Resesarch interests
- interpersonal pragmatics and relational work
- pragmatics of fiction and relational work
- Pragmatics of fiction in translation and subtitling
- language and politeness/impoliteness
- language and power
- language and disagreement
- language and advice
- language and emotions
- narratives in oral and written form
- computer-mediated discourse
- Internet health communication (especially advice columns on health topics)
- medical humanities
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4630-7388
Scopus: ID=16238998600
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Selected Publications
Exploring Korean Politeness Across Online and Offline Interactions (pp. 121–154). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-50698-7_6
, & Messerli, Thomas C. (2024). “What Does Hyung Mean Please?”: Moments of Teaching and Learning About Korean (Im)politeness on an Online Streaming Platform of Korean TV Drama. In Kim, Mary Shin (ed.),
Dayter, Daria, Elements in Pragmatics. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009261210
, & Messerli, Thomas C. (2023). Pragmatics in Translation: Mediality, participation and relational work. In
Landert, Daniela, Dayter, Daria, Messerli, Thomas C., & Elements in Pragmatics. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009091107
(2023). Corpus Pragmatics. In
Elements in Pragmatics. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009091688
, Jucker, Andreas H., Landert, Daniela, & Messerli, Thomas C. (2023). Fiction and Pragmatics. In
Journal of pragmatics, 170, 139–155. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2020.08.002
(2020). Moments of relational work in English fan translations of Korean TV drama.
Selected Projects & Collaborations

Pragmatics of Fiction: Lay Subtitling and Online Communal Viewing
Research Project | 2 Project Members
Aim
The project Pragmatics of Fiction: Lay subtitling and online communal viewing offers a new pragmatic perspective onto processes and products of subtitling. Its central foci are the role of English in making televised Korean dramas accessible to a global audience; the changing paradigms of subtitle production and reception towards more participatory and collaborative practices; the dynamic participation structures of translated artefacts and their effects on cross-cultural communication. While the project draws on research in translation, it is grounded in English linguistics, the pragmatics of fiction and computer-mediated communication. Our aim is to bring linguistic questions about language in use to this research interface.
Team
Principal investigators: Miriam A. Locher and Thomas C. Messerli
Student interns for relational work and timed comments:Elizabeth Adams, Carmelo Cudemo, Giogia Egloff, Christian Feige, Vera Geitz, Luca Lavina, Joël Stocker, Clara Vuille-dit-Bille
Timed comments codebook development: Miriam A. Locher and Andrea Wuest