معرفی
Prof. Nico Nassenstein is a Professor of African Languages and Linguistics and Vice Dean of Faculty 07 at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. His research focuses on sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology, and pragmatics, with particular attention to Bantu languages in East and Central Africa, youth language practices, and language contact phenomena. He has guest-edited major journal special issues and co-authored influential books such as Metasex: The Discourse of Intimacy and Transgression and Nachtlinguistik.
His work addresses topics including language variation in touristic contexts, verbal transgression, and naming practices in African cultures. He has led international workshops and collaborative projects involving universities in Brazil, Zimbabwe, and across Africa. In 2022, he received the Sibylle Kalkhof-Rose Award for exceptional academic contributions in the humanities.
Key research initiatives include studies on morphosyntactic variation in African youth languages, decolonial linguistic approaches, and the sociolinguistics of languages like Lingala, Swahili, and Kinyarwanda. Nassenstein actively engages with interdisciplinary methods, combining ethnography with linguistic analysis to explore how language reflects cultural, political, and social dynamics.
