Chair | International Business Communication and Digital Business
Director | Institute for International and Digital Business
I research how language is used in interaction, in particular in multimodal environments. My interests include multimodality, discourse and interaction, lexical innovation, and the use of English as a Lingua Franca. I also investigate the use of online corpora in the EFL classroom.
I am professor of International Business Communication and Digital Business at Trier University of Applied Sciences and associate professor of English linguistics and corpus linguistics at P faculty, Saarland University, and at Faculty I, Technical University Berlin. In the Institute for International and Digital Discourse, I head our applied language and communication program and several research projects on online and business discourse.
After earlier studies on historical linguistics, particularly the development of multi-word verbs, I have published on corpus compilation, multimodality, online language use, language and modality, and language and food. Recently my research has focused on the compilation and use of digital conversation corpora, in particular its integration in English language teaching, business communication in social media, multimodal discourse (in particular paralanguage and gestures), and the linguistics of food, in particular humor, evaluation and narratives about and over food. These are my current projects:
Finished projects:
Diemer, Stefan; and Marie-Louise Brunner. November 2022. Persuasion strategies on Instagram business accounts. Paper presented at Influence, Manipulation, and Seduction 2, Universität Bayreuth, Germany, and Tampere University, Finland. Virtual talk.
Diemer, Stefan; and Marie-Louise Brunner. October 2022. Persuading customers on Instagram: A case study of companies' communication strategies. 87th Conference of the Association for Business Communication (ABC), Tampa, USA. Virtual talk.
Diemer, Stefan; and Marie-Louise Brunner. September 2022. Analyzing digital discourse across platforms – A case study of customer communication on social media. Paper presented at 9th Conference on Computer-Mediated Communication and Social Media Corpora (CMC 2022), Santiago de Compostela, Spain.
Diemer, Stefan; and Marie-Louise Brunner. September 2022. Analyzing digital discourse across platforms – A case study of customer communication on social media. Paper presented at Biennial International Conference on the Linguistics of Contemporary English
(BICLCE 9), Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Diemer, Stefan. July 2022. Using a social media corpus to teach pragmatic strategies in the EFL classroom. Paper presented at Teaching and Language Corpora (TaLC 2022), University of Limerick, Ireland.
Brunner, Marie-Louise; and Stefan Diemer. June 2022. Use and effect of multilingual practices: An analysis of Instagram and Facebook business accounts. Paper presented at 9th International Conference on Intercultural Pragmatics & Communication (InPra 2022), University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia (hybrid conference).
Diemer, Stefan; and Marie-Louise Brunner. May 2022. Analyzing digital discourse across platforms. Paper presented at Advances in Digital Discourse Analysis (ADDA 3), St. Petersburg, USA.
Brunner, Marie-Louise; and Stefan Diemer. May 2022. Multilingual practices on social media: Effective language management. Paper presented at Border renaissance: Recent developments in territorial, cultural, and linguistic border studies. Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany.
Brunner, Marie-Louise; and Stefan Diemer. November 2021. Best practices of multilingual language management on social media. Paper presented at Le multilinguisme dans les milieux professionnels. Observation des pratiques et interventions sur le terrain / Multilingualism in professional life. Manifestations, managements, University of Verona, Italy.
Brunner, Marie-Louise; and Stefan Diemer. October 2021. “I’ll let you guys off (peace sign emoji)” Webcare interactions on Instagram. Paper presented at 86th Annual International Conference of the Association for Business Communication (ABC 2021) (Virtual Conference)
Brunner, Marie-Louise; and Stefan Diemer. October 2021. “Yeah just say if you can't hear me properly or, {waves}” – Negotiating interaction in virtual international conversations. Paper presented at 86th Annual International Conference of the Association for Business Communication (ABC 2021) (Virtual Conference)
Diemer, Stefan. September 2021. “We only know exotic dishes“ –
Humor over and about food in German Taster Lunches. Paper presented at Food & Communication 2021 Ljubljana
Decock, Sofie; Stefan Diemer; and Marie-Louise Brunner. August 2021. Panel on Teaching / Training virtual global teams in the business communication classroom (co-organizer) at the ABC Regional Conference Vienna (2021) (Virtual Conference).
Decock, Sofie; Christophe Wybraeke; Marie-Louise Brunner; and Stefan Diemer. August 2021. Cross-Cultural Market Research with Belgian-German Virtual Teams. Paper presented as part of the panel on Teaching / Training virtual global teams in the business communication classroom at the ABC Regional Conference Vienna (2021) (Virtual Conference).
