Aspects of English Worldwide [094717]
(in cooperation with Ka Lau) - Seminar: Working Practice in Media and Communication Business II [094668]
- Seminar: Sociolinguistics [092750]
- Seminar: World Englishes [092758]
(in cooperation with Ka Lau, Johanna Hartmann) - Vorlesung: The evolution of Englishes [092621]
(in cooperation with Prof. Dr. Dagmar Deuber) - Seminar: National and Transnational Aspects of English Worldwide [090765]
(in cooperation with Johanna Hartmann) - Seminar: Sociolinguistics [090755]
- Vorlesung: Journalism and New Media [090753]
(in cooperation with Prof. Dr. Dagmar Deuber) - Kolloquium: Promotionskolleg Empirische Angewandte Sprachwissenschaft
(in cooperation with Eva Hänsel) - Seminar: Sociolinguistics [098769]
- Seminar: Variation in Englishes - corpus linguistic perspectives [098766]
(in cooperation with Eva Hänsel) - Seminar: National and Transnational Aspects of English Worldwide [096831]
(in cooperation with Eva Hänsel) - Seminar: Language attitudes and ideologies [096823]
- Seminar: Linguistic Landscaping Münster [096779]
- Seminar: Language attitudes and ideologies [094842]
- Seminar: English in the Caribbean [094791]
(in cooperation with Eva Hänsel) - Kolloquium: Postgraduate Class (Linguistics) [092842]
- Seminar: National and Transnational Aspects of English Worldwide [092865]
(in cooperation with Eva Hänsel) - Seminar: Language attitudes and ideologies [092831]
- Seminar: Standardization, standard Englishes and destandardization [096689]
- Seminar: National and Transnational Aspects of English Worldwide [096547]
- Seminar: Standardization, standard Englishes and destandardization [095217]
- Übung: Communicating Linguistic Methods and Theories (Gruppe I - BLOCKTERMIN) [094102]
- Seminar: From Old English to Standard English [095947]
- Übung: Communicating Linguistic Methods and Theories [095859]
- Seminar: From Old English to Standard Englishes [096076]
- Übung: Linguistic Analysis/ Empirical Methods: Gruppe IV [095689]
- Proseminar: Language and Gender [095030]
- Proseminar: English in Jamaica [095070]
Project
- ICE-T&T – International Corpus of English - Trinidad and Tobago component ( – )
Own Resources Project
- ICE-T&T – International Corpus of English - Trinidad and Tobago component ( – )
Publications
- . . Caribbean identity in pop music: Rihanna’s and Nicki Minaj’s multivocal pop personas. Kingston: The University of the West Indies Press. [online first]
- . . ‘Matthias Klumm, Nominal and Pronominal Address in Jamaica and Trinidad, Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2021.’ Journal of Pragmatics 192: 77–79. doi: 10.1016/j.pragma.2022.02.016.
- . . ‘The multilingual pragmatics of New Englishes: An analysis of question tags in Nigerian English.’ Frontiers in Communication 6: 1–16. doi: 10.3389/fcomm.2021.777569.
- . . ‘Context matters: Grenadian students' attitudes towards newscasters' and teachers' accents.’ Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 37, No. 1: 16–52. doi: 10.1075/jpcl.00085.han.
- . . ‘Phonetic variation in Standard English spoken by Trinidadian professionals.’ Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 37, No. 2: 357–394. doi: 10.1075/jpcl.00098.wes.
- . . ‘Attitudes of Armenian and German students toward British English, American English, and their own Englishes.’ English Today 37, No. 2: 76–84. doi: 10.1017/S0266078419000543.
- (Eds.): . Glocalising Teaching English as an International Language: New perspectives for teaching and teacher education in Germany. London: Routledge. doi: 10.4324/9781003090106.
- . . ‘Global Englishes and challenges for English Language Teaching and teacher education in higher education in Germany.’ In Rethinking the Language Learner: Paradigmen - Methoden - Disziplinen. Erträge des 7.Bremer Symposions, edited by , 284–292. Bochum: AKS Verlag.
