Welcome!

I am a linguist working on the variational pragmatics of German. My goal is to empirically investigate regional differences in the realization of politeness-sensitive speech acts (e.g., requests) in the German-speaking world. Since January 2023, I have joined the DFG-funded variprag.net project as a research fellow and doctoral candidate at Freie Universität Berlin.

I obtained my M.A. in Linguistics at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Besides my studies, I worked as a research assistant at Leibniz-Centre General Linguistics (ZAS) as well as the SPA Lab at the University of Potsdam.

Curriculum vitae

Please find my full CV here.

Upcoming

I am currently working on the following papers and talks.

  • Papers

    • Zoske, Janel, Henrik Discher, Laura Fischlhammer & Sabrina Guhe. In preparation. Standard language in Austria: Pragmatic variation in formal contexts and situations. In Alexandra N. Lenz, Stephan Elspaß, Stefan M. Newerkla & Gerhard Budin (eds.), German in Austria: Variation - contact - perception.

  • Talks and posters

    • You're a true Vulgarian, aren't you? Inter-speaker variation in the use of expressivity in German complaints [with Tanja Ackermann]. 47th Annual Meeting of the German Linguistics Society (DGfS), Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, 04-07 March 2025.

    Explicitness of requests and complaints in Germany: Theoretical considerations and (geo)statistical modeling. Research colloquium on German linguistics, Bielefeld University, 27 November 2024.

Output

Recently, I have worked on the following papers and talks.

  • Papers

    • Discher, Henrik & Janel Zoske. 2023. Variationspragmatik: Bericht zur Tagung der Arbeitsgemeinschaft Linguistische Pragmatik (ALP e.V.) an der Universität zu Köln am 07. März 2023. Zeitschrift für Germanistische Linguistik 51(3). 551-560. https://doi.org/10.1515/zgl-2023-2026

    Alexandropoulou, Stavroula, Henrik Discher, Marisha Herb, & Nicole Gotzner. 2022. Incremental pragmatic interpretation of gradable adjectives: The role of standards of comparison. Proceedings of Semantics and Linguistic Theory (SALT) 32. 481-497. https://doi.org/10.3765/salt.v1i0.5399

  • Talks and posters

    • "Ähm, Diggi, der Vier-Euro-Schein wurde noch nicht erfunden": Pragmatische Variation von Beschwerden im Deutschen. Colloquium of the linguistics research groups at TU Dortmund University (Christian Zimmer), University of Bielefeld (Tanja Ackermann), and University of Duisburg-Essen (Melitta Gillmann), Datteln, 13-15 August 2024.

    Variational pragmatics of German: The effect of 'region' and other micro- and macro-social factors. [with Janel Zoske, Tanja Ackermann, & Horst Simon]. 12th International Conference on Language Variation in Europe (ICLaVE), Austrian Academy of Sciences & University of Vienna, 08-11 July 2024.

    Pragmatische Variation im deutschsprachigen Raum: Regionale Unterschiede in der Realisierung von höflichkeitssensitiven Sprechakten. Linguistics Colloquium, Research Center Deutscher Sprachatlas & Institut für Germanistische Sprachwissenschaft, University of Marburg, 26 June 2024.

Contact

Do you have questions or comments? Get in touch with me at henrik.discher@fu-berlin.de.

Office address:
Freie Universität Berlin
Institut für Deutsche und Niederländische Philologie
Habelschwerdter Allee 45
Room JK 28/121
14195 Berlin