ProfessorBettina Migge

Bettina Migge is Full Professor of Linguistics in the UCD School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics and was Head of School from 2016 to 2021. She previously served as Interim Director of the UCD Applied Language Centre (2012-1013) and was Head of Linguistics at UCD twice. She currently directs the MA in Linguistics and Applied Linguistics and is head of Graduate Studies within the School. She studied at the Universität Hamburg, Université de Cameroun (Yaoundé), Freie Universität Berlin and The Ohio State University (Columbus, OH). She holds an MA and a PhD in Linguistics form the Ohio State University. For her PhD research, which investigated the role of African languages in creole genesis, she carried out field research primarily among the Pamaka Maroons in Suriname, South America, and spent several months in Bénin, West Africa. Following completion of her PhD, she worked at the Institut für England und Amerikastudien, Abteilung Linguistik, at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe Universität, Frankfurt am Main. Since 2004 she has been employed in Linguistics at University College Dublin.

While her initial research was concerned with diachronic language contact and Creole genesis, she has since been engaged in research projects on synchronic language contact and language change, focusing on multilingual contexts experiencing social change due to urbanisation and migration. Her research explores structural, sociolinguistic and socio-pragmatic aspects of language in French Guiana, Suriname and Ireland. Her work promotes sociolinguistic methods and approaches in investigating synchronic language contact and language documentation. Empirically, she has focused on lesser-used languages, specifically the Creoles of Suriname and French Guiana (Pamaka, Ndyuka ((Busi)nenge(e) Tongo or Eastern Maroon Creoles) and Matawai), Irish English and the Gbe languages of Bénin. Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation (USA), the French research unit SeDyL, UCD Seed Funding, IRCHSS, IRC, Ulysses grants and a tender from the Immigrant Council Ireland. Since 2013 she has been involved in a participatory trilingual dictionary project in French Guiana for Businenge(e) Tongo / Eastern Maroon Creoles and with Laurence Goury she developed a general public grammatical description of the Eastern Maroon Creoles in 2003 and has updated it with Miéfi Moese in 2017 and 2026. Since 2020 she has been engaged in research on sociolinguistics and (Gen)AI, starting with the COST action LITHME (Language in the Human Machine Era). She was President of the Society for Pidgin and Creole Linguistics from 2021 to 2023 and has been the editor of the Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages since 2021.

She has supervised PhD and MA projects on the sociolinguistics of Irish English (John Longergan, Fergus O’Dwyer, Franziska Wischerhoff, Rosemary Shannon), World Englishes – English in Kuwait – (Mohammad Alenezi), Critical Analysis of Irish Governmental Discourse in the Boom Years (Owen McCarney), Classroom Ideologies and Teaching Styles in Malaysia (Hema Kesevan), Academic Writing Development in Dyslexic Writers (Aileen Hanrahan), linguistic landscaping (Rui Zhao), and computer-mediated language use (Xixiang Zhao). She currently supervises PhD projects on aspects of digital language practices. Postdoctoral researchers have worked on language discrimination in Irish Schools (Stephen Lucek) and perceptual dialectology in Hawai’i (Christoph Neuenschwander) and Liam O’hír examines English practices among African-descent populations in Ireland.