Affiliate of Centre for Digital Cultures & Societies
Centre for Digital Cultures & Societies
Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences
Lecturer in Applied Linguistics
School of Languages and Cultures
Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences
Availability:
Available for supervision
My name is Martin Schweinberger and I am Lecturer in Applied Linguistics at the University of Queensland (UQ) in Australia. At the UQ, I am Director of the Language Technology and Data Analysis Laboratory (LADAL) (together with Michael Haugh) and I am a quantitative corpus linguist specialized in computational analyses of text and speech. In my research, I aim to combine and bridge the gap between computational linguistics and corpus linguistics.
I am steering committee member and Chief Investigator (CI) of the Language Data Commons of Australia (LDaCA) and was also steering committee member and CI of the Australian Text Analytics Platform (ATAP) before it was merged with LDaCA. Both ATAP and LDaCA aim at establishing language data infrastructures and text analytics upskilling resources in Australia and they have received substantive funding from the Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC). I have recently been elected as Vice-President Profession to be of the International Society for the Linguistics of English (ISLE) and I am board member of The International Computer Archive of Modern and Medieval English (ICAME).
Regarding my background, I have a PhD in English linguistics and I studied at the National University of Ireland, Galway, and Universität Kassel where I graduated in 2008 with an MA in English Philology, Philosophy, and Psychology. After my MA, I remained in Kassel for a short while but soon moved on to the University of Hamburg where I worked on and later received my PhD.
Potential topics for supervision
I would be particularly interested in supervising theses on the following topics:
Sociolinguistics / Language Variation and Change / World Englishes
General extenders
Terms-of-address and salutations
Discourse particles and markers
Vulgarity
Adjective amplification
Learner Language / Applied Linguistics / Corpus Phonetics / Learner Corpus Research
Vowel production among L1 speakers and learners of English
Voice-onset-times among L1 speakers and learners of English
Fluency and pauses in learner and L1 speech.
Accent and intelligibility / comprehension.
Text Analytics / Digital Humanities / Corpus Linguistics
Applied word embedding applications in the language sciences.
Comparison of different association / keyness measures
Affiliate of Centre for Digital Cultures & Societies
Centre for Digital Cultures & Societies
Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences
Senior Lecturer
School of Languages and Cultures
Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences
Availability:
Available for supervision
I am Senior Lecturer in the School of Languages and Cultures at The University of Queensland (UQ).
My research interests lie within the broad areas of pragmatics and discourse analysis, particularly, the pragmatics of social interaction (face-to-face and online), identity construction, humour, (im)politeness, getting acquainted and family talk. I have been working with different types of data, including naturally-occurring conversations, reality television discourse, qualitative interviews, corpora and social media.
I am Associate Editor in the Journal of Pragmatics and the Australian Review of Applied Linguistics journal, and an Editorial Board member in Advances in (Im)politeness Studies (book series), Springer.
I regularly review grant applications and I am a member of:
College of Experts, European Science Foundation (from 2021)
Review College, FWO (Research Foundation – Flanders) (2024-2027)
I'm originally from Lithuania, where I graduated from BA in English Philology and MA in English Studies. While at university, I spent part of my study period in Spain (Universidad Complutense de Madrid) and Quebec (Université de Montréal). After teaching two years at Vilnius University, in 2012 I started my PhD in Linguistics at the IPrA Research Center at the University of Antwerp, Belgium. After my PhD studies, I joined UQ as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow and then in a continuing position as Lecturer.
I've always loved languages, maybe because I've always been surrounded by a variety of them. I'm a native speaker of Lithuanian (lietuvių) and Russian (русский), I spent many years studying and then also teaching English and I also have a certificate for teaching Spanish as a foreign language (español como lengua extranjera ELE). Due to my study/research relocations, I can also communicate (sometimes extremely poorly) in Dutch (nederlands), French (français) and Portuguese (português), and at the moment I'm struggling with Modern Greek (ελληνικά) and Japanese (日本語)!
