Michael Haugh

Professor Michael Haugh is a leading scholar in Linguistics and Applied Linguistics at the University of Queensland, with a focus on pragmatics and its intersections with intercultural communication, corpus linguistics, and digital humanities. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities (FAHA) and co-director of the Language Technology and Data Analysis Laboratory (LADAL). His work examines language use in context, emphasizing naturally occurring interactions and digitally-mediated communication across cultures.

His research explores the local flavors of pragmatic phenomena through cross-cultural and interdisciplinary lenses, including the role of language corpora in advancing pragmatic analysis. Current projects include establishing the Language Data Commons of Australia (LDaCA) and the Australian Text Analytics Platform (ATAP), reflecting his leadership in linguistic data infrastructure.

• Key Research Areas:
  • Pragmatics and implicature
  • Intercultural (im)politeness
  • Conversational humor and teasing
  • Discourse and morality
  • Corpus-based metapragmatics
  • Language technology applications

His 15 most recent articles (2024-2025) address topics such as reproducibility in corpus linguistics, online public shaming, troubles talk, and cross-cultural humor dynamics. These publications highlight trends in digital discourse, ethical communication, and pragmatic theory.

• Scientific Awards:
  • Fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities (FAHA)

• Current Supervision:
  • PhD topics on intercultural communication, conversational humor, and advice-giving in academic settings

• Labs & Teams:
  • Co-director of LADAL
  • Leadership roles in LDaCA and ATAP
  • Collaborations with international scholars (e.g., Melody Chang, Rosina Márquez Reiter)