Professor Michaela Mahlberg PhD

Photograph of Professor Michaela Mahlberg

Department of Linguistics and Communication
Honorary Professor of Corpus Linguistics

Contact details

Email: m.a.mahlberg@bham.ac.uk
Twitter: @MichaMahlberg

Address: Arts Building
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

As a corpus linguist, I am interested in language as a social phenomenon and the way in which we use language to understand and shape the world we live in. A large part of my research focuses on the language of Dickens’s fiction, literary linguistics, and discourse analysis.

I am currently Principal Investigator on the AHRC funded CLiC Dickens project.

I speak about Corpus Linguistics on this Hay Levels video (i.e. a 3-minute masterclass for A-level students).

Qualifications

2008 Certificate in Professional Studies (CPS) in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education (University of Liverpool, UK)
2004 PhD in English Linguistics (Universität des Saarlandes, Saarbrücken, Germany)
2000 Staatsexamen, English and Mathematics, (University of Bonn, Germany)

Biography

After completing a Staatsexamen in English and Mathematics at the University of Bonn (in 2000), I became increasingly interested in corpus linguistics, so I went on to do a PhD on high-frequency nouns and graduated from the University of Saarbruecken in 2004. Before joining the University of Birmingham in 2015, I taught English Language and Linguistics at the University of Bari (Italy), Liverpool University College (UK), the University of Liverpool (UK) and the University of Nottingham (UK).

Research

My main research interests are in corpus linguistics and contextual approaches to meaning. In the field of corpus linguistics I have published on the relationship between lexis and grammar and the way in which phraseology contributes to cohesion in texts. Another major focus of my research is corpus stylistics, an area of research that employs corpus linguistic methods for the study of literary texts.

I am particularly interested in textual patterns of body language presentation and have worked extensively on Dickens's fiction. I am currently Principal Investigator on the AHRC-funded project (with Co-investigator Peter Stockwell) "CLiC Dickens - characterisation in the representation of speech and body language from a corpus stylistic perspective".

Other activities

I am the editor of the International Journal of Corpus Linguistics. Together with Wolfgang Teubert I edit the book series Corpus and Discourse. I am a member of the following Editorial/Advisory Boards: Corpora (peer-reviewed journal, EUP), Studies in Corpus Linguistics (book series edited by Elena Tognini-Bonelli, published by John Benjamins), Korpuslinguistik und Interdisziplinäre Perspektiven auf Sprache - Corpus linguistics and Interdisciplinary perspectives on language (CLIP) (book series edited by Holger Keibel, Marc Kupietz, Christian Mair, published by Gunter Narr), Diskursmuster - Discourse Patterns (book series edited by Ingo H. Warnke and Beatrix Busse, published by de Gruyter).

I am a member of the AHRC's Peer Review College, the Board of ICAME and the following professional societies: Pala, ISLE, BAVS.

Publications

Recent publications

Book

Cermakova, A & Mahlberg, M (eds) 2024, Children’s Literature and Childhood Discourses: Exploring Identity through Fiction. Corpus and Discourse, 1 edn, Bloomsbury Publishing. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350177017

Wiegand, V & Mahlberg, M (eds) 2019, Corpus Linguistics, Context and Culture. Diskursmuster / Discourse Patterns, vol. 15, De Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110489071

Article

March, E, Moran, D, Houlbrook, M, Jewkes, Y & Mahlberg, M 2023, 'Defining the Carceral Characteristics of the ‘Dickensian prison’: A Corpus Stylistics Analysis of Dickens’s Novels', Victoriographies, vol. 13, no. 1, pp. 15-41. https://doi.org/10.3366/vic.2023.0477

Mahlberg, M & Cermakova, A 2022, 'Gendered body language in children’s literature over time', Language and Literature, vol. 31, no. 1, pp. 11-40. https://doi.org/10.1177/09639470211072154

Čermáková, A & Mahlberg, M 2022, 'The representation of mothers and the gendered social structure of nineteenth-century children’s literature', English Text Construction, vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 119–149. https://doi.org/10.1075/etc.00044.cer

Egbert, J & Mahlberg, M 2020, 'Fiction—One Register or Two? Speech and narration in novels', Register Studies , vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 72-101. https://doi.org/10.1075/rs.19006.egb

Fuoli, M, Clarke, I, Wiegand, V, Ziezold, H & Mahlberg, M 2020, 'Responding effectively to customer feedback on Twitter: a mixed methods study of webcare styles', Applied Linguistics, vol. 2020, amaa046. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amaa046

Hobday, S, Mahlberg, M, Wiegand, V & Child, F 2019, 'Digital Methods for the English Classroom (2019) Impact: Journal of the Chartered College of Teaching, Issue 7. Available at: https://my.chartered.college/impact_article/digital-methods-for-the-english-classroom/', Impact, no. 7, N/A, pp. N/A.

Chapter

Cermakova, A & Mahlberg, M 2024, Discovering What It Means to Be Unladylike in Children’s Fiction. in A Cermakova & M Mahlberg (eds), Children’s Literature and Childhood Discourses: Exploring Identity through Fiction. 1 edn, Corpus and Discourse, Bloomsbury Publishing, pp. 169-192. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350177017.0016

Mahlberg, M & Wiegand, V 2022, Exploring narrative fiction: corpora and digital humanities projects. in A O'Keeffe & MJ McCarthy (eds), The Routledge Handbook of Corpus Linguistics. 2nd edn, Routledge, London, pp. 532–546. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780367076399-37

Mahlberg, M, Wiegand, V & Hennessey, A 2020, Eye language – body part collocations and textual contexts in the nineteenth-century novel. in L Fesenmeier & I Novakova (eds), Phraseology and Stylistics of Literary Language/Phraséologie et stylistique de la langue littéraire. Peter Lang, Bern.

Mahlberg, M & Wiegand, V 2020, Literary stylistics. in S Adolphs & D Knight (eds), The Routledge Handbook of English Language and Digital Humanities. Routledge, pp. 306–327. <https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003031758-17/literary-stylistics-michaela-mahlberg-viola-wiegand>

Mahlberg, M & Wiegand, V 2020, Stylistics and the Digital Humanities. in S Conrad, A Hartig & L Santelmann (eds), The Cambridge Introduction to Applied Linguistics. Cambridge University Press, pp. 219–234. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108658089.020

Wiegand, V & Mahlberg, M 2019, Introduction: On context and culture in corpus linguistics. in Corpus Linguistics, Context and Culture. De Gruyter, pp. 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110489071-001

Foreword/postscript

Cermakova, A & Mahlberg, M 2024, Introduction: Children’s Literature and Childhood Discourses. in A Cermakova & M Mahlberg (eds), Children’s Literature and Childhood Discourses: Exploring Identity through Fiction. 1 edn, Corpus and Discourse, Bloomsbury Publishing, pp. 1-10. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350177017.0008

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