Mathieu Avanzi

Mathieu Avanzi is a Full Professor at the University of Neuchâtel, where he directs the Center for Gallo-Roman Dialectology and the Study of Regional French within the Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences and the Institute of Language Sciences. Previously, he served as an Associate Professor (Maître de conférences) in French Linguistics at Sorbonne Université in Paris. His academic journey began with a Master's degree in Language Sciences from the University of Grenoble-Alpes in 2004, followed by a doctoral thesis completed jointly between the University of Neuchâtel and Paris Nanterre in 2011. His postdoctoral career included research stays in Louvain-la-Neuve (Belgium), Cambridge (UK), Geneva, Zurich, and Bern.

Avanzi's research focuses on the spatial variation of French (regional words, local expressions, pronunciation variants, and accents) and the relationship between regional French and Gallo-Romance dialects. He pioneered the 'Français de nos Régions' program in 2015, which collects linguistic materials from various sources to document regional French variations across the globe. This initiative includes surveys, a blog, a corpus, and a smartphone application. He also leads the AGORA Project 'Dis-voir,' funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation, which develops a mobile application to document and explore Swiss French varieties.

His scholarly output demonstrates a consistent focus on French dialectology, with recent publications examining phonological variation in Swiss French, verbal periphrases, final consonant patterns, and the geographical identification of accents. His work bridges traditional dialectology with digital humanities through innovative citizen science approaches. Avanzi has developed significant expertise in data visualization techniques for linguistic variation, particularly through his 'Français de nos Régions' application that allows users to explore regional linguistic features interactively.

As an educator, Avanzi teaches courses on the history and evolution of the French language, Francophonie and French varieties, Gallo-Romance dialectology, methods and tools in dialectology, citizen science and data visualization, lexicology and lexicography, R for digital humanities, and sociolinguistics focusing on regional accents. He oversees bachelor's programs in Gallo-Roman dialectology and historical linguistics, digital humanities, and regional heritage and digital humanities at the master's level.