Peter Auer
Peter Auer is a German linguist and Professor Emeritus of Germanic Linguistics at the University of Freiburg. He is known for his work in sociolinguistics, code-switching, multilingualism, dialectology, and conversation analysis.
Early life and education
Auer was born in 1954 in Regensburg, West Germany. He studied General Linguistics, German Linguistics, Sociology, and Psychology at the Universities of Cologne, Constance, and Manchester.He completed his doctoral dissertation at the University of Constance in 1983, titled "Zweisprachige Konversationen. Code-Switching und Transfer bei italienischen Migrantenkindern in Konstanz". He subsequently completed his post-doctoral dissertation at the same institution in 1988.
Career
From 1980 to 1989, Auer worked as a researcher and assistant professor in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Constance. In 1989, he became a Heisenberg Scholar and later accepted a position as professor of German Linguistics at the University of Hamburg.In 1998, Auer joined the University of Freiburg as a full professor of Germanic Philology, where he remained until his retirement. He declined professorships at the universities of Munich, Mainz, and Bangor.
From 2007 to 2013, Auer served as co-director of the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies School of Language and Literature.
Administrative and editorial roles
Auer has held several significant administrative positions in the field of linguistics:- Elected referee of the German Research Foundation for General Linguistics
- Co-director of the European Science Foundation Network on "Convergence and Divergence of Dialects in a Changing Europe"
- Member of editorial boards of various national and international academic journals