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Staff Profile

Dr Milene Oliveira

Lecturer in Applied Linguistics

Background

I am from Ouro Preto, a beautiful town in southeastern Brazil. I hold a BA in English Language from the Federal University of Ouro Preto and an MA in Applied Linguistics from the Federal University of Minas Gerais.

I pursued my PhD studies at the University of Potsdam in Germany (2014–2018), where I also led the postdoctoral project “Digital Communities and Online Intercultural Competence” (2020–2024).


Qualifications:

2018-2025: Habilitation, Potsdam, Germany

2018: PhD in Applied Linguistics, Potsdam, Germany (scholarship from CAPES)

2011-2013: MA in Applied Linguistics, Belo Horizonte, Brazil (scholarship from CAPES)

2002-2006: BA in English Language, Ouro Preto/Mariana, Brazil

 

Academic Employment:

01/2025 onwards: Lecturer in Applied Linguistics, Newcastle University

03/2024-09/2024: Guest Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication, European University Viadrina Frankfurt Oder, Germany

02/2023-09/2023: Visiting Research Fellow, King’s College London, United Kingdom

11/2020-03/2024: Principal Investigator in the project “Digital Communities and Online Intercultural Competence” funded by the German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), Potsdam, Germany

01/2023-12/2024: Co-coordinator of the project “Multimodal coordination of The multimodal coordination of intercultural video-mediated interaction” funded by the German Exchange Service (DAAD) and the Brazilian Ministry of Education (CAPES), Potsdam, Germany

04/2014-12/2017: Adjunct lecturer, University of Potsdam, Germany


Esteem indicators:

2024: Awarded the Caroline von Humboldt Prize from the Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany

Research

My research interests include:

-Digital and intercultural practices, 

-Digital cultures and digital communities

-Social media communication

-English as a lingua franca, 

-Foreign language teaching and learning, 

-Business communication

 

Past research projects:

 

ReDICo: Researching Digital Interculturality Co-operatively (2020-2024)

ReDICo was a consortium funded by the German Ministry of Education and Research. The group’s work centered on the research and analysis of intercultural practices and discourses within digital spaces and investigated diverse topics such as intercultural competence in internet settings, digital Europeanism, and online neo-nationalism.

My ReDICo study focused on an intercultural game played via Zoom. I was interested in practices that foster learning and inclusion in newly formed groups. I have several publications out of this project.

 

Babbel study: Learners’ perceptions of a virtual-classroom system (2019-2020)

In 2019, I collaborated with the language learning company Babbel. I conducted a study on their virtual classroom solution for business professionals, "Babbel Intensive." Students from the University of Potsdam participated in data collection and analysis and profited from close interaction with Babbel. The results of this project were published in the Computer Assisted Language Learning Journal.

 

Business negotiations between Brazilians and Germans: conceptualization and practice (PhD project), 2014-2018

In my PhD, I investigated conceptualizations of ‘business negotiations’ by Brazilian and German business people. More specifically, I investigated how the Brazilian and German businesspeople I interviewed defined “success, conflict, and respect” in business negotiations. My analysis comprised different types of cognitive associations described in the fields of cognitive and cultural linguistics – for instance, metaphors, metonymies, and image schemas. Through fine-grained semantic and cultural-linguistic analyses of interview excerpts, I identified group-level preferred conceptualizations by the Brazilian and German groups of interviewees. My PhD dissertation was published in the De Gruyter series “Applications of Cognitive Linguistics” under the title “Business negotiations in ELF from a cultural linguistic perspective.”

Teaching

In Semester 2 2024-2025, I am the module leader for:


  • ALC8009: English in the World


I am also contributing to:


  • ALC8003: Research Portfolio
Publications

  • Articles

  • Authored Book

    • Oliveira M. Business negotiations in ELF from a cultural linguistic perspective. 2020.

  • Book Chapters

    • Oliveira M. Business Englishes. In: Kingsley Bolton, ed. The Wiley Encyclopedia of World Englishes. Wiley Blackwell, 2025. In Press.
    • Bartelheim J, Oliveira M. Assessing the Intercultural Game Megacities and its Learning Outcomes: A Transnational and Cosmopolitan Virtual Exchange Project?. In: F. Lenehan; R. Lietz, ed. Reimagining Digital Cosmopolitanism: Perspectives from a Postmigrant and Postdigital World. Transcript, 2025.
    • Oliveira M, Lietz R. Introduction: Language and Interculturality in the Digital World. In: Lietz R; Mendes de Oliveira M; Conti L; Lenehan F, ed. Language and interculturality in the digital world. Lausanne: Gesellschaft für Angewandte Linguistik e.V, 2024, pp.21-31.
    • Oliveira M, Tuccillo M. Intercultural learning as an interactional achievement in a digital space. In: Conti L; Lenehan F, ed. Lifewide learning in Postdigital societies: Shedding Light on Emerging Culturalities. Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag, 2024, pp.57-78.
    • Oliveira M, Conti L. Displaying and negotiating power through entitlement claims in newly-established online groups. In: Lietz R; Mendes de Oliveira M; Conti L; Lenehan F, ed. Language and interculturality in the digital world. Lausanne: Gesellschaft für Angewandte Linguistik e.V, 2024, pp.35-66.
    • Oliveira, M. Business English(es) in Brazilian-German email exchanges: A research-based consultancy project. In: A. Busch & K. Luttermann, ed. Professionskommunikation. Universitätsverlag Hildesheim, 2024.
    • Oliveira, M, Barbosa Fernandes, A. Multimodal positioning of (future) multilingual teachers of EFL. In: Ulrike Schröder; Jennifer Dailey-O’Cain; Elisabetta Adami, ed. Multimodal Communication in Intercultural Interactions. Routledge, 2023.
    • Oliveira M. Failure in Intercultural Communication. In: Adriana Mica; Mikołaj Pawlak; Anna Horolets and Paweł Kubicki, ed. Routledge International Handbook of Failure: Perspectives from Sociology and other Social Sciences. Routledge, 2023.
    • Schröder U, Oliveira M, Nascimento T. The ‘Olympic Spirit’ from a cross-cultural perspective: a cognitive-pragmatic analysis. In: U Schröder; M Oliveira; A Tenuta, ed. Metaphorical conceptualizations: (inter)cultural perspectives. 2022.
    • Schröder U, Oliveira M, Tenuta A. Introduction. In: U Schröder; M Oliveira; A Tenuta, ed. Metaphorical conceptualizations: (inter)cultural perspectives. 2022.
    • Oliveira, M, Wolf, H-G. Linguística cultural e comunicação intercultural: Uma síntese de discussões e pesquisas recentes na Universidade de Potsdam. In: U. Schröder; M. Carneiro Mendes, ed. Comunicação (inter)cultural em interação. Editora UFMG, 2019.

  • Reviews

    • Oliveira, M. John Gumperz's Discourse Strategies. Interculture Journal 2023, 38.
    • Oliveira M. Doing culture through contextualization cues: John Gumperz's contributions to the study of intercultural communication. 2023.