معرفی
Martina Podboj is an Assistant Professor at the University of Rijeka's Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, specializing in English and Croatian Studies. With a PhD in Linguistics (summa cum laude) from the University of Zagreb, she has held academic positions at institutions including the University of Alberta's Wirth Institute and Zagreb's Croaticum center.
- Education: PhD in Linguistics (2019), MA & BA in English and Croatian Language/Literature (2012, 2009)
- Research Focus: Critical discourse analysis of digital narratives, identity construction in migration, deictic strategies in social media, and language education for vulnerable populations
Her work examines small stories as narrative genres in digital spaces, with a focus on clickbait mechanisms in celebrity pregnancy reporting and affective positioning in earthquake testimonials. She analyzes identity construction through narrative analysis in contexts ranging from RuPaul’s Drag Race to refugee language education.
Key findings show how digital headlines reinforce gendered discourses, how volunteers teach Croatian to refugees despite institutional gaps, and how migration experiences reconfigure identity through narrative strategies like pronominal shift. Her research spans multimodal deixis in Twitter discourse, trauma-informed language teaching, and comparative studies of word order in Slavic languages.
Martina has participated in projects related to the University of Rijeka and Croatian Applied Linguistics Society, while serving as ECTS/Erasmus+ coordinator. Her academic contributions bridge discourse theory with practical language education challenges.
