Laura Rupp

Dr. Laura Rupp is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and Director of the Centre for Global English. She holds a PhD in Linguistics from the University of Essex (1999). Her research focuses on language variation, English pronunciation in global contexts, and the sociolinguistic aspects of English as a lingua franca. She has received prestigious awards including the British Academy Visiting Fellowship (2023-2024) and the Hans-Sigrist-Preis (2020).

Key grants include a British Academy Fellowship (2023-2024) and a Swiss National Science Foundation grant (2022-2023) supporting research at Universität Bern. She has been a Visiting Professor at the University of Toronto and Australian Catholic University. Her teaching includes courses on Global English, Postcolonial Language, and Pronunciation, with a notable MOOC English Pronunciation in a Global World on FutureLearn.

Research interests span grammatical properties of English varieties, discourse pragmatics, and pronunciation's role in mutual understanding. She advocates for linguistic diversity, emphasizing intelligibility over prescriptive norms. The Centre for Global English she leads fosters international collaboration on sociolinguistic challenges of global English usage.