Chilmeg Elden (associate supervisor; with Prof Michael Haugh): The establishment and management of interpersonal relationships in early encounters between Australian and Japanese language exchange partners
Zhiyi Liu (principal supervisor; with Dr Wei-Lin Melody Chang and Prof Ping Chen): Relationship management in everyday Mainland Chinese and Chinese-Australian family talk
Andrea Rodriguez (principal supervisor; with Prof Michael Haugh): The role of categorical membership and accountability in the negotiation of action ascription
Nicholas Hugman (associate supervisor; with Prof Michael Haugh): Footballer identity, humour, and the digital interactional domain
Chantima Wangsomchok (associate supervisor; with Prof Michael Haugh): Conversational humour in English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) workplaces
PhD (completed)
(2023) Amir Sheikhan (associate supervisor; with Prof Michael Haugh and Dr Wei-Lin Melody Chang): Conversational humour in intercultural initial interactions in English
MA (current)
(2025) Marlene Valdés Fuentes: tbc
MA (completed)
(2023) Yeisy Vanessa Maldonado Ramirez: Reporting offence to friends in Spanish: A pragmatic analysis of moral grounds and impolite behaviour
(2023) Shea-Lea Wheeler: A discourse study of fictional self-presentation in Dungeons & Dragons gameplay
(2021) Zhiyi Liu: Constructing identities of a mother and an older sister/adult child: Membership categorization analysis of Chinese-Australian family talk
(2021) Maria Nagao: English teachers of young learners in Japan: A discourse analytical study on identity construction
(2021) Shupei Ni: Relational work in video game live-streaming interactions: Case studies of jocular abuse and joint fantasizing
(2021) Andrea Rodriguez: “Ay no, I do feel exhausted”: Interactional co-construction and interpersonal management of complaints in Spanish phone conversations between friends and relatives
(2020) Duyen Hong Ngoc Luong: Teaching English as a foreign language in Vietnam: Teachers’ and students’ perceptions of the English-only approach and code-switching in the classroom
Sinkeviciute, Valeria and Andrea Rodriguez (eds). (2026 forthcoming). Rules of engagement: Relationships and socialisation practices in family discourse.
2022-present: "Family talk in multilingual Australia"
2025 (February-April): "‘Who we are’ in multilingual Australia: Language and identity construction in family talk" funded by a Fellowship at the Leibniz-Institute for the German Language (IDS), Mannheim, Germany
2023: "Talking families into being: Analysing family interactions in Australian multilingual context" funded by Research Fund, School of Languages and Cultures (UQ)
2022: "‘Who we are’ in multilingual Brisbane: Family talk in Spanish and Russian speech communities" funded by HASS Enabler Funding Scheme (HASS EFS), Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (UQ)
2021: "Conversational humour in multilingual Australia: A closer look at Tennant Creek’s Indigenous and Brisbane’s Spanish speech communities" (with Dr Samantha Disbray and Dr Wei-Lin Melody Chang) funded by Strategic Researh Initiative Fund (SRIF), School of Languages and Cultures (UQ)
2021: ""I'm nearly old enough to be your mother": Using membership categorisation analysis to explore identity construction in getting acquainted interactions" funded by ECR Support Scheme, School of Languages and Cultures (UQ)
2020-2021: "The co-construction and negotiation of multilingual and multicultural identities in Australia: A case study of online interactions" funded by Targeted Research Support Scheme, School of Languages and Cultures (UQ)
2019-2022 (CI: Assoc. Prof Marta Dynel): "FUNGRESSION: Humour and impoliteness on social media" funded by National Science Centre (Poland) (2018/30/E/HS2/00644)
2018-2019 (with Dr Wei-Lin Melody Chang): "How far can an Aussie joke travel? Intercultural perspectives on Australian humour" funded by Strategic Research Initiative Fund (SRIF), School of Languages and Cultures (UQ)
Sinkeviciute, Valeria (ed). 2024. Advances in the study of social action in online interaction. Internet Pragmatics https://doi.org/10.1075/ip.7.1
