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About UsÓscar Loureda

Professor of Ibero-American Linguistics, Communication, and Translation Studies

Affiliation: Heidelberg Center for Ibero-American Studies - HCIAS
Co-operation: Faculty of Modern Languages

Tel.: +49 (0)6221 54-19335
Email: oscar.loureda(at)uni-heidelberg.de

Dr. Óscar Loureda is a Professor of Ibero-American Linguistics, Communication, and Translation Studies at the Heidelberg Center for Ibero-American Studies (HCIAS). His research focus in the broader domain of Spanish linguistics is on communication and discourse. In addition to international research projects in the field of experimental pragmatics, he has also conducted research on semantics, phraseology, and textual grammar, as well as the social aspects of Spanish, in particular regarding Spanish as a migrant, heritage, and foreign language. In all of these fields, he has supervised dissertation projects.

Prof. Dr. Loureda

Óscar Loureda was a fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and has been a professor at Heidelberg University since 2008, first at the Institute for Translation and Interpreting until 2020 and at the HCIAS thereafter. Since 2016, he has also been a visiting professor at the University of Granada in Spain. In 2017, the Universidad del Pacífico de Lima awarded him an honorary professorship. At Heidelberg University, he has led the establishment of degree programs such as the Bachelor-Plus program in Spanish Translation Studies (since 2010) and the double-degree master’s program in Specialized Translation and Cultural Mediation (since 2018, in cooperation with the University of Salamanca, Spain). Since 2015, Óscar Loureda has been a member of the selection committee for the Princess of Asturias Award. He is a member of the Círculo Cívico de Opinión, a Spanish panel of experts for political council. From 2011 to 2015, Óscar Loureda was vice-chairman and, from 2015 to 2019, president of the German Hispanic Association. From 2010 to 2013, he was executive director of the Institute for Translation and Interpreting. Óscar Loureda has been Director of the Center for Galician Studies at Heidelberg University since 2012 as well as Deputy Director of the HCIAS since 2019.

From 2013 to 2019, Óscar Loureda was Vice-Rector for Quality Development at Heidelberg University, and since 2018, he has been a member of the Accreditation Council Foundation within the group of representative university professors. As a consultant in quality assurance programs, he has been a member of international advisory boards in both Spain (ANECA) and Chile (CNA) as well as a consultant for several universities across Latinamerica.

At Heidelberg University, he has led the establishment of international degree programs such as the Bachelor-Plus program in Spanish Translation Studies (since 2010) and the DAAD-funded double-degree master’s programs in Specialized Translation and Cultural Mediation (since 2018, in cooperation with the University of Salamanca, Spain) and in Specialized Translation and Translation Technologies (since 2022, in cooperation with the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile).

Research in Progress

  • Communication and Cognition: This research project investigates, from an experimental pragmatics perspective, how discourse particles as process-controlling items interact with contextual factors to condition the interpretation of utterances. The project was expanded to include the analysis of further processes implicated in the construction of discourse, such as phenomena related to the connectedness of discourse (CONICYT Project) or discourse relations in various textual modalities, specifically in multimodal texts.
  • Public discourse on the pandemic in Latin America. Awareness, understanding, and social attitudes – A case study on Argentina: The goal of this cooperative project is to analyze the socio-communicative dynamics of discourse on the COVID-19 pandemic in educational contexts in Argentina. In order to understand the discursive construction of social representations, both, the discourses on education produced by the media as well as the discourses of the educational institutions themselves and their political representatives are being studies.
  • El español en Europa: This project deals with the demography of Spanish-speaking communities in Europe. It focuses on the social, cultural, and educational spaces that Spanish speakers (native speakers, speakers with non-native competence, and foreign language learners) are inhabiting and creating across Europe. Project Leads: Prof. Dr. Francisco Moreno-Fernández, Prof. Dr. Óscar Loureda, Prof. Dr. Johannes Kabatek (University of Zurich).
  • Pragmatics and Sociolinguistics of Galician (new): The focus of the project at the Centro de Estudos Galegos (CEG) lies in the analysis of discourse in specific communication contexts and the study of pragmatic or sociolinguistic phenomena that arise as a result of contact between languages.
  • PCG - Interacting Actors in Polycentric Climate Governance: Supported by the Heidelberg Center for the Environment. The goal of this project is to understand how transnational forums established in recent years to address climate change affect the discussion, selection, and convergence of climate change policies. To achieve this, we will examine the policy preferences and perceptions of different groups of actors (bureaucrats, civil society actors, and business actors) in Argentina, Chile, and Mexico, determine the impact of cross-level learning on policy convergence, and examine the representation of included and excluded actors.

