Martha Sif Karrebæk

Current research

In 2019 I start a new project on interpreting, financed by the Danish Independent Research Council, with my colleagues Marta Kirilova and Paulina Bala. 

My last project was on mother tongue education, also financed by the Danish Independent Research Council. We looked at what really transpired in the classrooms, and we investigated what mother tongue education meant to the participants. 

I also continue to work with food (and language), in particular Bornholmian and Danish food, and the linguistic aspects of the invention of food culture, food practices and food understandings in commercial settings. 

Primary fields of research

I look at language, linguistic diversity and social meaning primarily from a linguistic ethnographic perspective. 

The areas I have published on include:

• Language, play and language acquisition (Danish as a second language) in kindergarten (Karrebæk 2011a, b)
• Popular culture in school (Madsen & Karrebæk 2015; Karrebæk 2013; Karrebæk & Madsen 2015)
• Mother tongue education (Karrebæk & Ghandchi 2015, 2017a; Karrebæk & Nergiz 2019) 
• Language socialization (Karrebæk 2011, 2013, 2019)
• (In)Security and securitization (Karrebæk and Ghandchi 2017; Karrebæk & Charalambous 2018)
• Food & language (Karrebæk 2012, 2013a, b, 2014, 2019; Karrebæk & Maegaard 2017; Maegaard & Karrebæk forthc.)
• Language norms and polycentricity (Karrebæk 2013, 2016; Karrebæk et al, 2016)
• Languaging (Jørgensen, Karrebæk, Madsen & Møller 2011; Karrebæk 2016)
• Language and authenticity (Karrebæk & Maegaard 2017, Maegaard & Karrebæk forthc.; Karrebæk, Stæhr, Varis 2015)
• Transscription as practice (Karrebæk 2012)
• Linguistic ethnography (Karrebæk 2013; Madsen & Karrebæk 2015, Karrebæk & Madsen 2015; Arnaut, Karrebæk, Spotti 2016; Karrebæk & Charalambous 2017)

Short presentation

Supervision

linguistic ethnography / anthropology, language usage, discourse analysis, language ideology, language and diversity, multilingualism, linguistic socialisation, language and play, food and language, mother tongue education, interpreting, languaging, language and schools, urbanity, standardization, linguistic norms, children and language, language acquisition, authenticity, (in)security

CV

Education

2009 PhD in childrens' language, linguistic socialisation and danish as second language
2001 MA in linguistics, University of Copenhagen

Employments

2012-
Associate Professor, Department of Nordic Studies and Linguistics, University of Copenhagen. Leader of a project on mother tongue education, financed by the Danish Council for Independent Research, and a member of the research group Copenhagen Studies in Everyday Languaging which investigates language and linguistic development among a linguistically and ethnically mixed group of school children.

2012-2013
Temporary Associate Professor, Department of Nordic Studies and Linguistics, University of Copenhagen.

2009-2012
Postdoc, The Faculty of Humanities, University of Copenhagen. Funded by the Danish Council for Independent Research. Linguistic Ethnographic project investigating the linguistic and social processes among a class of linguistically and ethnically diverse school beginners.

2009
Part-time Lecturer, Department of Nordic Studies and Linguistics, University of Copenhagen. Teaching in the BA Study Programme in Danish

2004-2008
PhD fellow, Department of Nordic Studies and Linguistics, University of Copenhagen. Project investigating language acquisition (Danish) and language socialization in peer play for a linguistic minority kindergartner (Somali background).

2002-2003, Dec.-Jan
Academic Project Officer for the Danish Ministry of Education. Writing summaries of research literature on acquisition of Danish.

2002, Oct.
Temporary Teacher of Danish as second language for adults, Hillerød Internationale Ungdomsskole

2002-2004
Part-time Lecturer; Department of Nordic Philology, University of Copenhagen

2000-2001
Secretary of the research network Ikonicitet og Struktur, Funktionel Grammatik-kredsen (Iconicity and Structure, The Circle of Functional Grammar)

1997-2001
Student Assistant, Denmark’s National lexicon A/S

Stays abroad

• 2006-2013 Visits at University of Pennsylvania, King’s College London, Linköping University
• 2000 Research Assistant, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand
• 1998 Exchange Student, Oslo Universitet, Norway

Administrative experience 

• 2019-2022 PI on the project INTERPRETING
• 2012-2016 PI on the project Mother tongue education in the super-diverse metropolis of Copenhagen
• 2009-2012 co-managing of the research group Copenhagen Studies in Everyday Languaging
• 2007 Vice Chairman of University of Copenhagen’s board of research training (KUFUR)
• 2007 Member of the PhD Board of Studies, The Faculty of Humanities, University of Copenhagen

Prizes and grants

• Danish Foundation of Independent Research thematic grant; 2019
• Carlsberg's travel abroad grant; 2017
• Danish Board of Independent Research’s grant Sapere Aude Research Leader; 2012
• Einar Hansen’s Research Foundation’s prize for excellent research in the humanities; 2012
• Danish Board of Independent Research’s prize UngElite Forsker (YounElite Researcher); 2010
• Personal Postdoc grant, Danish Board of Independent Research; 2009-12

Smaller grants from consul George Jorck and wife Emma Jorck’s Foundation, Svend Grundtvig and Axel Olrik’s Scholarship, High Court Judge Giese’s Scholarship, Viggo Brøndal and wife’s Scholarship, E. Lerager Larsen’s Foundation, Wimmer’s Scholarship, UBVA-Scholarship, Einar Hansen’s Research Foundation.

Knowledge of languages

Danish: mother tongue
English: fluent (verbally and in writing)
French: competencies in speaking, reading and understanding
Spanish: skills in writing and speaking
Swedish and Norwegian: understanding without dificulties
Thai, Turkish, Arabic, Farsi, Greenlandic and German: insight