Haugh, Michael and Valeria Sinkeviciute (eds.). 2021. The pragmatics of initial interactions: Cross-cultural and intercultural perspectives. Journal of Pragmatics. https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/journal-of-pragmatics/special-issue/10DB1P3LJJ8
Sinkeviciute, Valeria (ed.). 2019. The interplay between humour and identity construction. Journal of Pragmatics 152. https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/journal-of-pragmatics/vol/152/suppl/C
Dynel, Marta and Valeria Sinkeviciute (eds.). 2017. Conversational humour: Spotlight on languages and cultures. Language & Communication 55. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/02715309/55?sdc=1
Reviews of my monograph "Conversational humour and (im)politeness: A pragmatics analysis of social interaction":
Yang, N. (2022). Book review: Sinkeviciute, Valeria.2019. Conversational Humour and (Im)politeness. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Journal of Politeness Research 18(2): 451-455. https://doi.org/10.1515/pr-2020-0015
Tsami, V. & Saloustrou, V. (2021). Book review: Sinkeviciute, Valeria.(2018). Conversational Humour and (Im)politeness. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. The European Journal of Humour Research 9(3): 179-183. https://europeanjournalofhumour.org/ejhr/article/view/544/556
Murphy, J. (2021). Review of Conversational Humour and (Im)politeness: A Pragmatic Analysis of Social Interaction, Valeria Sinkeviciute. John Benjamins, Amsterdam/Philadelphia (2019). 274 pp. ISBN 9789027262110 (e-book). Journal of Pragmatics 183: 105-106. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2021.07.010
Krendel, A. (2020). Review of Conversational Humour and (Im)politeness. Valeria Sinkeviciute, John Benjamins Publishing Company, Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 2019 (e-book), ISBN: 9789027262110. Corpus Pragmatics 4: 479–483.https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s41701-020-00086-w
22-27 June 2025 (with Andrea Rodriguez) - (Cross-)linguistic studies on relationships and socialisation practices in family discourse, at the 19th International Pragmatics Conference, IPrA2025, Brisbane, Australia
9-14 July 2023 (with Andrea Rodriguez) - Membership categorisation and interpersonal relationships in social interaction, at the 18th International Pragmatics Conference, IPrA2023, Brussels, Belgium
9-14 June 2019 (with Marta Dynel) - Aggression as (im)politeness on social media, at the 16th International Pragmatics Conference, Hong Kong
6-8 February 2019 - Metapragmatic labels and commentary on humorous practices: An (inter-)cultural perspective, at Australian Humour Studies Network conference, Melbourne, Australia
1-3 November 2018 - Panel organiser (with Wei-Lin Melody Chang), Doing ‘being ordinary’ in reality television discourse, at 4th International Conference of the American Pragmatics Association (AMPRA), SUNY, Albany, USA
16-21 July 2017 – From self to culture: Identity construction in humour-related discourses, at the 15th International Pragmatics Conference, Belfast, Northern Ireland
26-31 July 2015 – (with Marta Dynel), The Pragmatics of Conversational Humour, at the 14th International Pragmatics Conference, Antwerp, Belgium
11 December 2024 - “Tú quieres que yo te dé un premio?”: Acción social y categorías en las conversaciones familiares. Talk at Seminario Permanente de Análisis de la Conversación (SPAC)
11-13 October 2024 - Online interaction as multimodal accomplishment of the social order. Plenary talk at the 3rd Interactional Conference on Discourse Pragmatics (ICDP-3)
21 January 2021 - Social interaction and identity construction. Guest lecture for postgraduate students at University of Maribor, Slovenia
20 January 2021 - Pragmatics and social action. Guest lecture for undergraduate students at University of Maribor, Slovenia
14 November 2019 - “Hey BCC this is Australia and we speak and read English”: Linguistic diversity and impoliteness on Brisbane City Council’s Facebook page, invited talk at Linguistics Seminar Series, School of Languages and Cultures, The University of Queensland (https://languages-cultures.uq.edu.au/event/session/5365)