- . . ‘Attitudinal research into Caribbean Englishes: New Englishes, new methods.’ English Word-Wide 42, No. 2: 175–199. doi: 10.1075/eww.00064.wil.
- . . ‘Question tags across New Englishes.’ World Englishes 40, No. 4: 519–533. doi: 10.1111/weng.12538.
- . . ‘Sociolinguistic competence and TEIL: A study of the sociolinguistic awareness and perceptions of be like among German learners of English.’ In Glocalising Teaching English as an International Language: New Perspectives for Teaching and Teacher Education in Germany, edited by , 121–138. London: Routledge. doi: 10.4324/9781003090106-10.
- . . ‘Pop music and Teaching English as an International Language.’ In Glocalising Teaching English as an International Language: New Perspectives for Teaching and Teacher Education in Germany, edited by , 181–197. London: Routledge. doi: 10.4324/9781003090106-14.
- . . ‘The Nationalist Ideology of Monolingualism in Postcolonial Theory.’ In Nationalism and the Postcolonial, edited by , 23–39. Leiden: Brill. doi: 10.1163/9789004464315_003.
- . . ‘Introduction.’ In Glocalising Teaching English as an International Language: New perspectives for teaching and teacher education in Germany, edited by , 1–6. London: Routledge. doi: 10.4324/9781003090106-1.
- . . ‘English in Global Pop Music.’ In Bloomsbury World Englishes Volume 1: Paradigms, edited by , 190–206. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. doi: 10.5040/9781350065833.0020.
- . . ‘Quotative be like in Trinidadian English.’ World Englishes 40, No. 3: 1–23. doi: 10.1111/weng.12465.
- . . ‘Question Tags in Philippine English.’ Corpus Pragmatics 4, No. 1: 401–422. doi: 10.1007/s41701-020-00078-w.
- . . ‘New Englishes, New Methods: Focus on Corpus Linguistics.’ Anglistik 31, No. 3: 47–65. doi: 10.33675/ANGL/2020/3/7.
- . . ‘Trinidadian secondary school students' attitudes toward accents of Standard English.’ Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 34, No. 1: 83–125. doi: 10.1075/jpcl.00029.mee.
- . . ‘Beke Hansen, Corpus linguistics and sociolinguistics: A study of variation and change in the modal systems of World Englishes. Leiden: Brill, 2018.’ English Language and Linguistics 25, No. 1: 205–223. doi: 10.1017/S1360674319000364.
- . . ‘Pop Culture and the Globalization of Non-standard Varieties of English: Jamaican Creole in German Reggae Subculture.’ In The Language of Pop Culture, edited by , 95–115. London: Routledge.
- . . Language Variation on Jamaican Radio. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. doi: 10.1075/veaw.g60.
- . . ‘The use of question tags in different text types of Trinidadian English.’ World Englishes 36, No. 4: 726–743. doi: 10.1111/weng.12247.
- . . ‘Rihanna works her multivocal pop persona: A morpho-syntactic and accent analysis of Rihanna's singing style.’ English Today 33, No. 2: 46–55. doi: 10.1017/S0266078416000651.
- . . ‘Emancipation from and Re-Invention of the Linguistic Metropolis in a Postcolonial Speech Community.’ In Re-Inventing the Postcolonial (in the) Metropolis, edited by , 401–418. Leiden: Brill. doi: 10.1163/9789004328761_025.
- . . ‘Linguistic Decolonization in Jamaican Radio.’ Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik 63, No. 2: 179–197. doi: 10.1515/zaa-2015-0017.
- . . ‘Attitudes toward Accents of Standard English in Jamaican Radio Newscasting.’ Journal of English Linguistics 43, No. 4: 311–333. doi: 10.1177/0075424215607327.
