Research Activities at the Faculty
Research is focused on the four central areas: linguistics (including translation studies), literary studies, cultural studies, and didactics. In the interest of the unity of research and teaching, the central areas are based on the traditions within the institutes, but they also develop through co-operations with the interdisciplinary centres of the Universität Leipzig (Centre for Advanced Studies, Centre for French Studies, Centre for Women‘s and Gender Studies, Ohio-Leipzig European Center). The faculty also contributes to international and trans-disciplinary networks. Especially innovative projects arise from co-operations with institutions outside the university: the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, the Centre for the History and Culture of Eastern Central Europe, the Simon Dubnow Institute for Jewish History and Culture, and the Sächsische Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig. The Faculty takes part in the National Research Foundation (DFG) priority programme on "Language Production" and the focus programmes "Linguistic Foundations of Cognitive Science" and “Grammar und Processing of Verbal Arguments”‚ in the Research Training Group “Universality and Diversity of Languages" and in the PhD Programme "Transnationalization and Regionalization from the 18th Century to the Present". In addition to the above mentioned further research projects have been continued in the field of Language Typology which are sponsored by the "Volkswagenstiftung" (The Volkswagen Foundation) and the National Research Foundation (DFG).
The Faculty also contributes to the specific research profiles of the university in the areas of "Brain, Cognition and Language" and "Contested Order - Orders in contest".
Linguistics
Linguistics concerns itself with the languages represented at the faculty in synchrony and diachrony, with the structure of language knowledge and language processing, and with the context-specific use of language(s) from an infra- and interlinguistic point of view. A special emphasis with significant potential to acquire external funding is its contribution to Generative Grammar based on Chomsky's Minimalist Program. Other research areas are comparative linguistics, information structure, contrastive grammar, language history, sociolinguistics, translation studies, intercultural communication, and language acquisition.
Literary Studies
Literary Studies includes literary theory, the description of development and dynamics of artistic texts and the analysis of their function in various cultural contexts and communication situations. Special emphasis is placed on postmodernism and postcolonialism, epistemology, the history of science, the history of consciousness, fiction studies, and comparative literature.
Cultural Studies
Cultural Studies is inherently interdisciplinary. Research is based primarily on texts and focuses on the following areas: intercultural communication, cultural regionalism vs. globalisation, discursivity, high and low culture, alterity and hybridity, social integration and exclusion, the formation of identity, and minorities (race relations, constructions of gender, immigration processes). Great Britain and Ireland, the United States, Ibero-America, France/Francophone areas, Eastern Central and South Eastern Europe (together with the Centre for the History and Culture of Eastern Central Europe) constitute regional emphases. In 2003 the Fulbright Commission granted a payment for a guest professorship (Distinguished Chair) in American Studies at the Universität Leipzig for the duration of five years. This must be seen as recognition of the distinguished research programme by the Institute for American Studies.
Didactics
The focus of didactics is on foreign language didactics and language teaching as well as the teaching of literature, history, and institutions of a country. Additional emphasis is placed on the theory and empirical study of foreign language acquisition, the theory, description, and dynamics of curricula and learning programmes, the research in teaching and learning materials (esp. teaching and learning software), and integrated multipolar syllabi including tandem learning and multimedia.
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