Thesis Supervision
If you intend to write a seminar paper or MA thesis with M. Locher, please carefully study the Manual for Papers in English Linguistics and the requirements for starting an MA thesis, and then contact ML for an offcie hour on email.
ML welcomes supervision of papers in her research fields and is open to suggestions for new topics. However, please note that only work on the English language is supervised and that work in the field of first/second language acquisition and TESOL is not eligible.
| Author | Year | Title |
Ackermann, Evelyne | 2017 | A Way to Assess EFL Writing: Development and testing of a rating scale to assess EFL learners’ essay writing skills related to coherence and cohesion |
| Adams, Elizabeth | 2021 | Monolingual and multilingual wordplay in the linguistic landscape of Basel: A study on wordplay in terms of linguistic techniques, ambiguity and multilingualism |
Asensio, Nathalie | 2011 | La communication entre personnel sanitaire et patients alloglottes. Problématique de multilinguisme et stratégies afin de franchir les barrières linguistiques |
Bachmann, Isabel | 2009 | Ideological Legitimation -- Legitimizing Ideologies in George W. Bush's Speeches |
| Badetscher Moescher, Jamie | 2017 | (Im)Politeness Strategies & Interactional Functions of Hillary Clinton’s Attacks: Analyzing the presidential primary debates of 2008 and 2016 |
Beck, Kathrin | 2017 | The discursive construction of General Practitioner identities in a quality circle |
Bieri, Aline | 2015 | "That's something we have time for in English classes, in biology we learn biology" - A Descriptive-Comparative Study of Biology Lessons in a CLIL and Non-CLIL Context at the Gymnasium Oberwil |
| Bollag, Julian | 2023 | The pragmatics of non-English address terms in Anglo-Indian fiction: Individual and collective characterization through dialogue and narration |
| Bondareva, Svetlana | 2023 | Persuasion Mechanisms in State Media |
| Boyle, Dominick Andrew | 2021 | Genre features and credibility resources. Genre as a resource for credibility in online alternative health information |
Brühlmann, Volha | 2012 | Narrating migration: The case of expatriates in Basel |
Brugger, Ellen | 2013 | Persuasion in Political Discourse. A media comparison of persuasive means in the 2012 US presidential campaigns |
Burckhardt, Ariane | 2010 | “We are not afraid of Susan Sontag.” Visual and verbal metaphors in graphic illness narratives. A comparative analysis of the visual and verbal metaphors in Cancer Vixen, Mom’s Cancer, Epileptic, Cancer Made me a Shallower Person, Our Cancer Year, Blue Pills, and Janet & ME |
| Cudemo, Carmela | 2019 | The linguistic construction of trustworthy expert- identities in online medical consultations |
Domenghino, Lisa | 2013 | Understanding Online Celebrity Gossip: A Genre Analysis |
| Dorian, Juliet | 2018 | Web mediated corporate branding - How a brand markets its self by communicating through its webpage and social media |
dos Santos, Gabriela | 2014 | "Excuse me, excuse me... Sprechen Sie English?" Americans and the English language in Europe, and the resulting language ideologies in cinematic discourse |
Dürr, Catherine | 2012 | What is on the line? An analysis of the (relational) work invested in the negotiation of relationships in the context of a radio call-in advice show and the emergence of the advice-giver’s expert identity in |
Emmenegger, Seline | 2015 | 'I'm surrounded by idiots!' Verbal, non-verbal, physical and indirect aggression in Disney's animated movies for children |
Grauer, Karoline | 2013 | The face of humorous ghosts. A study of face aggravating behaviour as a means to create humour in romantic ghost comedies |
| Green, Jennifer | 2019 | Mobile Health and Chronic Care Management: Persuasion in Chronic Illness Blogs |
