Maj-Britt Mosegaard Hansen
Professor of French language and linguistics
Address: S4.18
Phone: (0161) 306 1733
Email: Maj-Britt.MosegaardHansen@manchester.ac.uk
Office hours: Thursday 1:30-2:30 pm (teaching weeks only)
Research specialisation
Research areas
- Synchronic and Diachronic Semantics and Pragmatics
- Verbal Interaction
- Functional and Cognitive Linguistics
- Spoken vs Written French
- Peircean Semiotics
Past and current research projects
- Discourse Markers: Syntax, Semantics, and Pragmatics
- Phasal Adverbs: Syntax, Semantics, Pragmatics, and Diachronic Change
- Interrogatives In Contemporary Spoken French
- Reported Speech
- Schwa-Tagging In Parisian French (with Anita Berit Hansen)
- Pragmatics and Peircean Semiotics
- The Semantics/Pragmatics Interface
- GCI theory and language change (with Richard Waltereit)
- "Literal meaning"
- The Diachrony of Negation in French
Past and current formalized research collaborations
- Participant in international network, Cycles of grammaticalization. Comparative views on the history of negation (2008-)
- Participant in international project, Handbook of linguistic semantics (2007-)
- Participant in international project, Perspectives in Cognitive Linguistics (2007-)
- Participant in international project, Language structure and language usage (2007-)
- Participant in international project entitled Empirical data and pragmatic theory (2004-2008)
- Coordinator (with Ken Turner) of international project entitled Explorations in the semantics-pragmatics interface (2004-2006)
- Participant in international project entitled L'organisation du discours à travers le temps et l'espace (2003-2005)
- Participant in international project entitled Approaches to discourse particles, (2001- 2003)
- Member of the executive committee of Le français parlé: Corpus et recherches dans les pays nordiques, (1998-2003)
Research students
In Copenhagen, I supervised a number of MA and Ph.D. students, on a range of topics within semantics and pragmatics, functional grammar, language change, contrastive linguistics, and discourse analysis/communication/rhetoric.
I welcome students interested in working on topics that fall within my areas of expertise.
Selected publications:
Single-authored volumes:
2008:
1. Particles at the semantics/pragmatics interface: synchronic and diachronic issues. A study with special reference to the French phasal adverbs (Current Research in the Semantics-Pragmatics Interface, Oxford, Elsevier), 248 +xii pp.
1998:
2. The function of discourse particles. A study with special reference to spoken standard French (Pragmatics and Beyond New Series 53; John Benjamins, Amsterdam), 418 + xii pp.
Edited volumes
In prep.:
3. (-with Jacqueline Visconti) Current trends in diachronic semantics and pragmatics (Oxford: Emerald)
2006:
4. (- with Ken Turner) Explorations in the semantics-pragmatics interface, Acta lingvistica hafniensia, vol. 38, 268 pp.
2005:
5. (- with Corinne Rossari) The evolution of pragmatic markers, Journal of historical pragmatics, vol. 6, no. 2, 160 pp.
Articles in journals
2008:
6. On the availability of literal meaning: evidence from courtroom interaction, Journal of pragmatics, Vol 40, no. 8, pp 1392-1410
7. (- with Erling Strudsholm) The semantics of particles: Advantages of a contrastive and panchronic approach. A study of the polysemy of French 'déjà' and Italian 'già', Linguistics, vol. 46, no. 3, pp. 471-505.
2006:
8. (- with Richard Waltereit) GCI theory and language change, Acta lingvistica hafniensia, vol. 38, pp. 235-268.
2001:
9. Syntax in interaction. Form and function of yes/no interrogatives in spoken standard French in Studies in language, vol. 25, no. 3, pp. 463-520.
2000:
10. The syntactic and semiotic status of direct quotes, with reference to French in Transactions of the Philological Society, vol. 98, no. 2, pp.281-322.
