“Welcome Aboard!”“Everyone has a fundamental right to learn how to read and write.”Linguist Prof. Dr. Nadja Kerschhofer-Puhalo strengthens the Humanities.

18 November 2022, by Kerschhofer/Red.

Photo: Vera Puhalo

Prof. Dr. Nadja Kerschhofer-Puhalo

Every year, Universität Hamburg welcomes numerous new researchers. This series introduces them and their areas of research. This time: Linguist Prof. Dr. Nadja Kerschhofer-Puhalo.

Prof. Dr. Nadja Kerschhofer-Puhalo, previously from the University of Vienna, joined Universität Hamburg in Winter Semester 2022/23 and will fill the professorship for German linguistics with a focus on written linguistics at the Institute for German Language and Literature.

My research area in brief:

I see written linguistics as cross-cutting, concerned with the structure, use, acquisition, and development of writing and literariness. Researching the acquisition of written language, the history of writing and writing systems, and “literacies” with regard to the practice of reading and writing in social contexts is an interdisciplinary undertaking. It requires consolidating contributions from psycholinguistics; descriptive, historical, and contrastive linguistics; textual linguistics and discourse research. It also involves education science, multilingualism research, literary studies, media studies, and, last but not least, practical implementation in teacher training.

In line with citizen science and participatory research, I actively include children, adolescents, and adults in my research projects to center their perspectives and realities as readers, writers, and learners. Thanks to their participation, we gain a much more multifaceted idea of the nature of reading, writing, and learning, and how learning difficulties arise but can also be surmounted.

This is how I explain my research to my family:

Simply put, I am concerned with everything related to writing and written language. I have to say that my children and my family sensitized me to many of the questions that I now work on in my research: What happens in these (such fleeting) moments in which “the light goes on” in a child’s head and it can connect the sequence of letters to make sounds and thus read? What do we need to pay attention to when someone learns to read in a new language or another writing system? How do writing and reading in digital contexts differ from “standard” reading and writing activities? What does it mean in our society to “master writing” (or not to master it, that is, be illiterate)? Above all: How can we address reading and writing difficulties and what does that mean for advanced and continuing education for teachers?

In Hamburg, the city and the University, I am looking forward to:

Universität Hamburg is the first university to establish a professorship for written linguistics and it is an incredible privilege to fill the position. In the last few weeks and months, I have had contact to many of my new colleagues and I am really delighted with the openness and warmth I have experienced. I really do not know the city of Hamburg and I very much look forward to discovering it because, geographically and historically, it provides a very interesting contrast to Vienna, where I lived and worked.

These are my plans at Universität Hamburg:

Above all, cooperation with my colleagues from various institutions and faculties is important to me. I see especially the Center for Linguistics (ZfS), with its various areas of cooperation, as providing interesting infrastructure for joint projects, for example, a lecture series on the history of writing, or interdisciplinary projects on writing and literacy.

With regard to acquiring literacy and fostering reading, I would especially like to work together with colleagues from various areas in education, for example early childhood and primary education, adult education, and subject-specific didactics to consolidate linguistic, pedagogical, and didactic research perspectives. As in my previous work, in Hamburg I will also seek dialog with non-university educational institutions in the field of adult education and non-profit organizations in order to research literality in non-school contexts. I would like to use a participatory and co-creative research approach again.

I am also very excited about work in the Cluster of Excellence Understanding Written Artefacts, because I originally studied ancient Near Eastern studies and I have a special fondness for historical literary objects. I am especially interested in aspects of the materiality of written work in relation to languages, writing systems, and the historical and cultural contexts of past eras.

One of my current favorite topics is the status of writing by hand, because the age of digital technologies does not bode well for this—although from my point of view, there are interesting processes of usage diversification that I would like to look at more closely.

And I am especially looking forward to the invitation to participate in a subproject on literacy narratives in the planned collaborative research center on literacy in diversity contexts.

This is why students should come to my lectures:

In my lectures, I like to show the relevance and added value of linguistic approaches to better learning and teaching processes. I rely on current research findings, practical examples from my own projects (texts, pictures, videos), and on my past experience and students’ interests.

Learning means making connections between the new and the familiar. This succeeds above all when I know more about my students and their experiences. It is especially important to me to make students less afraid of linguistics, which, with its extensive theoretical apparatus, can scare people off at first glance; but precisely in the field of applied linguistics, the discipline has a lot to offer in the way of opening up alternative academic approaches to everyday experiences with writing, language(s), and linguistic and social diversity.

Reaching out to the world: I will work with the following international institutions, universities, and other institutions:

I have international contact with colleagues in France, Canada, the Netherlands, Poland, and Switzerland. Important topics include multilingualism and sociolinguistics. I would like to further expand upon my contacts to universities in Great Britain, where there is intensive research on literacy studies and literality and multimodality. To better establish the field of written linguistics, I would also like to pursue cooperation in the German-speaking world, for example with the Universities of Zurich and Vienna, where questions in written linguistics are being addressed from different perspectives.

My research is important to society because:

Everyone has a fundamental right to learn how to read and write and to have access to sufficient learning and education resources, regardless of background or social status. To me, this is one of the most important bases for a self-determined life, for a democratic society, for resilience in crises, and for individual and social learning processes that contribute to the creation of a sustainable future.

For this, we need sound research, and classroom, curricular, and school-based organizational measures on the basis of current research and an open dialog between researchers, policymakers, and practitioners; between universities, schools, and other educational institutions, and between learners and teachers. I am really looking forward to shaping this dialog in my professorship at Universität Hamburg.