Staff Profile:Dr Sophie Payne

Name:

Dr Sophie Payne

Job Title:

Lecturer

Responsibilities:

IWLP German Language Lead

Course tutor for LA1PG1, LA1PG2 and LA1PG3.

Areas of Interest:

In the past I taught on DLC degree-side modules on the West German post-war history, the history of German post-war migration, German lexicology and German textual linguistics. I have also previously taught on the module Discourse Analysis for the Applied Linguistics Department.

Research Interests:

German language and culture, linguistics and feminism.

Short bio:

I was born in Reading and grew up nearby. After a gap year teaching EFL, I returned to Reading to study BA German and Italian, followed by an M(Res) and a PhD in German Studies. My thesis was a linguistic analysis of media representations of contemporary feminist groups in Germany and the UK. In the past I have provided student study advice and disability support, co-edited the Language Studies Working Papers and I co-founded the Gender and Sexuality Research Network. I taught on modules for the German degree 2015-2020 and I have been teaching modules on the IWLP programme since 2018. I have lived in Göttingen and Hamburg, Germany, in Bergamo, Italy and in Sydney, Australia.

Research groups / Centres:

Publications:

Mackenzie, J., L. Coffey-Glover, S. Payne and M. McGlashan (2020). Disco divas and heroic knights: a critical multimodal analysis of gender roles in “create the world” LEGO cards. In: Innovations and Challenges: Women, Language and Sexism (C.R. Caldas-Coulthard, ed.). pp. 60-76.

Payne, S. (2013). Compliment Responses of Female German and Italian University Students: A Contrastive Study. In: Reading University Language Studies Working Papers Vol. 5. [URL: https://www.reading.ac.uk/web/files/english-language/elal_4_Payne.pdf