1998:
11. The semantic status of discourse markers, in Lingua, vol. 104, nos. 3/4, pp.235-260
Book chapters
Forthcoming:
12. The grammaticalization of negative reinforcers in Old and Middle French: a discourse-functional approach in Maj-Britt Modegaard Hansen & Jacqueline Visconti, eds., Current Trends in Diachronic Semantics and Pragmatics (Bingley: Emerald), 21 pp.
2006 :
13. A dynamic polysemy approach to the lexical semantics of discourse markers (with an exemplary analysis of French 'toujours') in Fischer, Kerstin (ed.), Approaches to discourse particles (Oxford: Elsevier), pp. 21-41.
2003:
14. (- with Anita Berit Hansen) Le [ý] prépausal et l'interaction in Hansen, Anita Berit & Maj-Britt Mosegaard Hansen (eds.), Structures linguistiques et interactionnelles dans le francais parlé (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum), pp. 89-109.
2002:
15. Sémiotique peircéenne et analyse des interactions verbales, in Andersen, Hanne Leth & Henning Nølke (eds.), Macro-syntaxe et Macro-sémantique (Bern: Peter Lang), pp. 361-381.
For a full list of publications, click here
Key note presentations and guest lectures
- Plenary speaker at the XXIV Congrès international de linguistique et de philologie romanes, Aberystwyth, United Kingdom, 2004
- Plenary speaker at international conference on Discourse particles, modal particles, focus particles, and all that stuff..., Belgian Science Foundation, Brussels, Belgium, Dec. 2000
- Guest lectures (25+) at universities in Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom since 1993
Professional biography
M.A. (1992), Ph.D. (1996), dr.phil. (Higher doctorate) (2008) University of Copenhagen.
Previous appointments
- Assistant Professor, University of Copenhagen 1996-1999
Associate Professor, University of Copenhagen 2000-2007
Editorial work
- Editor-In-Chief of Revue Romane.
- Associate editor of Studies In Pragmatics
- Member of the editorial board of Acta lingvistica hafniensia
- Member of the scientific committees for the journals SCOLIA, Discours, and Langages et Interactions
- Regular reviewer of scientific papers, collections of papers, and monographs for Belgian Journal of Linguistics, Journal of French Language Studies, Journal of Politeness Research, Journal of Pragmatics, Langages, Linguistics, Nordic Journal of Linguistics, Revue de sémantique et pragmatique, John Benjamins Publishing Co., Amsterdam, and Elsevier Science Publishers, Oxford (since 2000)
Consultancy
- External evaluator of grant proposals for AHRB, AHRC, British Academy, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Fonds National Suisse de la Recherche Scientifique, and Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek Vlaanderen.
- External evaluator of applications for promotion at U. of Sussex, U. of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, U. of British Columbia, and Ohio U.
- Member of thesis committees at U. Manchester, U. Copenhagen, Eberhard-Karls U. Tuebingen, U. de Provence Aix-Marseille 1, and U. of Stockholm.
Some recent and future events organized
- 12th International Pragmatics Conference, July 2011 (Chair of local site committee)
- (- with Jacqueline Visconti) Workshop on Procedural Meanings in Diachrony at the XIXth International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Nijmegen, August 2009
- Vice-president of the organizing committee of section on Discours, pragmatique et interaction at Congrès Mondial de Linguistique Française, Paris(2008)
- (- with Jacqueline Visconti) Workshop on Diachronic Semantics and Pragmatics at the XVIIIth International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Montreal, August 2007
- (- with Ken Turner) International colloquium entitled Explorations in the semantics-pragmatics interface, Copenhagen, May 2005
- (- with Gudrun Held and María Antonia Martín Zorraquino) Section on Pragmatics and Text Linguistics at the XXIV Congrès international de linguistique et philologie romane, Aberystwyth, United Kingdom, August 2004
Administration
- Postgraduate Research Director
- Research Coordinator
Teaching Areas
- French syntax and morphology
- Introduction to Linguistics
- Spoken vs Written French
- Pragmatics, incl. Discourse Analysis and Verbal Interaction
- Translation