Carolin Schwegler

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Carolin Schwegler is postdoctoral researcher at MESH. She is a linguist focussing on discourse and conversational linguistics. She understands her discipline as an applied and culturally oriented research field with ample multidisciplinary links. Carolin Schwegler pursues research in environmental linguistics, sustainability, and risk communication.

She holds a Master’s Degree in German Studies and Philosophy as well as a doctorate in German Linguistics (summa cum laude) from the University of Heidelberg. In her thesis, she investigated the development of argumentation strategies between 1992 and 2014 concerning climate, nature, and sustainability. She analysed German public media as well as sustainability reports of multinational companies in order to evaluate rhetorical patterns, the transformation of public values, and influential factors in discourse.

As a postdoctoral researcher, she engaged in interdisciplinary publication projects in the fields of environmental humanities, environmental linguistics, and eco-linguistics (cf., e.g., Schwegler/Mattfeldt 2021; Mattfeldt/Schwegler/Wanning 2021) as well as international interdisciplinary projects. With funding from the European Research Network NEURON, for instance, she investigates communicative practices in the context of the predictive turn (PreTAD, 2021–2024). Her research at MESH includes the international and interdisciplinary project Cultural Climate Models (funded by the AHRC/DFG/FWF 2023–2026).

Carolin Schwegler’s current research focuses on communicative practices of (climate- and health-related) prediction, risk, and prognosis, future-oriented language, and prospective communication. Furthermore, her research interests concern risk and disaster communication, future imaginaries, future generations, green tourism, language and pain, and sociolinguistic perspectives on plant studies.