About
Professor Ursula Reutner holds the Chair of Romance Languages and Cultures at the University of Passau since 2009 and serves as Vice President for International Relations since 2014. She also directs the Language Center and serves as Academic Director of the Institute of Intercultural Communication (ink.up) at the University of Passau.
Her research focuses on digital communication and intercultural communication, particularly examining cultural differences in websites and web applications. She investigates how internet communication affects cultural identity, asking whether digitalization leads toward cultural unification or increased diversity. Her work bridges traditional linguistic analysis with contemporary digital communication studies.
Her recent publications demonstrate a strong focus on Romance languages in African contexts, with multiple 2024 publications culminating in the edited volume Romance Languages in Africa and the upcoming 2025 monograph Romania Africana. These works analyze linguistic landscapes across 38 African countries with French, Italian, Portuguese, or Spanish historical influences.
As principal investigator of the Romance Languages in Africa (RoLA) project, she coordinates research involving 44 scholars from 22 countries. This comprehensive project examines sociolinguistic situations, language histories, linguistic characteristics, and language policies across Africa's Romance-speaking regions.
Professor Reutner has also led significant comparative media research, including the 2014 edited volume From the Newspaper to the Dawn of Twitter, which analyzes media text types and communication forms in German-French comparison. Her work consistently addresses how technological changes impact language use and cultural expression.