- . . ‘Veronique, Lacoste. 2012. Phonological Variation in Rural Jamaican Schools.’ English World-Wide 35, No. 3: 358–362. doi: 10.1075/eww.35.3.06wes.
- . . A History of Jamaican Creole in the Jamaican Broadcasting Media.
Talks
- Westphal, Michael (): ‘Variational Pragmatics and World Englishes: Speech acts and discourse markers’. Guest lecture, University of Bremen, Germany, .
- Westphal, Michael; Hehner, Stefanie; Meer, Philipp (): ‘Global Englishes in Language Teaching’. Online Sprachentag Mecklenburg-Vorpommern , Fachverband Moderne Fremdsprachen M-V, Germany, .
- Westphal, Michael (): ‘Multilingual question tags in Nigerian and Philippine English’. Current Trends in Linguistics Conference (CuTLi), University of Hamburg, Germany, .
- Westphal, Michael (): ‘Eh across Englishes: A corpus-pragmatic analysis of the GloWbE corpus’. 6th International Society for the Linguistics of English (ISLE) conference, University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu, Finland, .
- Westphal, Michael (): ‘The multilingual pragmatics of New Englishes: Question tags in Nigerian English’. New Methods for Pragmatics of New Englishes (Susanne Mohr and Sandra Jansen), online, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim and University of Paderborn, .
- Westphal, Michael (): ‘Language and nationalism: The nationalist ideology of monolingualism in postcolonial theory’. Lecture Series at the Centre for English Language Studies, University of Hyderabad, India, .
- Wilson, Guyanne; Westphal, Michael (): ‘Creole and power: A Critical Discourse Analysis of legal cross-examinations in ICE Trinidad and Tobago and ICE Jamaica’. Stylistics, Critical Discourse Analysis, and Language Use in the Caribbean, The University of Trinidad and Tobago, Trinidad and Tobago, .
- Westphal, Michael (): ‘Variational Pragmatics and World Englishes: Questionnaires and corpora’. Guest lecture, University of Bremen, Germany, .
- Westphal, Michael; Hartmann, Johanna; Deuber, Dagmar; Lau, Kan Man; Meer, Philipp (): ‘Vocalic variation in Standard English spoken by Trinidadian professionals’. BICLCE 2019 - 8th Biennial International Conference on the Linguistics of Contemporary English, University of Bamberg, Germany, .
- Jansen, Lisa; Westphal, Michael (): ‘Performing Caribbean identity in pop music: Rihanna & Nicki Minaj’. 2nd Bremen Student Conference in English Linguistics, University of Bremen, Germany, .
- Westphal, Michael (): ‘Question Tags across Englishes and text types: A corpus-pragmatic analysis’. IAWE 24, University of Limerick, Ireland, .
- Wilson, Guyanne; Westphal, Michael (): ‘New Englishes New Methods: Language Attitude Research on Caribbean Englishes’. IAWE 24, University of Limerick, Ireland, .
- Meer, Philipp; Westphal Michael (): ‘2nd network meeting: Global Englishes in ELT in Germany’. ., University of Münster, Germany, .
- Hehner, Stefanie; Meer, Philipp; Callies, Marcus; Westphal, Michael (): ‘Workshop: Global Englishes and challenges for English language teaching and teacher education in higher education in Germany’. 7th Bremen Symposium on language learning and teaching at universities. Rethinking the language learner. , University of Bremen, Germany, .
- Westphal, Michael; Meer, Philipp (): ‘Workshop: Language Attitude Research in the Caribbean’. ., University of Muenster, Germany, .
- Westphal, Michael (): ‘Tag questions in different varieties of English and text types: A pragmatic perspective on corpus-based sociolinguistics’. Second International Conference on Sociolinguistics, Eötvös Loránd University Budapest, Hungary, .
- Westphal, Michael (): ‘Tag questions in Trinidadian and Philippine English: A corpus-pragmatic analysis of form, function, and text type variation’. ICAME 39 Corpus Linguistics and Changing Society, University of Tampere, Finland, .
