Situated in the heart of Europe, the Vrije Universiteit Brussel is ideally suited for research on multilingualism. Internationalisation is one of the core strategies of the VUB. Multilingualism and second language acquisition are key foci of the CLIN research centre (Centre for Linguistics), which is part of the Linguistics and Literary Studies Department (LIST).
An Vande Casteele (coordinadora principal)
Kim Collewaert
Anastasija Jagafarova
An Vande Casteele is Professor of Spanish Linguistics and Foreign Language Acquisition and is currently programme director of the BA and MA programmes of Taal- en Letterkunde at Vrije Universiteit Brussel.
Her research expertise includes the acquisition of Spanish, discourse analysis, reference processing in L2 and interlanguage pragmatics.
In addition to the coordination of the Erasmus+ Programme Key Action 2: Strategic Partnership “PRACOMUL: Pragmatic competence from a multilingual perspective” (2020–2023), she is also collaborating with different universities: the University of Ghent on code-switching between Spanish-English, the University of Sevilla on macro syntax and discourse markers, and the University of Granada on anaphora resolution in L2.
The University of Ljubljana (UL), founded in 1919, is the largest, oldest, and highest ranked university in Slovenia. As the leading research institution, it fosters research in social, humanistic, technical, and natural sciences, and, as a member of numerous programs and partnerships, collaborates in international research studies and projects.
Barbara Pihler Ciglič (coordinadora nacional)
Damjan Popič
Vita Veselko
Gemma Santiago Alonso
Barbara Pihler Ciglič is Professor of Spanish Linguistics at the University of Ljubljana (Faculty of Arts), where she teaches subjects related to morphosyntax, word formation, discourse analysis, text linguistics, pragmatics, and history of the Spanish language. Her main areas of research are linguistic pragmatics, discourse analysis, epistemic modality and evidentiality (in Spanish and Slovene).
From 2012 to 2015 she was part of the international research group UPSTAIRS, led by Prof. Elena de Miguel of the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. Since 2017, she is a member of the research group Narración en textos eslovenos, romances e ingleses: de contrastes lingüísticos a la interculturalidad, funded by the Slovenian Research Agency and since November 2020 she co-directs the group "“El Español en la Europa Meridional”, which is part of the project El Español en Europa, led by Prof. Óscar Loureda, Prof. Francisco Moreno Fernández (University of Heidelberg) and Prof. Johannes Kabatek (University of Zurich).
She is part of organizing committees of international symposia and several commissions; from 2017 to 2021 she chaired the Committee for Quality Assurance at the University of Ljubljana. In 2019 she was the main coordinator of the Centennial Celebration of the Faculty of Philosophy and Arts, and from 2020 she is a member of Eutopia Quality board.
The Universidad de Sevilla (US), founded in 1551, is one of the leading institutions in the Spanish university system. Its mission is to teach students to contribute to the research and development, necessary for the progress of scientific and technological innovation. Research activity, funded by public and private entities, is carried out in its different departments, university institutes and research centres.
Catalina Fuentes Rodríguez (coordinadora nacional)
Catalina Fuentes Rodríguez is Professor of Spanish language at the University of Sevilla. Her areas of research are discourse syntax and pragmatics. She is the author of publications on, among other topics, discourse markers, modality, meta discourse, macro-syntax, (im)politeness, media discourse and political discourse. She is currently engaged in the study of macro-syntax, in two research projects and has published the Diccionario de conectores y operadores del español. She is leading the research group Argumentación y Persuasión en Lingüística (APL), a research group working on linguistic strategies and mechanisms, as well as on discourse analysis (political discourse, media, politeness, female leadership, press and ideology). It has implemented research projects financed in national and regional competitive calls. Their methodology is pragmatic linguistics. They are experts in research on macro-syntax, discourse markers, (im)politeness, conversation, and public discourse.
The University of Palermo (UNIPA), the largest university in Sicily, is a centre of cultural, scientific and educational reference. Its researchers seek to answer questions about nature, science and society, often in collaboration with other universities, companies and institutions, and contribute to the innovation and development of the international scientific community.
Carla Prestigiacomo (coordinadora nacional)
Carla Prestigiacomo is Professor of Spanish language, linguistics and translation at the Universitá degli Studi di Palermo. Her research interests are discourse analysis, macro-syntax, translation, and didactics. She is the author of a number of publications on argumentation, persuasion, manipulation and ideology, in which she pays particular attention to the columns and mechanisms of persuasion in the discourse of Franco's press.
