Dr. Christian Hoffmann
| Telefon: | +49 821 598 - 5755 |
| E-Mail: | christian.hoffmann@philhist.uni-augsburgphilhist.uni-augsburg.de () |
| Raum: | 4044 (D) |
| Adresse: | Universitätsstraße 10, 86159 Augsburg |
Office Hours
During the Term:
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Regular Office Hours: Thursdays, 10:00 - 11:30am
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Prior arrangements are not necessary. Just send me an email one day before your visit and drop by.
For office hours during the term break, see: Aktuelles.
Service
- Erasmus Coordinator (English and American Studies)
- Program Coordinator (Master English and American Studies)
- Credit Transfer Coordinator (English Linguistics)
If you require help concerning the MA EAS master programme, you can also contact master tutor Viktoria Rossi.
Career
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since 2010 |
Senior Lecturer at the University of Augsburg (Akademischer Rat)
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2010 |
Ph.D., University of Augsburg
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2006 - 2010 |
Junior Lecturer at the University of Augsburg
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2000 - 2006 |
University of Augsburg: Magister Artium (M.A.) in English Linguistics, French Linguistics and German as a Foreign Language (DaF) |
Research Interests
- Semantics & Pragmatics
- (Critical) Discourse Analysis
- Corpus Stylistics
- Telecinematic Stylistics
- Language & Social Media
Reviews
Journal of Language & Pop Culture (Editorial Board Member)
Language & Literature
Internet Pragmatics (Editorial Board Member)
Text & Talk
Journal of Pragmatics
Pragmatics & Beyond
Discourse & Society
Discourse, Context & Media
Research Projects
| Project Title | Telecinematic Discourse: Theory, Methods & Application (Habilitation) |
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Project Desciption |
This research project focusses on the systematic exploration of film dialogues in US American Hollywood feature films. In a series of papers, the project explores the multifarious ways in which dialogues contribute to fictional storytelling and characterisation, using a wide range of methodological approaches from conversation analysis, critical discourse analysis, multimodal discourseanalysis and corpus stylistics. The project provides more systematic insights into the way film language is used and stratified across a range of explanatory variables, including character gender,screenwriter type, film genre and production decade. |
| Project Title | Publication Focus: Language & Persuasion in Political Discourse |
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Project Description |
Studies relating to this research project describe the use of persuasive language features (verbs, adjectives, intensifiery, metaphors, etc.) in a range of different conversational settings in political discourse. So far, the project has yielded articles dealing with the use of negative evaluations on the main twitter profiles (handles) of the democratic and republican candidates during the campaign periodfor the presidential elections in 2016 and 2020. |
| Project Title | Language in Fantastic Film Worlds: Exploring Fictional Telecinematic Discourse (Conference) |
| Project Description | Films and television shows that depict alternative realities and fantastic universes are among the most popular genres worldwide, as underlined by the status of James Cameron’s Avatar (2009) as the highest-grossing movie to date (imdb.com). Fantastic films commonly show linguistic creativity and innovation, including idiosyncratic language use by exotic characters, so that these pop cultural discourses are a highly promising subject for linguistic study (Mandala 2010). The attribute fantastic is conceptualized here in a wide sense, referring to all genres that portray fictional characters in settings that blatantly deviate from everyday reality in a framework of “estrangement” (Adams 2017). Accordingly, the workshop is interested not only in science fiction (Rüdiger & Lange 2023) and fantasy (Castro 2024), but also in mystery, superhero, fairy tale, and horror movies (Schubert 2020), as well as in animated films and movie adaptations from comics (Sanchez-Stockhammer 2020). Although telecinematic research has been gradually gaining momentum in linguistics (see, for instance, Piazza et al. 2011; Beers Fägersten 2016; Bednarek et al. 2021; Sanchez-Stockhammer & Hoffmann, to appear 2024), fantastic films and their discursive characteristics have received surprisingly little attention as yet. Filling this intriguing gap in research, this workshop aims to probe various facets of language use in fantastic films and TV shows (Bednarek 2018; Kozloff 2000). More specifically, we argue that four linguistic subdisciplines are particularly relevant for an in-depth exploration of language in the worlds of fantastic films: (i) (ii) (iii) (iv) Cinematic stylistics investigates meaningful linguistic choices and stylistic markers that can be associated with fantastic genres and achieve specific contextual effects (Hoffmann & Kirner-Ludwig 2020). Pragmatics is concerned with innovative character speech and characterization with respect to (im-)politeness, communicative (non-)cooperation, conversational structure, or implied meaning (Locher & Jucker 2017) that transcend everyday situational contexts. Sociolinguistic studies may concentrate on creative varieties of English (Boberg 2021; Hodson 2014) or on the stereotypical representation of social or ethnic groups in fantastic settings. Multimodal studies reveal how visual storytelling is a constitutive part of telecinematic discourse and is often co-deployed with verbal language to create significant cinematic effects (Janney 2012; Wildfeuer 2014), such as suspense (Schubert 2023) or humour (Frobenius & Gerhardt, to appear 2024), and for the purpose of characterization (Bednarek 2023; Reichelt 2018). While the workshop will centre on case studies of selected films and television shows within the fields and approaches outlined above, we also welcome contributions approaching the topic from a theoretical or methodological perspective. The abstracts should be in English (ca. 300 words plus references) and include the name(s) of the author(s), the title of the paper, the affiliation as well as postal and email address(es). The format will be 20-minute talks followed by 10-minute discussions. |
Publications
- 2025
Hoffmann, Christian R. Forthcoming. "Bloody fucking amazing!" – Re-Evaluating Emotionality in US Hollywood Screenplays.
In: Kimberly Pager-McClymont & Paula Ghintuiala (eds.) Building narratives on screen: New approaches in Telecinematic
Stylistics. London: Routledge.
Hoffmann, Christian R. "Persuasive Politics: The Strategic Use of Negative Evaluations in US Election Campaign Tweets".
In: Sofia Rüdiger & Daria Dayter (Eds.) Manipulation, influence and deception. The changing landscape of persuasive
language. Cambridge: CUP, 63-91.
Hoffmann, Christian & Christina Sanchez-Stockhammer. "Introduction" Special Issue on Language & Film, Anglistik 1/2025,
n.p.
- 2022
- 2021
- 2020
- 2019
- 2018
- 2017
- 2012
- 2011
- 2010
- 2008