Emma Betz

Emma Betz is Professor of German and Applied Linguistics at the University of Waterloo's Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies. She obtained her PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and joined Waterloo in 2012. Her teaching spans German language instruction at all levels, linguistics courses, and language teacher training.

Betz's research employs conversation analysis and interactional linguistics to examine how language, embodiment, and social action mutually shape interaction. She investigates functional spectra of discourse markers, response tokens, and modal particles in German and cross-linguistic contexts. Her work connects linguistic choices with fundamental aspects of sociality including knowledge display, understanding management, and relationship building.

Recent publications focus on interactional competence assessment, functions of German particles like 'echt', cross-linguistic comparisons of discourse markers (especially 'okay'), and pedagogical applications of conversation analysis. She has edited special journal issues on interactional competence and contributed to volumes on pragmatic particles across languages.

Pedagogically, she applies interaction research to develop methods for teaching and testing interactional competence in second-language classrooms. She teaches courses including:

• Elementary/Intermediate German
• Multilingualism
• German Linguistics ('Kleine Wörter im Gespräch')
• Approaches in Linguistics
• Questions and Answers in Social Interaction