Carina Ahrens

/ka‘ʁi:na ‘a:ʁəns/
(she/her)

Carina standing in front of a fantastic view of the city center of Edinburgh.

Here I am standing on Calton Hill enjoying the view on the city center of Edinburgh.

Welcome to my Academic Journey

I am a student living in Germany where I study Musicology, History, English Linguistics and Psycholinguistics. I work in the Sociolinguistics Lab at the University of Duisburg-Essen (Germany) where I transcribe and code data. My research interests are (socio)phonetics as well as cognitive aspects of language. I am also interested in how people's speech changes over their lifespan.

For my master's thesis, I use panel data from Tyneside (Northeast of England) to investigate how the first-person possessive my and the first-person accusative object me are differentiated acoustically. Previous research has shown that they both share different variants of pronunciation [mi, mai, mei, ma] (Moelders under revision). If you are interested in learning more, I invite you to visit my presentation at the Sociolinguistic Symposium in 2024.

In psycholinguistics, I am currently working on a project to explore language dominance in multilingual speakers' brains. I am preparing a cognate test to see how multilingual speakers access words that overlap in different languages. My current focus is on French L1 speakers who also learned English and German. If you want to learn more about this project, you can check out the poster I presented at NWAV 51.

I hold two bachelor’s degrees - a bilingual degree (Licence Franco-Allemande) in Musicology from Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen (Germany) and the University François Rabelais in Tours (France) and a two-subject degree in Anglophone Studies and History from the University of Duisburg-Essen (Germany). I am currently pursuing three master's degrees - one in Musicology at the Folkwang University of the Arts, Essen (Germany), one in English Linguistics and History at the University of Duisburg-Essen (Germany) and one in Psycholinguistics at the Ruhr University Bochum (Germany). In fall 2024 I will start my PhD at the University of Oregon where I will be working with Vsevolod (Volya) Kapatsinski.

News & Events

I am excited to announce that I will be joining the PhD program of Linguistics at the University of Oregon this fall.

Upcoming Presentations:

  • Sociolinguistics Symposium 25:
    24th - 27th June 2024, Perth (Australia)
    (dh)-stopping in Hawaiʻi Creole: Testing a Stable Variable in a Creole - Ahrens, Grama

  • Sociolinguistics Symposium 25:
    24th - 27th June 2024, Perth (Australia)
    An acoustic study of the first-person possessive in the Northeast of England - Moelders, Ahrens

  • Methods in Dialectology XVIII:
    01st - 05th July 2024, Melbourne (Australia)
    Evaluating a traditionally “stable” variable in a contact language: A study of (dh)-stopping in Hawaiʻi Creole - Ahrens, Grama

  • Methods in Dialectology XVIII:
    01st - 05th July 2024, Melbourne (Australia)
    Exploring acoustic realisations of Tyneside English: Homophonous realisation of the First-Person Possessive and Object 'me'? - Ahrens, Moelders

  • International Conference on Language Variation in Europe 12:
    8th - 11th July 2024, Vienna (Austria)
    me and my Accent - Analyzing Acoustic Patterns of the First-Person Possessive and Object 'me': Evidence from Tyneside English - Moelders, Ahrens

Current Research Projects:

  • Independent Project with James Grama:
    (dh)-stopping in Hawai'i Creole

  • Master's Thesis English Linguistics:
    investigating acoustic properties of the object me and the first possessive pronoun my in Tyneside English

  • Master's Thesis Psycholinguistics:
    Investigating language dominance in multilingual brains

  • Master's Thesis Musicology:
    Lorenzo di Medici and his relation with his musicians

Contact me here:

  • Email: carina.ahrens[at]uni-due.de
  • Email: carina-ahrens[at]web.de