Stefanie Rottschäfer

Stefanie Rottschäfer is a researcher at the Applied Linguistics and ELT chair of the Faculty of Cultural Studies at the Technische Universität Dortmund. Her work focuses on English as a lingua franca (ELF), multilingualism, language attitudes, and language identity, particularly within family contexts and educational settings.

• Education: B.A. in Language and Communication (Universität Siegen, Université Paris XII), M.A. in Sprachlehrforschung (Universität Hamburg)

Her research explores how families across Europe navigate multilingual communication using ELF, as seen in her 2024 publication on multilingual repertoires at dinner tables. She also investigates the phonetic and sociocognitive aspects of learner varieties of English, including accent perception and identity construction among German and French university students.

Recent publications and presentations highlight her work on family language policies, ownership of English among pre-service teachers, and cross-cultural meaning-making. Notably, she was awarded a Fulbright scholarship in 2024 to conduct research at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.

• Key Contributions:
  • Developed the FamiLingo project on ELF in multilingual families
  • Created the first corpus of ELF interactions in domestic settings
  • Advances discourse on language ideologies and global citizenship in family contexts

Rottschäfer’s teaching spans topics like identity in language learning, sociophonetics, and bilingual education. Her methodological expertise includes narrative analysis, sociolinguistic fieldwork, and corpus compilation.