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Dr. habil. Matthias Klumm

address: Dept. of English and American Studies
Am Neuen Palais 10
Building 19, Room 1.13
14469 Potsdam, Germany

opening time: consulting hours
Thursdays, 10-11 a.m.

Academic Background 

since 10/2025

Interim Professor (Present-Day English Language and Linguistics), University of Potsdam

2020 – 2025

Habilitation in English linguistics (mentors: Prof. Anita Fetzer, Prof. Evelien Keizer, Prof. Ursula Lenker), University of Augsburg

Habilitation title: Left and right peripheries in English discourse grammar

2017 – 2025

Assistant Professor/Postdoc (English Applied Linguistics), University of Augsburg

2017

Research associate (Englische Sprachpraxis), University of Rostock

2014 – 2016

Research associate (English linguistics), LMU Munich

2013 – 2014

Research stay at the University of the West Indies (St Augustine, Trinidad) and at the University of the West Indies (Mona, Jamaica)

2012 – 2017

PhD in English linguistics (supervisors: Prof. Stephanie Hackert, Prof. Ulrich Detges), LMU Munich

Dissertation title: Address in the anglophone Caribbean: A corpus-based sociolinguistic study of nominal and pronominal address patterns in Jamaica and Trinidad

2009 – 2010

Foreign language assistant, Shropshire, UK

2008 – 2009

Université de Nice Sophia Antipolis (Erasmus)

2005 – 2012

First State Examination for the teaching profession (Erstes Staatsexamen für das Lehramt an Gymnasien), University of Heidelberg

Research Interests

  • Discourse linguistics
  • English discourse grammar
  • Functional approaches to language
  • (Variational) pragmatics
  • (Variationist) sociolinguistics
  • World Englishes
  • Pidgin and creole studies
  • English morphology and word-formation
  • English syntax

Publications 

Klumm, Matthias & Raymond Oenbring. accepted. Pragmatics: Communicative strategies in the English-speaking Caribbean. In Stephanie Hackert (ed.), The Oxford handbook of Caribbean English. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Klumm, Matthias. in print. Discourse relations and temporal adjuncts in written present-day English. In Marco Coniglio, Kalle Müller & Markus Steinbach (eds.), Adverbs and adverbials at the form-meaning interface (Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Klumm, Matthias. 2025. Peripheries and their internal structure: An empirical analysis of left- and right-peripheral sequences across written English discourse. Linguistics 63(5). 1171–1198. doi.org/10.1515/ling-2023-0242

Klumm, Matthias & Augustin Speyer. 2025b. Left and right peripheries in discourse: An introduction. Folia Linguistica 59(2). 255–274. doi.org/10.1515/flin-2025-2022

Klumm, Matthias & Augustin Speyer (eds.). 2025a. Left and right peripheries in discourse. Special Issue in Folia Linguistica (Volume 59, Issue 2).

Klumm, Matthias & Anita Fetzer. 2024. Discourse grammar, discourse coherence and discourse relations: Evidence from editing-based tasks for language teaching. In Holden Härtl & Katharina Zaychenko (eds.), Grammatical categories in linguistics and education (Trends in Applied Linguistics 37), 63–85. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. doi.org/10.1515/9783111140803-004

Klumm, Matthias. 2024. A corpus-based study of phrasal and clausal temporal adjuncts at the left and right peripheries across genres of written English discourse. Lingua 309. 1–21. doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2024.103794

Fetzer, Anita & Matthias Klumm. 2023. The linguistic realization of continuative discourse relations in English discourse: A context-based analysis across narrative and argumentative genres. Functions of Language 30(1). 16–40. doi.org/10.1075/fol.22010.fet

Klumm, Matthias, Anita Fetzer & Evelien Keizer. 2023b. Continuative and contrastive discourse relations across discourse domains: Cognitive and cross-linguistic approaches. Functions of Language 30(1). 4–15. doi.org/10.1075/fol.00050.klu

Klumm, Matthias, Anita Fetzer & Evelien Keizer (eds.). 2023a. Continuative and contrastive discourse relations across discourse domains: Cognitive and cross-linguistic approaches. Special Issue in Functions of Language (Volume 30, Issue 1). doi.org/10.1075/fol.30.1

Klumm, Matthias. 2022. The signaling of continuative and contrastive discourse relations in English argumentative discourse: Corpus-based and experimental perspectives. Discours [Online] 30. doi.org/10.4000/discours.12044

Oenbring, Raymond & Matthias Klumm. 2022. The trappings of order: Linguistic features of Anglophone Caribbean administrative writing. English World-Wide 43(1). 66–95. doi.org/10.1075/eww.21020.oen

Klumm, Matthias, Matthias Jilka & Anita Fetzer. 2022. Multilingualism and language acquisition with a focus on EFL: The theory and practice of cognitive linguistic perspectives. In Christiane Fäcke & Sara Vali (eds.), Perspektiven der Mehrsprachigkeit heute in Forschung und Praxis: Lehramtsstudierende, Lehrpraxis, Lehrmaterialien (KFU – Kolloquium Fremdsprachenunterricht 69), 13–28. Frankfurt: Peter Lang. doi.org/10.3726/b19481

Klumm, Matthias. 2021b. Meaning-to-form mismatches in Functional Discourse Grammar and Systemic Functional Grammar: A case study of the English discourse connective however. In Lucía Contreras-García & Daniel García Velasco (eds.), Interfaces in Functional Discourse Grammar: Theory and applications (Trends in Linguistics 354), 399–432. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. doi.org/10.1515/9783110711592-012

Klumm, Matthias. 2021a. Nominal and pronominal address in Jamaica and Trinidad: Variation and patterns (Topics in Address Research 3). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. doi.org/10.1075/tar.3

Hölzl, Andreas, Matthias Klumm, Mara Matičević, Thomas Scharinger, Johannes Ungelenk & Nora Zapf. 2015b. Einleitung. In Andreas Hölzl, Matthias Klumm, Mara Matičević, Thomas Scharinger, Johannes Ungelenk & Nora Zapf (eds.), Politik der Metapher (Languagetalks 4), 9–20. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann.

Hölzl, Andreas, Matthias Klumm, Mara Matičević, Thomas Scharinger, Johannes Ungelenk & Nora Zapf (eds.). 2015a. Politik der Metapher (Languagetalks 4). Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann.

De Decker, Filip, Katharina Jakob, Matthias Klumm, Markus Kunzmann, Isabell Lindbüchl & Taja Stoll. 2015b. Sprachinnovation: Motivation – Erscheinungsformen – Verlauf: Einleitung. JournaLIPP 4. I–III. doi.org/10.5282/journalipp/4838

De Decker, Filip, Katharina Jakob, Matthias Klumm, Markus Kunzmann, Isabell Lindbüchl & Taja Stoll (eds.). 2015a. JournaLIPP (Nr. 4): Sprachinnovation: Motivation – Erscheinungsformen – Verlauf. doi.org/10.5282/journalipp/2015H4