Reading Time: 3 minutes read
I am a professor of English as a second/foreign language (an American ex-pat), and currently work as the Vice Dean for Research at the Faculty of Education in Hamar/Lillehammer at University of Inland Norway (INN). I have worked in teacher education since 2001 and am a member of INN’s research group ‘English Language in Use‘ (ELiU).
My main research interests are metaphor and learner language, with a focus on Norwegian L2 English. I published a monograph entitled Metaphors in Learner English in 2013, dealing with metaphors produced in the written English of Norwegian students, as well as methodological issues concerning the identification of metaphor in texts. I was also responsible for collecting the Norwegian version of the LINDSEI corpus of spoken learner English, and was also involved in compiling the TraWL corpus (Tracking Written Learner Language), a longitudinal corpus of English texts written by Norwegian pupils aged 10 – 19. In addition, I have conducted research in areas such as communication strategies of language learners, prepositions, and phrasal verbs in learner language, and Norwegian as a second language.
I also research metaphors in discourses beyond the second language context. I am also interested in the ‘language of betrayal’, metaphors produced by survivors of relationship abuse when they discuss their experiences in an online discussion forum. I have also investigated metaphor production in career guidance videos, American church marquees, the New Year’s Eve speeches of the Norwegian king and Danish queen, doctoral dissertation acknowledgements, the use of the Norwegian term ‘dugnad’ as a metaphor during the pandemic, etc. Metaphor is all around us!
Further, methodological issues connected to metaphor research are a concern of mine, especially (linguistic) metaphor identification and valid statistical analysis. Together with A.G. Dorst, T. Krennmayr, and W.G. Reijnierse, I edited a 2019 volume entitled Metaphor identification in multiple languages: MIPVU around the world.
I am an editor the scientific journal Metaphor and the Social World, along with A.G. Dorst and D. Tay . I am also an associate editor of Metaphor and Symbol, where H.L. Colston is the editor-in-chief. I am also a member of the editorial board of the Nordic Journal of English Studies. I currently also serve on the board of the Learner Corpus Association as conference officer.
My work is registered in the Current Research Information System in Norway (Cristin): here.
You can send email to susan.nacey@inn.no.
ORCID ID 0000-0003-2705-7392