Curriculum Vitae
School
| 1942 | Born in Mannheim |
| 1949 - 1962 | Primary and secondary schools in Mannheim |
| 1962 - 1964 | Military service; reserve lieutenant |
Education and professional experience
| 1964 - 1969 | M.A. in German language and literature and art history from the Universität Heidelberg |
| 1970 - 1978 | Research assistant at the universities of Regensburg, Heidelberg and Düsseldorf |
| Ph.D. from the Universität Heidelberg | |
| 1978 | Habilitation in German linguistics at the Universität Düsseldorf |
| since 1978 | Professor in the Department of German Lingusitics of Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf |
Offices
| 1992 - 1994 | Chair of the German Linguistics Society |
| 1994 - 1998 | Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences of Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf |
| since 1996 | Jury member for the category »Language« in the annual manager magazin competition »The Best Annual Report« |
Guest professorships
| 1979 - 1980 | University of Nantes, France |
| 1989 | University of Yaoundé, Cameroon |
Lectures and talks
| Korea | Seoul, Daegu, Pusan, Kwangju, Kangnung, Suwon |
| USA | University of California at Los Angeles, Duke University (North Carolina) |
| Australia | Sydney |
| Europe | Amsterdam, Brussels, Cambridge, Copenhagen, Groningen, Nantes, Oslo, Oxford, Salzburg, Utrecht |
| Germany | Aachen, Berlin, Bielefeld, Bochum, Bremen, Cologne, Darmstadt, Dortmund, Giesen, Hamburg, Heidelberg, Kiel, Mannheim, Münster, Munich, Passau, Potsdam, Regensburg, Tübingen, Witten-Herdecke, Leipzig |
Research
- Language change (On Language Change. The Invisible Hand in Language, transl. by Brigitte Nerlich, London/New York: Routledge, 1994)
- Sign theory (A Theory of Linguistic Signs, transl. by Kimberley Duenwald, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.)
- Corporate communication