Angela Hoffman

Angela Hoffman, Universitetslektor i engelsk språkvetenskap, Engelska institutionen

PhD in English, University of Minnesota–Twin Cities, 1999
MA in English, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, 1988
BA in English Teaching, summa cum laude, Bethany College, Lindsborg, Kansas, 1984

About my research: My research focuses on language contact between English and Swedish. I analyze the community-level practices that influence language shift, language ideology, and postvernacularity. The latter is a process by which a language increasingly gains symbolic value when it is used less frequently for daily communication. My doctoral work at the University of Minnesota--Twin Cities trained me to use sociolinguistic fieldwork methods and archival studies to investigate bilingual communities. I use these methods, together with others, such as discourse analysis, to understand how Swedish--a heritage language for many persons in the U.S.--has been used by speakers and writers in communities that were settled by Swedes in the 1800s.

I investigate language patterns in community cookbooks, ego documents (such as personal letters written by Swedish immigrants, their diaries, and family histories), hymnals, local church records and histories, and oral narratives.

Together with Professor Anita Auer (University of Lausanne) and Professor Joshua R. Brown (University of Wisconsin--Eau Claire), I am co-editing the volume Historical Sociolinguistic Studies of Language Islands in the Americas: Tracing the Development from Immigrant Languages to Postvernacularity (working title).

I also investigate the relationship between language shift and ideology about language in Swedish-American congregations. Together with Professor Joshua R. Brown (University of Wisconsin--Eau Claire), I am working on comparative historical sociolinguistic studies.

About my teaching and departmental service: At the MA level, I teach courses on language variation, sociolinguistics, and academic writing. These advanced-level courses include “From Project to Paper: Writing about Linguistic Research,” “Language in Society: Theory, Analysis, and Interpretation,” “World Englishes: Social and Linguistic Perspectives,” and “Academic Writing in the Social Sciences.” I also supervise and examine MA thesis projects.

At the undergraduate level, I teach the sociolinguistics portion of the course called “Communities, Speakers, Texts: Pragmatic and Sociolinguistic Perspectives on English.” I also teach a range of courses on English linguistics and academic writing, as well as courses in the teacher-training program in English.

In 2011, I received one of the university-wide teaching awards, the Pedagogical Prize (Pedagogiska priset) from Uppsala University. In 2014, I was awarded the title Distinguished Teacher (Excellent lärare) from The Faculty of Languages at Uppsala University.

My past service in the Department of English has included the roles as the Director of Doctoral Studies (two terms), Deputy Chair, Coordinator of the MA Program, and the Director of Undergraduate Studies for the Teacher Education Program in English. I currently serve on the boards of the Faculty of Languages and the Department of English.