Chemnitz Research Group Features Prominently at European Conference of English Studies (ESSE)
Delegation of the Chemnitz University of Technology took part in a Doctoral symposium and a linguistics and literary conference
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Photo: Jessica Dheskali
A week ago, our team of researchers from the TU Chemnitz English department visited the city of Brno. Brno, the second largest city in the Czech Republic situated in the south of the country, served as the location for ESSE 2018. ESSE, which stands for European Society for the Study of English, held a dual event this time: The Doctoral Symposium and a linguistics and literature conference. Our team from Chemnitz is international and varied, both geographically and academically. It is comprised of researchers from the European nations of Albania, Italy,Germany, and from Asian and African countries such as China, Nigeria, and Tanzania. We are working on a variety of projects in sociolinguistics, academic writing and social media. Our team has members who presented at both ESSE events.
We greatly enjoyed our time in the Czech Republic. We were given the opportunity to present our work to a wider European audience, and all of us rose to the challenge. Our doctoral candidates gave 20-minute presentations at the Doctoral Symposium on a variety of different projects mentioned above, which reflected our research interests. These included Chinese, Albanian and Italian academic writing research projects, and research in international sociolinguistics. In turn, we received valuable advice and constructive feedback from experts in the field, which will help guide us to successfully achieve our future goals. Members of our department also presented at the conference, on topics including research on language used internationally on Twitter. The chair of our department, Prof. Dr. Josef Schmied, was a keynote speaker, who gave a plenary talk at the conference.
Both the Doctoral Symposium as well as the conference greatly benefited our team, not only in terms of academic expertise and growth, but also in networking; we made several new contacts and reaffirmed existing ones, both cementing and expanding our place with this opportunity in the wider circles of European academia.
In addition to the academic experience, we also got an opportunity to explore the city of Brno, and to participate in several events which were held by the organizing committee. The organizers did a wonderful job in providing great hospitality and care to the guests, and both the Doctoral Symposium and the conference were a resounding success.
(Author: Zeenat Sumra)
Mario Steinebach
12.09.2018
