Neal R. Norrick held the chair of English Linguistics at Saarland University in

Saarbrücken Saarbrücken (; french: link=no, Sarrebruck ; Rhine Franconian: ''Saarbrigge'' ; lb, Saarbrécken ; lat, Saravipons, lit=The Bridge(s) across the Saar river) is the capital and largest city of the state of Saarland, Germany. Saarbrücken is S ...

, Germany, where he established a linguistics curriculum firmly based in pragmatics and discourse analysis. In the last two decades, he has become an important personality in linguistic pragmatics for his pioneering works on

humor Humour (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English) or humor (American English) is the tendency of experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement. The term derives from the humorism, humoral medicine of the ancient Gre ...

and narrative in conversational interaction. He came to Saarbrücken from Northern Illinois University, where he was professor for linguistics and director of graduate studies in the Department of English. He has taught English linguistics at the Universities of Würzburg,

Kassel Kassel (; in Germany, spelled Cassel until 1926) is a city on the Fulda River in northern Hesse, Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Regierungsbezirk Kassel and the district of the same name and had 201,048 inhabitants in December 2020 ...

, Hamburg, Braunschweig and

Regensburg Regensburg or is a city in eastern Bavaria, at the confluence of the Danube, Naab and Regen rivers. It is capital of the Upper Palatinate subregion of the state in the south of Germany. With more than 150,000 inhabitants, Regensburg is the f ...

, where he received his doctorate in general linguistics in 1978. His research specializations in linguistics include conversational narrative, verbal humor, and

tellability Tellability is quality for which a story is told and examined as remarkable with its constructed merit. Ochs and Capps examine tellability as the reason a narrative is told. Namely speakers can transform any instance into a meaningful narrative, ...

. He authored the first monograph dedicated to humor in conversation. In recent years, Norrick has focused his research on spoken language, with particular interests in the role of the listener in conversational interaction. He continues to publish in the areas of pragmatics and narrative. Norrick acted as co-editor in chief of the '' Journal of Pragmatics'', and serves on the consultation board of the International Pragmatics Association (IPrA). He is on the editorial boards of the journals '' Text & Talk'', '' Humor: International Journal of Humor Research'', ''

International Review of Pragmatics The ''International Review of Pragmatics'' is a biannual peer-reviewed academic journal covering research in pragmatics and related disciplines. It was established in 2009 and is published by Brill Publishers. The editor-in-chief is Piotr Cap ( ...

'', ''

Discourse Processes ''Discourse Processes'' is a bimonthly peer-reviewed multidisciplinary academic journal covering the study of discourse from the perspective of sociology, psychology, and other disciplines. It was founded in 1977, with Roy Freedle as the founding e ...

'', ''

Lodz Papers in Pragmatics ''Lodz Papers in Pragmatics'' is a Polish linguistics journal owned by the University of Łódź and was previously published by Versita Open. The journal was launched in 2012. The founder is Piotr Cap. It is published biannually by De Gruyter. ...

'' and ''Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict''.

References

External links

Conversational narrative
{{DEFAULTSORT:Norrick, Neal R. Academic staff of Saarland University Living people Linguists from Germany Academic staff of the Technical University of Braunschweig Year of birth missing (living people) Academic journal editors