Supervision of Doctoral Dissertation Projects

  • Charlotte Blattner, The dynamics of Spanish as a language of migration and as a heritage language in Germany: a sociolinguistic study, Heidelberg University.
  • (with Mercedes Quilis Merín) Spanish as a Heritage Language in Germany: Analysis and Characterization, Heidelberg University and University of Valencia.
  • Martha Rudka, Informationsstruktur und experimentelle Pragmatik: Verarbeitungsmuster bei der Fokussierung mit Diskurspartikeln im Deutschen, Heidelberg University.
  • David Scheffler, Evolución demolingüística del español como lengua extranjera y la política lingüística en el marco del proyecto de democracia transnacional, Heidelberg University.
  • Vanesa Rodríguez Tembrás, Code-switching in bilingual medical consultations (Spanish-Galician), Heidelberg University.
  • Sarah Thome, Diskursmarker im CLIL-Kontext, Heidelberg University.
  • Diego Luis Guillén Jiménez, Procesamiento de la contraargumentación enunciados complejos: el rol de ‘a pesar de ello’, Heidelberg University. (completed)
  • Carlos Cuello, Correlatos psicolingüísticos de la gramaticalización de marcadores del discurso: análisis de un subparadigma consecutivo mediante eye-tracking, Heidelberg University. (completed)
  • Lourdes Torres Santos, The scalar focus operator hasta: an experimental study on processing costs in Spanish, Heidelberg University. (completed)
  • Adriana Cruz, Processing Patterns of Focusing: An Experimental Study on Pragmatic Scales Triggered by the Spanish Focus Operators incluso, Heidelberg University. (completed)
  • Inés Recio Fernández, The Impact of Procedural Meaning on Second Language Processing: A Study on Connectives, Heidelberg University. (completed)
  • Elisa Narváez García, Causality and its processing paths: an experimental study of the Spanish por tanto, Heidelberg University. (completed)
  • (with Salvador Pons) Shima Salameh Jiménez, Reformulation and neighboring categories: a theoretical-experimental approach to the Sp. discourse marker o sea, Heidelberg University/Universidad de Valencia (Spain). (completed)
  • Héctor Álvarez Mella, Die Übersetzungsbranche im kulturellen und ökonomischen Austausch zwischen Deutschland und Spanien: eine Studie zur Übersetzung in das Spanische und aus dem Spanischen in Deutschland, Heidelberg University. (completed)
  • Laura Nadal, Lingüística experimental y contraargumentación: Un estudio sobre el conector sin embargo del español, Heidelberg University. (completed)

Recent Publications

Table

Óscar Loureda, Inés Recio, Adriana Cruz & Martha A. Rudka: (in print) "Principles of discourse marking: An experimental approach of general and contrastive perspectives", in Maria-Josep Cuenca & Liesbeth Degand (eds.): Discourse Markers in Interaction: From Production to Comprehension.

Loureda, Ó.; Recio Fernández, I.; Sanders, T. (in print) (2021): "Los estudios experimentales alrededor del discurso" in Carmen López Ferrero et al. (Ed.): Handbook of Spanish Language Discourse Studies. London: Routledge.

Contact

Prof. Dr. Óscar Loureda

Heidelberg Center for Ibero-American Studies | HCIAS
Brunnengasse 1, 69117 Heidelberg

Tel: +49 (0)6221 - 54 19335
Email: oscar.loureda(at)uni-heidelberg.de

Visiting address:
Brunnengasse 1, 69117 Heidelberg
Room 004 (3012.00.004)

Office Hours

IÜD: Mo. 4:00pm - 5:00pm, Room 016
HCIAS: Fri. 9:00am - 10:00am
(only with prior registration at sprechstunde.loureda(at)iued.uni-heidelberg.de)