Carsten Levisen

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 language studies (i.e. creole studies)
• Linguistic anthropology and ethnolinguistics (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 – LINGCORP (Roskilde). I've been a visiting researcher the Australian National University and the University of the South Pacific, and a visiting professor at University of Bremen and Tallinn 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).

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 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

• Humour in language and across languages
• The semantics of address (and relational grammar)
• Place concepts and popular geopolitics
• Culture-specific emotions and emotive interjections
• Folk aesthetics in language and thought  

ONGOING PUBLICATION PROJECTS

• "Postcolonial Semantics" (a monograph)
• "The Pragmatics of Place: Colonial and Postcolonial Perspectives" (with Eeva Sippola, University of  Bremen) for a special issue in Journal of Postcolonial Linguistics
• The semantics of sarcasm in English and Danish (with Cliff Goddard)
• "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).
• "Linguistic Worldview and the Cultural Semantics of Humour: A case study on Danish Untranslatables", a book on Linguistic Worldview and Translation, ed. by Adam Glaz (Lublin).

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