Brunner, Marie-Louise; and Stefan Diemer. August 2021. “I’ll let you guys off (peace sign emoji)” - Webcare interactions on Instagram. Paper presented as part of the panel on Responding effectively to customer feedback online: Advances in webcare research at the ABC Regional Conference Vienna 2020 (2021) (Virtual Conference).
Brunner, Marie-Louise; and Stefan Diemer. August 2021. “Yeah just say if you can't hear me properly or, {waves}” – Negotiating interaction in video-mediated conversations. Paper presented as part of the panel on Spoken business communication in the digital age: Face-to-face and computer-mediated communication in dialogue at the ABC Regional Conference Vienna 2020 (2021) (Virtual Conference).
Diemer, Stefan. August 2021. The interactive assessment of food as embodied performance. Paper presented as part of the panel on Whose taste matters? Authority, meaning, and culture in the linguistics of food at AILA World Congress 2021 (Virtual Conference).
Brunner, Marie-Louise; and Stefan Diemer. August 2021. Multimodal Meaning Negotiation in Instagram Company Interactions: BELF in a Digital Setting. Paper presented as part of the panel on English as a Lingua Franca as a Multidimensional Resource in Professional Communication at AILA World Congress 2021 (Virtual Conference).
Brunner, Marie-Louise; and Stefan Diemer. June 2021. Expressing and addressing customer dissatisfaction on Instagram. Paper presented as part of the panel on The expression of customer dissatisfaction online at 17th International Pragmatics Conference (Virtual Conference).
Caroline Collet; and Stefan Diemer. June 2021. Laughter and interactive stancetaking in German Taster Lunches. Paper presented as part of the panel on Laughter and interactive stancetaking in food conversations in English, Japanese, German and other languages at 17th International Pragmatics Conference (Virtual Conference).
Stefan Diemer; and Marie-Louise Brunner. June 2021. Discourse segmentation in Instagram customer interactions. Paper presented at ISLE6 – Evolving English and the digital era (Virtual Conference).
Diemer, Stefan; Marie-Louise Brunner; and Sofie Decock. October 2020. Linguistic Approaches to International Business Communication. Discussion Panel of the Special Interest Group Intercultural Business Communication at 85th Annual International Conference of the Association for Business Communication (ABC 2020, Virtual Conference).
Decock, Sofie, Christophe Wybraeke, Marie-Louise Brunner, Stefan Diemer. October 2020. Teaching/Training Virtual Global Teams in the Business Communication Classroom. Panel at 85th Annual International Conference of the Association for Business Communication (ABC 2020, Virtual Conference).
Decock, Sofie, Christophe Wybraeke, Marie-Louise Brunner, Stefan Diemer. October 2020. Cross-Cultural Market Research with Belgian-German Virtual Teams. Paper presented at 85th Annual International Conference of the Association for Business Communication (ABC 2020, Virtual Conference).
Brunner, Marie-Louise; and Stefan Diemer. October 2019. “Thanks for the like, please repost” – Evaluating Channel-Specific Customer Communication via Social Media. Paper presented at 84th Annual International Conference of the Association for Business Communication (ABC 2019), Detroit, USA.
Brunner, Marie-Louise; and Stefan Diemer. September 2019. “We’re always looking for great content” – Customer Interaction via Instagram. Paper at Workshop on "Challenges of computer-mediated communication data: #obstacles #opportunities", convened by Marie-Louise Brunner, Stefan Diemer, Matt Gee & Andrew Kehoe, BICLCE8 – 8th Biennial International Conference on the Linguistics of Contemporary English. Bamberg, Germany.
Other conferences
Monographs and Corpora
Selected articles
Brunner, Marie-Louise; and Stefan Diemer. Forthcoming. Multilingual language management on social media: Best practices. Le plurilinguisme au travail : méthodes, pratiques, formation / Multilingualism at work : methods, practices, teaching, ed. by Giovanni Tallarico and Laurent Gajo [Champs Didactiques Plurilingues : données pour des politiques stratégiques]. Peter Lang.
Brunner, Marie-Louise; and Stefan Diemer. Forthcoming. Virtual border crossing and plurilingual practices on social media. Border Languaging: Multilingual Practices on the Border [Border Studies: Cultures, Spaces, Orders]. Baden-Baden: Nomos.