- Jansen, Lisa; Westphal, Michael (): ‘Caribbean queen? Rihanna and Nicki Minaj’s multivocal pop personas’. Münsters Wissen frisch gezapft!, University of Münster, Germany, .
- Westphal, Michael (): ‘The nationalist ideology of monolingualism in postcolonial theory.’ 29th annual GAPS conference: Nationalism and the Postcolonial , University of Mainz, Germany, .
- Jansen, Lisa; Westphal, Michael (): ‘Caribbean queen? Rihanna and Nicki Minaj’s multivocal pop personas’. Lecture Series Hotspots in Literary/Cultural Studies and Linguistics, University of Münster, Münster, Germany., .
- Westphal, Michael (): ‘New Englishes - New Methods’. Guest lecture, University of Vigo, Spain, .
- Westphal, Michael (): ‘Pragmatic variation in World Englishes: The use of tag questions in Trinidadian and Philippine English’. 7th Biennial International Conference on the Linguistics of Contemporary English, University of Vigo, Spain, .
- Jansen, Lisa; Westphal, Michael (): ‘Caribbean queen? Rihanna and Nicki Minaj’s multivocal pop personae’. 7th Biennial International Conference on the Linguistics of Contemporary English, University of Vigo, Spain, .
- Westphal, Michael (): ‘Linguistic Variation in Jamaican Radio Newscasts’. Guest lecture, University of Kiel, Germany, .
- Westphal, Michael (): ‘Pre-conference Workshop: Language attitude research’. Dynamik – Variation – System: Interdisziplinäre Nachwuchstagung an der Graduate School Empirische und Angewandte Sprachwissenschaft an der WWU Münster, University of Münster, Germany, .
- Westphal, Michael (): ‘Introduction to Language Attitude Research’. Guest lecture, University of Freiburg, Germany, .
- Westphal, Michael (): ‘The global spread of Jamaican Creole in reggae subculture’. 4th International Society for the Linguistics of English (ISLE) conference, University of Poznań, Poland, .
- Westphal, Michael (): ‘Linguistic and cultural appropriation of reggae and dancehall in Germany’. 27th GAPS annual conference: The Postcolonial and the Material, University of Augsburg, Germany, .
- Westphal, Michael (): ‘Linguistic variation in Jamaican radio newscasts’. 6th International "Language in the Media" Conference, University of Hamburg, Germany, .
- Westphal, Michael (): ‘Linguistic destandardization processes in Jamaican radio’. 3rd International Society for the Linguistics of English (ISLE) Conference, University of Zurich (UZH), Switzerland, .
- Westphal, Michael (): ‘Linguistic decolonization processes in Jamaican radio’. 15th Triennial Conference of The European Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies (EACLALS): Uncommon Wealths Riches and Realities , University of Innsbruck, Austria, .
- Westphal, Michael (): ‘Perceptions of Standard Englishes in Jamaican radio newscasting’. Englishes Today: Theoretical and methodological issues, University of Vigo, Spain, .
- Westphal, Michael (): ‘Attitudes towards different accents of English in Jamaican radio newscasting’. 5th International conference on the linguistics of contemporary English (ICLCE 5), University of Texas Austin, USA, .
- Wilson, Guyanne; Westphal, Michael; Hartmann, Johanna; Deuber, Dagmar (): ‘The use of question tags in different registers of English in Trinidad’. 5th International conference on the linguistics of contemporary English (ICLCE 5), University of Texas Austin, USA, .
- Westphal, Michael (): ‘Emancipation from and reinvention of the linguistic metropolis in a post -colonial speech community’. 24th GAPS annual conference: Reinventing the postcolonial (in the) metropolis, Technical University of Chemnitz, Germany, .
Dr. Michael Westphal
Professur für Variationslinguistik (Prof. Deuber)
Further research projects
For information on more ongoing research projects click the links below:
Scientific communication