Häfliger, Doris | 2010 | Collaboration and conflict on multi-user domains. Article editing in Wikipedia |
| Hänggi, Philipp | 2019 | Dining in total darkness: A multimodal conversation-analytic approach |
Hanselmann, Sandra | 2014 | The collective management of garden work. A conversation analytic and ethnographic approach on meeting interaction in a community garden in Johannesburg, South Africa |
Hegi, Daniel | 2017 | A comparison of the broadcasting format and the English and German language use in televised live commentaries in NFL broadcasts in the season 2016/2017 |
| Hettenbach, Arianna | 2022 | Minimizing criticism while emphasizing power. the use of humor as discursive strategy in contexts of asymmetrical power relationships in virtual team meetings |
Hengartner, Cristina | 2013 | What are you saying, Bitch? A study on how offensive language generates humour in the telecinematic discourse of 2 Broke Girls |
| Hobi, Sabine | 2017 | “This is the best price it’ll ever be for at least one year”: An analysis of language and persuasion in infomercials |
| Hodzic, Amina | 2018 | Establishing Stereotypes through Accent: Creation of the Linguistic Other’ in the Netflix Series ‚Altered Carbon' |
| Holéczy, Lena | 2018 | "It's Part of Me (?)" Family Language Policies in Second-generation Migrants' Bilingual Child-Rearing in Basel |
Iyer-Grüninger, Evelyne | 2013 | Fight for the Floor: A Qualitative and Quantitative Study of Types, Functions, and Effects of Overlap in the Sitcom It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia |
| Ingletti, Maria-Concetta | 2011 | English in post-colonial India: Exploring Salman Rushdie’s view of a changing language |
| Jaggi, Meret | 2022 | Think of this room as four walls of trust – How Netflix’s Sex Education addresses topics of sexual health. A qualitative analysis of fictional teenage characters’ telecinematic discourse and relational work |
| Johann, Andrea | 2009 | Crazy Horse or Mr. Smith? A critical discourse analysis of the representation o: Native Americans as a minority group and their relation to the dominant group at the example of the discourse on land rights and issues in the U.S. press |
| Kacl, Eleonora | 2022 | “He don’t speak English but he communicates”: Interaction Patterns and Discourse Strategies in Veterinarian-Client-Pet Health Communication |
Kanaet, Anita | 2010 | Baby Signa. An Auxiliary Tool in Infants' Early Language Development |
| Kaufmann, Denise | 2020 | Mental health and mental illness in Swiss newspapers. A mixed-method approach to news discourse |
| Kiefer, Nora | 2018 | Testing a Semi-Automatic Method of Detecting Learner Errors in the International Corpus of Learner English (ICLE): The Case of Query Codes as a Rule-Based Approach to Error Detection |
Kopetz, Anja | 2014 | Arzt-Patienten-Interaktion in der Psychiatrie. Eine konversationsanalytische Untersuchung von Frage-Antwort-Sequenzen in Arzt-Patienten-Gesprächen im stationären Rahmen einer psychiatrischen Klinik |
Kuckovic, Dino | 2013 | The Fresh Side of Life! Demonstrating Freshness in Soft Drink Advertsing. A Case Study of Coca-Cola and Pepsi |
| Kurer, Felix | 2018 | Take Back Control vs. Stronger, Safer and Better Off: Keywords in the United Kingdom's EU referendum campaigns |
Mathis, Nicola | 2012 | Sell the Sizzle, not the Steak – Attempts of Advertisers to Emotionalize and Involve Consumers with the Application of Linguistic Strategies in Headlines in Print Advertisements |
Mayer, Laura | 2014 | Mexican Americanness in U.S. drama movies: A multimodal analysis of the representation of Mexican Americans in ten U.S. drama movies re-leased between 1987 and 2006 |
Meier, Janine | 2012 | Same function -- different texts. Textual hybridity of medical students' reflective writing texts |
