• English as a Lingua Franca: conceptualization, description, and theoretical implications
• Sociolinguistics: language contact, language variation and change
• Intercultural communication and 'multilingualism'
• Corpus linguistics: corpus compilation and computer-aided linguistic analysis
• Applied linguistic implications of the above, especially with regard to language policy, language teacher education and language pedagogy

Selected research projects

2005 – 2013        Project director, 'Translational Research Project' of the Austrian Science Fund (FWF): The Vienna-Oxford International Corpus of English (VOICE), see: http://www.univie.ac.at/voice, https://voice.acdh.oeaw.ac.at/

2006-2011           Project director, Work package 4.2. 'Emergent varieties' of the EU project DYLAN (Language dynamics and management of diversity),
see: http://www.dylan-project.org/Dylan_en/home/home.php

Experience in Teaching and Supervision

Wide experience in teaching courses on contemporary and applied English linguistics in Diploma, BA and MA programs at the University of Vienna.

Supervision of MA theses: more than 60 diploma and MA theses supervised and completed, about a dozen ongoing.

Supervision of about twenty doctoral theses. Eight have been completed.

Second evaluator of several doctoral theses in Vienna (English linguistics, general linguistics) and external PhD examiner at various universities abroad, including King's College London, Nottingham, Helsinki, Melbourne.

2018-2020 Vice-Director of the Doctoral Studies programme (DSPL)

2007-2008, 2011, 2012-2014        Head of Department

2004 -2006 and 2008-2012           Deputy Head of Department

Member of Faculty conference of the Faculty of Philological and Cultural Studies;

numerous committees (for curricula, professorial appointments, habilitations, curricula); representative of the Faculty of Philological and Cultural Studies at the steering committee for teacher education