INTRODUCTION

I'm a linguist and a linguistic anthropologist. I'm a member of The Young Academy of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters. My research focuses on language and life in a globalizing, multipolar world. My linguistic studies are almost always interdisciplinary in nature: Local words and ways of speaking are intimately linked with local ways of feeling, ways of thinking, and ways of knowing.

Areas of special expertice:

• Semantics (lexical semantics, cultural semantics, cognitive semantics)
• Pragmatics and discourse studies (ethnopragmatics, cultural discourse studies)
• Postcolonial linguistics (i.e. creole studies)
• Linguistic ethnography and ethnopragmatics (language ideologies, values, emotions, sociality)

I'm a part of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage research community, and a propoenent of the NSM approach to linguistic, cultural and cognitive analysis. I've contributed to major research projects such as the 'Evolution of Semantics Systems' (Max Planck, Nijmegen), 'Cognitive Creolistics' (Aarhus) and 'An Ethnography of Language Encounters' (Roskilde). I've been a visiting researcher the Australian National University (Canberra) and the University of the South Pacific (Port Vila), and a visiting professor at University of Bremen, Tallinn University, and Ilisimatusarfik (Greenland's University). 

MY BOOKS

• Cultural Semantics and Social Cognition: A case study on the Danish Universe of Meaning. Published by De Gruyter Mouton, Berlin (Trends in Linguistics)  
• Creole Studies: Phylogenetic Approaches. Published by J. Benjamins, Amsterdam. With Peter Bakker (Aarhus), Finn Borchsenius (Aarhus) and Eeva Sippola (Bremen).
• Cultural Keywords in Discourse. Published by J. Benjamins, Amsterdam. (Pragmatics and Beyond New Series). With Sophia Waters (University of New England). 

SPECIAL ISSUES

• Language Ideologies in Music: Emergent Socialities in the Age of Transnationalism. Special issue of Language and Communication, with Eeva Sippola (Bremen) and Britta Schneider (Berlin).
• Biases in Linguistics: Special issue of Language Sciences, with Simon Borchmann (Roskilde) and Britta Schneider (Berlin)
• The Social Life of Interjections: Special issue of Scandinavian Studies in Language, with Eva Skafte Jensen (DSN-Copenhagen) and Tina Thode Hougaard (Aarhus).
• The Pragmatics of Place: Postcolonial Perspectives. Special issue of Journal of Postcolonial Linguistics, with Eeva Sippola, (Helsinki). 

JOURNAL PAPERS/BOOK CHAPTERS

I've published in journals such as Language Sciences, International Journal of Language and Culture, Intercultural Pragmatics, Language and Communication, Australian Journal of Linguistics, Scandinavian Studies in Language, and Cahiers de Lexicologie. I've also published chapters in edited books, such as the ‘The Semantics of Nouns’, Z. Ye (Oxford University Press) and encyclopedias such as International Encyclopedia of Intercultural Communication. 

ONGOING WORK

• Place concepts and popular geopolitics
• Humour in language and across languages
• Relational semantics (incl. address, greetings)
• Culture-specific emotions and emotive interjections
• Visual semantics across languages (incl. colour, aesthetics, light, darkness)  

ONGOING PUBLICATION PROJECTS

• "Postcolonial Semantics" (a monograph)
• The semantics of sarcasm in English and Danish. Paper with Cliff Goddard (Griffith)
• Meanings of Life Beyond English. Paper with Anna Wierzbicka (Canberra)
• Visual Semantics - special issue with Mari Uusküla (Tallinn)
• Language and Popular Geopolitics - special issue with Susana Fernández (Aarhus)
• "Pæn, Flot, Dejlig and Lækker: A lexical anthropology of Danish Folk Aesthetics, for a special issue in International Journal of Language and Culture, ed. by Anna Gladkova (Monash) and Jesus Romero-Trillo (Madrid).

SHORT CV 

• 2015-: Associate Professor, Roskilde University, Denmark
• 2011-2015: Assistant Professor, postdoc and lecturer,  Aarhus University, Denmark
• 2007-2010: PhD student, University of New England, Australia