Meyer, Nathalie | 2014 | „Hi guys. I’m going to do a vlog today about my top three most embarrassing moments.“ – Structural dimensions and audience management in personal experience narratives on YouTube |
Mohler, Olivia | 2015 | The Use of Ethos, Pathos and Logos in Discourse Around Veganism. An Analysis of the Application of the Three Aristotelian Modes of Persuasion in Vegan Discourse |
| Monnier, Michèle | 2019 | German Language Attrition and Maintenance in the Barossa Valley, South Australia. A Sociolinguistic Field Study of German Spoken by New Australians Involved in the Barossa German Language Association |
Müller, Angela | 2016 | Loanwords in Japanese. A Case Study of Three Anglicisms |
Mundwiler, Vera | 2010 | Swine Flue Scare, The metaphorical conceptualisation of pandemic diseases in media language |
Pazhekadavil, Viji | 2016 | Code-switching and relational work in bilingual conglict talk: A case study of two South-Indian families living in Switzerland |
| Reva, Nataliya | 2018 | Communication through images in magazine advertisements for female cosmetics |
| Rosset, Sophie | 2021 | “Learning English has become a bonus side-effect from going to school!”. Analyzing English language development and students’ attitudes under the influence of CLIL and individual learner-related factors in the Swiss context |
Rudolf von Rohr, Marie-Thérèse | 2010 | Impoliteness and Identity: Chicanos in diasporic forums. English-Spanish code-switching and attitudes towards Spanish and English analyzed in three ethnically specific forums |
| Salmon, Laura | 2019 | Pragmatic Approaches to Online Gaming: Advice-giving in Raids |
| Schmidlin, Sonja | 2017 | Conceptual metaphors in sports commercials: Conceptual metaphors and metonymies and their multimodal representations in sports commercials |
Schwaiger, Ariane | 2016 | Motivation in English and Spanish: A Study of Grammar School Stu-dents in Basel |
| Schweizer, Charlotte | 2009 | Immigrant discourses: A qualitative critical discourse analysis of interviews with Indian immigrant women in Switzerland |
| Stocker, Joël | 2022 | Complex communicative construct - A mixed method approach to communication on twitch.tv |
Tschopp, Gabriela | 2009 | The functions of intentional humour in the American Presidential Campaigns 2008. Barack Obama's and John McCain's use of humour during the Presidential debates and the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner |
| Ueberwasser, Alissa | 2021 | How to Put Magic into a Spell: The Claim to Magical Authority and the Incorporation of Magical Power into Acts of Verbal Communication in Aleister Crowley’s Magick in Theory and Practice, Janet and Stewart Farrar’s Spells and How They Work and Elizabeth Pepper’s Magic Spells and Incantations |
Vieira, Tatiana Andrade | 2014 | "Frei, offen und mehrsprachig": Mehrsprachigkeit als Ideologie und Praxis in den freien Radios |
Vögeli, Elena | 2015 | Agreeing and disagreeing in band rehearsals as a part of the creative process |
Walz, Linda | 2011 | Joining Forces in Advice and Group formation. A Collaborative Achievement on an Email List for Foreign Language Assistants in the UK |
| Weiss, Colin | 2024 | “The Wind of Change” A Corpus Linguistic Analysis of The Times’ Weather Reports from an Ecolinguistic Perspective |
Wilhelm, Mirjam | 2015 | Persuasive strategies in parliamentary discouse on preimplantation genetic diagnosis |
Willi, Tanja | 2011 | “Pinhead? Is it Pinhead? Or is it Patriot?” Personal Insults as a Means of Negotiating Identities on The O’Reilly Factor |
Wunderlin, Stefanie | 2015 | The form of feeling. A multimodal analysis of fear metaphors in the animated film Pinocchio |
Wüst, Andrea | 2014 | “You are a knuckle dragging idiot with limited intellect” Flaming in the Commenting Sections of The Independent Online and YouTube |
