Dr. Theresa Neumaier
Habilitation project: Threatening speech in the history of English
With Sven Leuckert (TU Dresden): English in Madeira
With Sven Leuckert (TU Dresden): Non-Canonical Syntax in English as a Lingua Franca (as part of the scientific network Syntax Beyond the Canon: Cutting-edge Studies of Non-Canonical Syntax in English (funded by the German Research Foundation, DFG))
- Historical pragmatics
- Threatening speech
- Conversation Analysis/Interactional Linguistics
- World Englishes
- English in Madeira
- Non-canonical syntax
Monographs:
Neumaier, Theresa. (2023). Conversation in World Englishes: Turn-Taking and Cultural Variation in Southeast Asian and Caribbean English. Cambridge: Cambridge University.
Reviewed in: English World-Wide (Susanne Mühleisen), ICAME Journal (Karin Aijmer), English Language & Linguistics (Lisa Lehnen), LINGUIST List (Marine Riou)
Edited Collections and Special Issues:
Rüdiger, Sofia, Theresa Neumaier, Sven Leuckert, & Sarah Buschfeld, eds. (2025). World Englishes in the 21st Century: New Perspectives and Challenges to the Dynamic Model. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Reviewed in: Folia Linguistica (Michael Westphal)
Buschfeld, Sarah, Theresa Neumaier, Patricia Ronan, Andreas Weilinghoff, & Lisa Westermayer, eds. (2024). Crossing Boundaries through Corpora: Innovative Corpus Approaches within and beyond Linguistics. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Reviewed in: English Language & Linguistics (Hanna Schmück), Digital Scholarship in the Humanities (Zeyuan Jiang, Jiahao Chen, & Zhanting Bu)
Journal Articles (peer-reviewed):
Neumaier, Theresa. (acc.) Move structure variation in Late Modern English threatening and extortion letters. Journal of Historical Pragmatics.
Neumaier, Theresa & Sven Leuckert. (acc.) Colloquial Portuguese for English health tourists: A sociolinguistic investigation of a 19th century Portuguese-English language guidebook. Journal of Historical Sociolinguistics.
Pham, Teresa, Sven Leuckert, Gea Dreschler, Sandra Götz, Christine Günther, Kathrin Kircili, Claudia Lange, Theresa Neumaier, Louise Mycock, & Sofia Rüdiger. (2025) Defining non-canonicity: An integrated approach to modelling syntactic variation. Anglistik 36(3), 177-209. https://doi.org/10.33675/ANGL/2025/3/15
Neumaier, Theresa. (2025). “I have come to the conclusion that you must die”: Threats in Late Modern English threatening letters. Journal of Historical Pragmatics 26(2), 262–287. https://doi.org/10.1075/jhp.23016.neu
Neumaier, Theresa. (2025). Representation of threatening speech in Late Modern English Trials. Journal of Pragmatics 237, 55–67. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2025.01.004
Leuckert, Sven, Theresa Neumaier, & Asya Yurchenko. (2023). English in Madeira: History and features of a lesser-known variety in the Atlantic: Exploring English as the dominant language of tourism in a former quasi-colony. English Today 39(1), 2–11. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0266078421000328
Contributions to Edited Collections (peer-reviewed):
Neumaier, Theresa & Sven Leuckert. (2025). Non-Canonical Syntax in English as a Lingua Franca: Minus-Features between Language Contact and Emergent Grammar. In: Sven Leuckert & Teresa Pham, eds. Non-canonical English Syntax. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 307–330. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108863858.017
Neumaier, Theresa. (2023). New Englishes and Conversation Analysis: Turn-taking as a factor in explaining syntactic variation. In: Guyanne Wilson & Michael Westphal, eds. New Englishes, New Methods: Methodological Considerations for the Study of New Englishes. Amsterdam: Benjamins, pp. 65–83. https://doi.org/10.1075/veaw.g68.04neu
Other Contributions:
Neumaier, Theresa, Sven Leuckert, Sofia Rüdiger, & Sarah Buschfeld. 2025. Introduction: Twenty years of the Dynamic Model. In: Sofia Rüdiger, Theresa Neumaier, Sven Leuckert, & Sarah Buschfeld, eds. World Englishes in the 21st Century: New Perspectives and Challenges to the Dynamic Model. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 3–21. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781399527866-006
Leuckert, Sven, Sofia Rüdiger, Theresa Neumaier, & Sarah Buschfeld. (2025). Synopsis: The present and future of the Dynamic Model. In: Sofia Rüdiger, Theresa Neumaier, Sven Leuckert, & Sarah Buschfeld, eds. World Englishes in the 21st Century: New Perspectives and Challenges to the Dynamic Model. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp. 379–388. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781399527866-025
Ronan, Patricia, Sarah Buschfeld, Theresa Neumaier, Andreas Weilinghoff, & Lisa Westermayer. Introduction: Crossing discipline boundaries with corpus-linguistic methods. In: Sarah Buschfeld, Patricia Ronan, Theresa Neumaier, Andreas Weilinghoff, & Lisa Westermayer, eds. Crossing Boundaries through Corpora: Innovative Corpus Approaches within and beyond Linguistics. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1075/scl.119.01ron
Neumaier, Theresa. 2019. Patterns of conversational interaction in varieties of English. Dissertation, Universität Regensburg: http://epub.uni-regensburg.de/40436.
