In the picture

Geert Brône

I am a postdoctoral researcher in cognitive discourse analysis and German linguistics at Lessius University College Antwerp and an affiliate researcher at KU Leuven. After receiving an MA in Germanic languages in Leuven (2000), I took an additional program in linguistics and communication studies at the Paris Lodron University Salzburg (2000-2001). In 2007, I obtained a PhD in linguistics with a dissertation that developed a cognitive-linguistic and discourse-semantic approach to verbal humor. Since 2007, I have been a postdoctoral researcher and am mainly focusing on the interface between cognitive grammar and (interactional) discourse.

E-mail: firstname.lastname@arts.kuleuven.be
Phone: +32 3 206 04 91
Surface mail:
Lessius University College
Campus Sint Andries (Room 04.12)
Sint-Andriesstraat 2
B-2000 Antwerp (Belgium)

Research interests

Broadly speaking, the focus of my research is the development of a cognitive-linguistic approach to linguistic creativity. My interest in the various manifestations of creative cognition in language entails a widening of the traditional scope of cognitive linguistics to online, ongoing discourse. More specifically, I've been working in the following subfields of cognitive discourse analysis:

  • the cognitive linguistics of verbal humor (see my Phd dissertation for an overview)
  • dialogic syntax / interactive alignment, or the way in which interlocutors creatively echo each others' linguistic input
  • the theoretical modeling of discourse dynamics
  • cognitive poetics, or the interdisciplinary collaboration between cognitive linguists and literary scholars (cf. Brône & Vandaele, in press)
  • frame semantics and framing as a rhetorical instrument

In order to tackle the research questions in these different subfields, I have used a variety of empirical methods, mainly involving corpus analysis and psycholinguistic experiments.

Publications

Here are a few of my publications. For a complete list, see the CHIL publication list and the pdf-file below:
  • [2009] [edited with J. Vandaele] Cognitive Poetics: Goals, Gains & Gaps (volume in the series Applications of Cognitive Linguistics). Berlin/N.Y.: de Gruyter.
  • [in press for 2010] [with S. Coulson] Processing deliberate ambiguity in headlines: double grounding. Discourse Processes.
  • [2007] Bedeutungskonstitution in verbalem Humor. Ein kognitiv-linguistischer und diskurssemantischer Ansatz. PhD dissertation [published by Peter Lang Verlag in 2010]
  • [2008] Hyper- and misunderstanding in interactional humor. Journal of Pragmatics 40(12), 2027-2061. [pdf]
  • [2006] [with K. Feyaerts & T. Veale] Cognitive linguistic approaches to humor (thematic issue). Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 19(3), 203-228. [pdf]

Click here for a complete list of my publications.