| Zeder, Pascal | 2020 | „Die Bürger sind verunsichert“. Eine Typologie der stilistischen Funktionalisierung von Privatpersonen in Fernsehnachrichten |
| Zulauf-Bal-ut, Lesther | 2020 | Variation in ‘songs in amber’ over the years: Diachronic change in Billboard Top 10 Hits from 1958 to mid-2020 from the perspectives of situational characteristics, register and the underlying blueprints |
Zwimpfer, Dina | 2009 | Humour in Stand-up Comedy. What Makes the Audience Laugh? Blending Theory and Timing Strategies in Bill Maher's 'New Rules' |
First supervisor (in progress)
Author | Status | Title |
| Ehrsam, Kristina | in progress | The Role of English as a Lingua Franca in the Foreign Language Classroom |
| Inoue, Airi | in progress | The Resistance of Cultural Stereotyping in Interaction |
| Kacl, Eleonora | in progress | Acknowledging the Human Bond. Creating Trust and Providing Expertise in Veterinarian-Client-Pet Health Discourse |
Second or external supervisor (in progress)
Author | Status | Title |
|
Nistico, Simona | in progress | The translation of linguistic impoliteness in English, French and Italian (Université Jean Moulin Lyon 3, Prof. Denis Jamet) |
|
| Vogler, Antonia | in progress | Relational Work in Shared Reading Sessions amongst Adolescents (University of Basel, Prof. Dr. Moniek Kuijpers) | |
Completed (first supervisor)
Author | Year | Title |
| Bieri, Aline | 2021 | Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) in a Swiss Context: The Linguistic Challenges and Implications of Teaching Biology in English (CLIL) and German (non-CLIL) Analyzed Through the Lens of Translanguaging and Technicality |
Bolander, Brook | 2012 | |
| Loew, Joelle | 2022 | On identities and gender at work: a linguistic case study of agile IT companies |
Meier, Stefanie | 2019 | |
Messerli, Thomas | 2018 | |
Rudolf von Rohr, Marie-Thérèse | 2017 | |
| Thurnherr, Franziska | 2019 | Relational Work and Identity Construction in Email Counseling |
Second or external supervisor/referee (completed)
Author | Year | Title and first supervisor |
Behn-Taran, Angelika | 2014 | I am my own enemy.’ A linguistic analysis of interactive dynamics of relational patterns in business coaching conversations (Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Prof. Dr. Hans-Joerg Schmid) |
Dayter, Daria | 2014 | Self-disclosure online. Pragmatic repertoire of a microblogging community (University of Bayreuth, Prof. Dr. Susanne Mühleisen) |
| Debois, Thomas | 2024 | The ubiquity of multilingual interaction: Self- and other-categorisation in openings of service encounters as displayed through language and embodied conduct (KU Leuven; University of Basel; Prof. Dr. Elwys De Stefani, Prof. Dr. Lorenza Mondada) |
Diederich, Catherine | 2013 | Sensory Adjectives in the Discourse of Food. A frame semantic approach to sensory language (University of Basel, Prof. Dr. Heike Behrens) |
| Liu, Chun | 2023 | The Multimodal Expression of Impoliteness and Implications for Subtitling: the case of Modern Family (University of Leeds, Prof. Bethan Davies) |
| Loi, Cristina | 2023 | On How Fiction Impacts Our Self-Concept. Contemporary Reading Practices and Storyworld Possible Selves (Prof. Dr. Gerhard Lauer, Prof. Dr. Anne Mangen, Prof. Dr. Moniek Kuijpers) |
Neurauter-Kessels, Manuela | 2012 | Impoliteness in Cyberspace: Personally Abusive Reader Responses in Online News Media (University of Zürich, Prof. Dr. Andreas Jucker) |
| Oeschger, Johanna | 2023 | ChatbotsintheEnglishClassroom:AnEmpiricalStudy of EFL Learner Interaction With a Written Dialog System (IBW, University of Basel, Prof. Dr. Stefan D. Keller) |
| Trüb, Ruth | 2021 | An Empirical Study of EFL Writing at Primary School (Prof. Dr. Stefan Keller) |