27 September 2019 - Studying linguistics, what's next? An invited speaker at UQ Linguistics Society's Careers Night.
26 May 2017 - Evaluating (im)polite interactional behaviour: From reality television to qualitative interviews, talk at the Research Seminar at the School of Languages and Cultures, The University of Queensland, Australia
10 May 2017 - Metapragmatics and humour, guest lecture at The University of Queensland, Australia
6 November 2015 - What makes teasing impolite? “Step[ping] over those lines […] you shouldn’t be crossing”, guest lecture at University of Antwerp, Belgium
25 November 2014 - “[Sometimes] it’s not particularly funny, [sometimes] it’s just rude”: Getting a laugh and/or taking offence to teasing, talk at the Research Seminar at Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia
6 December 2013 - (Im)politeness in context, guest lecture at University of Antwerp, Belgium
Journal of Pragmatics / Pragmatics / Journal of Politeness Research / Discourse Studies / Lingua / Language & Communication / Research on Language and Social Interaction / Internet Pragmatics / Discourse, Context & Media / Contrastive Pragmatics / Pragmatics and Society / Gender, Work & Organization / Sociolinguistic Studies / Pragmatics & Cognition / Journal of English for Academic Purposes / The Sociological Review
Ken Tann is an in-house linguist at the UQ Business School. He specializes in applying linguistic and semiotic techniques to interdisciplinary research, and helps industry professionals add value to their professions through effective communication. His analytical framework has been applied across media, forensic, education and workplace contexts. He is currently supervising PhD research in marketing, finance and aged care.
Damon Thomas is a senior lecturer in literacy education. His current research interests include theories of writing, writing development, pedagogy, and assessment, systemic functional linguistics, argumentation, standardised assessment, and classical rhetoric. Damon's research has made important contributions in the following areas:
Understanding the complexities of student writing development
Exploring writing instruction in situ
Unpacking and critiquing the results of Australia's only large-scale test: the National Assessment Program - Literacy and Numeracy.
Damon completed his PhD at the University of Tasmania (UTAS) in 2015. He began lecturing at UTAS in 2014 and was promoted to senior lecturer in 2019. He took up a senior lecturer position at the University of Queensland (UQ) in 2021. Before starting his academic career, Damon taught as a primary school teacher in Tasmania after completing a Bachelor of Education degree with First Class Honours.
Damon was part of a team of Chief Investigators from the University of Tasmania, Deakin University, and La Trobe University that secured a successful ARC Linkage Project in 2015 in partnership with Anglicare Tasmania (LP150100558). The project investigated conditions that improved learning and wellbeing outcomes in regional, low-SES schools in Tasmania and Victoria. Damon oversaw the literacy component across school sites and conducted in-depth case studies in Tasmanian primary and high schools.
Damon is currently a Chief Investigator on an ARC Discovery Project investigating talk for learning in early years mathematics classrooms. Damon's main role is to employ several linguistic frameworks to understand the complexities of student dialogue and features of productive talk.
Damon is a member of several professional organisations including the Australian Systemic Functional Linguistics Association (ASFLA), the Primary English Teaching Association of Australia (PETAA), and the Australian Literacy Educators' Association (ALEA). Damon also translates literacy research for practising teachers via his blog: Read Write Think Learn
Assoc. Prof. Dr. habil Franzisca Weder, Senior Lecturer at the University of Queensland, Brisbane (Australia), is researching, writing and teaching in the areas of Organizational Communication and Public Relations with a specific focus on Sustainability Communication and Corporate Social Responsibility.
She worked as Guest Professor at University of Alabama (USA), University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt (GER), University of Waikato (NZ), RMIT (Melbourne, AUS) and University of Ilmenau (GER).
Franzisca Weder is Chair of the International Environmental Communication Association (IECA) -> check this out (and become a member :-): https://www.theieca.org
Curious about her work? check…
her eco-culture jamming
her sustainability related conversations with artists and campaigners
one of her papers on Sustainability and Storytelling
one of her books
on Sustainability Communication: THE SUSTAINABILITY COMMUNICATION READER
on integrated CSR Communication: INTEGRATED CSR COMMUNICATION
or (in case you speak German..) on Organizational Communication and PR
or other recent papers:
on how (much) Covid made us more sustainable
on sustainability as cognitive friction https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcomm.2020.00008/full
or on antagonistic framing and CSR Communication https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/CCIJ-01-2018-0014/full/html
or (in case you speak German), her ideas on cultures of sustainability