Brunner, Marie-Louise; and Stefan Diemer. 2023. Section on "Cross-Cultural Marketing Task for Virtual Global Teams." In: Whalen, D. Joel; and Charles Drehmer. 2023. "Selections From the ABC 2022 Annual International Conference, Tampa, Florida, USA: Sharing Teaching Innovations With a Porpoise Pod’s Coordination, Speed, and Grace." Business and Professional Communication Quarterly 86(3): 377-399. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/23294906231170806
Brunner, Marie-Louise; and Stefan Diemer. 2022. Cross-platform analysis. Research Methods for Digital Discourse Analysis, ed. by Camilla Vasquez. Bloomsbury Publishing.
Brunner, Marie-Louise; and Stefan Diemer. 2021. Section on "Let the Cat Out of The Bag! – Raising Intercultural Awareness with Hedgehog, Giraffe and Co." In: Whalen, D. Joel 2021. "Selections from the ABC 2020 Virtual Conference My Favorite Assignments" Business and Professional Communication Quarterly.
Brunner, Marie-Louise; and Stefan Diemer. 2021. Multimodal meaning making: The annotation of nonverbal elements in multimodal corpus transcription. RiCL - Research in Corpus Linguistics 9 (1): 63-88. [Special issue, ed. by Tanja Säily and Jukka Jukka Tyrkkö]. Open access via https://doi.org/10.32714/ricl.09.01.05.
Collet, Caroline; Stefan Diemer; and Marie-Louise Brunner. 2021. The discourse marker so in video-mediated communication in the Expanding Circle. World Englishes 2021: 1-17 [Special issue on Discourse Markers and World Englishes, ed. by Sofia Rüdiger and Sven Leuckert]. Open access via https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/weng.12543.
Diemer, Stefan; and Marie-Louise Brunner. 2020. "Tell me about food and I tell you who you are" - Expert identity in intercultural food discourse via Skype. Talking about Food. The social and the global in eating communities, ed. by Sofia Rüdiger and Susanne Mühleisen, 167-187. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Brunner, Marie-Louise; and Stefan Diemer. 2020. Section on "Crisis Communication via Social Media: Can You Do Better?" In: Whalen, D. Joel. 2020. “Selections From the ABC 2019 Annual Conference, Detroit, Michigan: Dancin’ in Motown’s Streets to the Beat of My Favorite Assignments.” Business and Professional Communication Quarterly 83(2): 234-255. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/2329490620906454.
Brunner, Marie-Louise; and Stefan Diemer. 2019b. Meaning negotiation and customer engagement in a digital BELF setting: A study of Instagram company interactions. Iperstoria – Testi Letterature Linguaggi 13(1): 15-33 [Special section: Negotiating Meaning in Business English as a Lingua Franca, ed. by Alessia Cogo and Paola Vettorel]. https://iperstoria.it/article/view/436.
Brunner, Marie-Louise; and Stefan Diemer. 2019a. Section on "Business Goes Intercultural: Developing an Intercultural Marketing Campaign" In: Whalen, D. Joel. 2019. “Selections From the ABC 2018 Annual Conference, Miami, Florida: Teaching Innovations Bright as the Tropical Sun.” Business and Professional Communication Quarterly 82(2). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/232949061983338.
Interviews and press articles
Dissertations (ongoing)
Dissertations (completed)
Master theses
State Exam theses (Saarland University & State Examination Board for Teachers of English)
Bachelor theses
Reviewer for:
Im Sommersemester 2024 biete ich folgende Veranstaltungen an | In the summer semester 2024 I am offering the following courses:
I supervise exam theses in the areas of International Business Communication, Digital Business, Intercultural communication, Language and Communication, and Linguistics in our BA & MA, BEng & MEng, BSc &MSc, and LLB & LLM programs. If you want to write your thesis with me, please contact me well in advance.
As examiner of the Saarland Examination Office for Schools I also supervise exam theses and state exams in English linguistics and language science (Lehramt, BA & MA, MSc) at Saarland University on a limited basis – please contact me well in advance and consider attending my exam colloquium. You can find a list of exam topics here. You will need to discuss exam inquiries or dissertation proposals well before a possible registration or examination date. For further information on exams in linguistics, see here.
I am currently supervising several doctoral theses. If you are interested in writing a doctoral thesis under my supervision, you are welcome to contact me with a project proposal.
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