Sebastian Hoffmann

Sebastian Hoffmann is a distinguished academic affiliated with the University of Trier, where he served as Dean of the Faculty of Languages, Literatures and Media Studies from 2017 to 2023. He has held significant roles, including Visiting Professor at the University of Tampere (2014–2017) and Lecturer in English Linguistics at Lancaster University (2006–2009). His expertise lies in Corpus Linguistics, with a focus on World Englishes, Syntactic Change, and Corpus Methodology. He co-developed BNCweb, a widely used web interface for the British National Corpus.

• PhD from the University of Zurich

His research explores usage-based approaches to language study, including syntactic evolution, phonological patterns (e.g., intrusive /r/), tag questions, and verb complementation. Recent work highlights the role of Internet-derived data in corpus linguistics and the fixedness of collocations.

His publications span Corpus Methodology, Historical Linguistics, and Phraseology, with key works such as Corpora and Lexis (2018) and Grammaticalization and English Complex Prepositions (2005). He has contributed extensively to journals like the International Journal of Corpus Linguistics and Journal of English Linguistics.

Hoffmann has been recognized for leadership in professional organizations, including Chair of ICAME (2017–2023) and Vice-President for the Profession of the International Society for the Linguistics of English (2018–2023). He teaches courses such as The History of the English Language and Transcribing and Analyzing Spoken Language.