Prof. Dr. Weigand
© Weigand

Prof. Dr. Edda Weigand


Prof. of Linguistics, em.
Institut für Sprachwissenschaft
Aegidiistr. 5
48143 Münster

weigand@uni-muenster.de

  • Brief biography

    • Studied Classical Philology and German at the universities of Erlangen and Tübingen
    • Studied German Linguistics at the University of Tübingen
    • Awarded doctorate at the University of Tübingen
    • Post-doctoral thesis (Habilitation) at the Philological Faculty of the Ruhr University Bochum, venia legendi
    • Assistant Lecturer (Wissenschaftliche Assistentin) at the German Department of the Ruhr University Bochum
    • Professor at the Ruhr University Bochum
    • Professor of German Linguistics at the University of Messina/Italy (Professoressa associata)
    • Professor of Linguistics, Head of the Department of Language Research at the Centre for Language Research and Teaching
    • Professor of Linguistics in the Faculty of Philology at the University of Münster, later associated with the Institute of General Linguistics

    Various guest professorships, among them Santa Barbara, Lugano, Glion/Montreux
    Invitations to guest lectures across the world

  • Research focus

    The concept of ‚language as dialogue‘ is at the centre of my research. It is no longer related to German Linguistics but represents a universal concept which can be the basis for language comparison. I first introduced it in a conventional theory of dialogic competence (Weigand 1989/2003) and then modified it as the basis of a holistic performance theory of dialogue, the Mixed Game Model (2010). An overview of the various steps of this development is given in the book ‘Language as Dialogue: From Rules to Principles of Probability’ (2009). The Mixed Game Model (MGM) outlines the architecture of complexity in the area of human action and behaviour. Language competence was changed to competence-in-performance.

    The focus on dialogue led to the foundation of the ‘International Association for Dialogue Analysis’ (IADA) at the University of Bologna in 1990 with Sorin Stati as President, Edda Weigand as Vice-President and Franz Hundsnurscher as Founding Member. Edda Weigand, having been President from 2005 to 2012, became Honorary President and Founding Vice-President of IADA.

    Edda Weigand is editor-in-chief of the journal ‘Language and Dialogue’ and the series ‘Dialogue Studies’ with Benjamins.

    In 2017 Edda Weigand was elected Assistant Secretary General of the Committee of the UNESCO Federation for Modern Languages and Literatures (FILLM).

  • Publications

    The publications cover a wide range of areas, among them dialogue theory, pragmatics, speech act theory, utterance grammar, language and culture comparison, lexical semantics, ethics, dialogue technology. A list of the publications from the beginning until 2009 is included in the book Weigand (2009): Language as Dialogue.

    The publications listed below contain selected pieces of recent work published after 2009. In addition to the above mentioned books of 2009 on “Language as Dialogue” and 2010 on “Dialogue: The Mixed Game”, I would like to point to two books, in particular:
    2017. The Routledge Handbook of Language and Dialogue, ed. by Edda Weigand
    2018. From Pragmatics to Dialogue, ed. by Edda Weigand and Istvan Kecskes. Benjamins.

    Articles

    2010 “Language as dialogue.” Intercultural Pragmatics 7 (3): 505-515.
    2010 “Linguists and their speakers.” Language Sciences 32 (5): 536-544.
    2011 “Paradigm changes in linguistics: From reductionism to holism.” Language Sciences 33 (4): 544-549.
    2011 “Power in dialogic interaction.” Language and Dialogue 1 (2): 233-242.
    2012 “Politics: A game of words?” Journal of Advanced Linguistic Studies 1 (1-2): 159-168.
    2012 “Sprache und Sprechen.” In Sprache und Kommunikation, ed. by Otto Braun and Ulrike Lüdtke, 202-212 (Enzyklopädisches Handbuch der Behindertenpädagogik, vol. 8). Stuttgart: Kohlhammer.
    2012 “The challenge of complexity: Body, mind and language in interaction.” In Moving Ourselves, Moving Others. Motion and Emotion in Intersubjectivity, Consciousness and Language, ed. by Ad Foolen, Ulrike M. Lüdtke, Timothy P. Racine and Jordan Zlatev, 383-406. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins.
    2012 “Professional action games: Theory and practice.” In Professional Communication across Languages and Cultures, ed. by Stanca Măda and Răzvan Săftoiu, 43-60. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins.
    2012 “Dialogue: Object and representation.” In (Re)presentations and Dialogue, ed. by François Cooren and Alain Létourneau, 1-16. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins.
    2013 “Words between reality and fiction.” Language and Dialogue 3 (1): 147-163.
    2014 “Rationality of performance.” Philosophia Scientiae 18 (3): 247-268.
    2015 “Persuasion or the integration of grammar and rhetoric.” In Persuasive Games in Political and Professional Dialogue, ed. by Răzvan Săftoiu, Maria-Ionela Neagu and Stanca Măda, 3-18. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins.
    2015 “Dialogue in the stream of life.” Language and Dialogue 5 (2): 197-223.
    2015 “Identity as a dialogic concept.” Language and Dialogue 5 (1): 7-22.
    2016 “How to verify a theory of dialogue.” Language and Dialogue 6 (3): 349-369.
    2016 “The dialogic principle revisited: Speech acts and mental states.” In Interdisciplinary Studies in Pragmatics, Culture and Society, ed. by Alessandro Capone and Jacob L. Mey, 209-232. Cham etc.: Springer; reprint of Edda Weigand 2009: Language as Dialogue, 21-44. Amsterdam: Benjamins; reprint of Dialoganalyse III. Referate der 3. Arbeitstagung, Bologna 1990, part 1, ed. by Sorin Stati, Edda Weigand and Franz Hundsnurscher, 75-104. Tübingen: Niemeyer.
    2017 “The Mixed Game Model: A holistic theory.” In The Routledge Handbook of Language and Dialogue, ed. by Edda Weigand, 174-194. New York: Routledge.
    2017 “The concept of language in an utterance grammar.” In The Routledge Handbook of Language and Dialogue, ed. by Edda Weigand, 214-233. New York: Routledge.
    2017 “IADA History: The unity of knowledge and its multiple faces.” Language and Dialogue 7 (1): 63-79.
    2018 “Ethics in Dialogue: Ideals and Reality.” In Dialogic Ethics, ed. by Ronald C. Arnett and François Cooren, 1-24. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins.
    2018 “The theory myth.” Language and Dialogue 8 (2): 289-305.
    2018 “Dialogue: The key to pragmatics.” In From Pragmatics to Dialogue, ed. by Edda Weigand and Istvan Kecskes, 5-28. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins.
    Forthc. "Competence-in-performance: Basic issues for learning machines.”