Reviews:
Neumaier, Theresa. 2022. Book review of Klumm (2021): Nominal and Pronominal Address in Jamaica and Trinidad: Variations and Patterns. English World-Wide 43(3), 397–401. https://doi.org/10.1075/eww.22004.neu
01/2026
So I conclude that this town will soon be In Ruins – how to threaten in Late Modern English, Freie Universität Berlin (invited talk)
12/2025
Beware of bombs and vitriol – threats in Late Modern English letters, Universität Heidelberg (invited talk)
09/2025
Asymmetries in the 19th-century courtroom – talking about spoken threats in Old Bailey trials, ISLE8, Santiago de Compostela
07/2025
The role of English in Madeira: A pilot study of language attitudes, IAWE26, Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen (with Sven Leuckert)
06/2025
Understanding pragmalinguistic choices in appellative letters – focus on early 20th-century business and extortion letters, ICAME46, Vilnius (with Ninja Schulz & Lisa Lehnen)
05/2025
Transformative processes in an illicit genre – changes in the rhetorical structure of Late Modern English threatening letters, Advancing Research in English Linguistics, Universität Regensburg (invited talk)
06/2024
One of these things must be done – move structure variation in Late Modern English threatening letters, ICAME45, Vigo
03/2024
I will be revenged upon you – forms and functions of threatening letters in Late Modern English, Survey of English Usage Seminar Series, University College London (invited talk)
01/2024
Threatening letters in Victorian England, Universität zu Köln (invited talk)
12/2023
Malicious letters and bad language – threatening communication in Late Modern English, Universität Bielefeld (invited talk)
09/2023
He did not threaten me, but I was frightened – negotiating threats in historical trial discourse, Language as a social practice: Constructing (a)symmetries in legal discourse, Universität Bonn (invited talk)
07/2023
I only wrote that to frighten her – threatening speech in the Late Modern English period, 18th International Pragmatics Conference, Brussels
07/2023
I have come to the conclusion that you must die – performing threats in Late Modern English letters, 22nd International Conference on English Historical Linguistics, Sheffield
03/2023
Lesser-Known Variety of English – Madeira as a case in point”, TU Dresden (invited talk)
01/2023
Threatening letters in Late Modern English, Universität Augsburg (invited talk)
09/2022
English in Madeira or English in Portugal? A corpus-based study of lexical and morphosyntactic variation, 9th Biennial International Conference on the Linguistics of Contemporary English (BICLCE), Ljubljana (with Sven Leuckert & Asya Yurchenko
02/2022
Is turn-taking culturally sensitive?, Philipps-Universität Marburg (invited talk)
06/2022
Turn-taking in World Englishes, WWU Münster (invited talk)
10/2021
Turn-taking and cultural variation – patterns of conversational interaction in varieties of English, Brown Bag Speaker Series, Universität Duisburg-Essen (invited talk)
06/2021
A historical perspective on threatening speech acts, 17th International Pragmatics Conference, Winterthur
06/2021
We all speak at the same time – using CA to investigate World Englishes, ISLE6, University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu
06/2021
Less is more? Zero person and number marking in Asian and European ELF, ISLE6, University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu (with Sven Leuckert)
06/2021
English in Madeira: A lesser-known variety – at the grassroots?, BAELc10: Tenth Annual Bonn Applied Linguistics Conference, Universität Bonn (with Sven Leuckert & Asya Yurchenko)
06/2021
Turn-taking in World Englishes – conversational patterns in Southeast Asian and Caribbean English interactions, Universität Duisburg-Essen (invited talk)
04/2021
Turn-taking and emerging grammar: Using Conversation Analysis to study World Englishes, New Methods for Pragmatics for New Englishes, Universität Trondheim, Norwegen, und Universität Paderborn (invited talk)
07/2018
Analysing talk-in-interaction-in-culture – conversational patterns in varieties in English, ISLE5, University College London
07/2018
Let me tell you somethin’! Turn-claiming and turn-holding in Southeast Asian and Jamaican English conversations, 5th International Conference of Conversational Analysis (ICCA), Loughborough University
05/2018
Interaction and culture – conversational patterns in Caribbean and Southeast Asian varieties of English, ICAME 29, University of Tampere
10/2017
You guys are not listening! – Are conversational patterns culturally sensitive?, ISLE Summer School 2017: Variation in World Englishes: Advanced issues in theory and methodology, Universität Regensburg
09/2017
Feature omission in ELF interactions, New Perspectives on Non-Canonical Syntax in English, TU Dresden (with Sven Leuckert).
06/2017
Turn-claiming and turn-holding strategies in Outer and Expanding Circle Englishes, IAWE22, Syracuse University, NY
09/2016
Turn-taking in Outer and Expanding Circle English conversations, FJUEL (Forum Junge Englische Linguistik in Bayern) 6.0, Julius-Maximilians-Universität, Würzburg
06/2016
Patterns of interaction in Southeast Asian ELF conversations, Universität Bielefeld (invited talk)
12/2015
Analysing conversation, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (invited talk)
10/2015
Patterns of conversational interaction in an English variety, IAWE21, Boğaziçi University, Istanbul