Dr. Isabelle van der Bom
My research interests include discourse analysis, stylistics (including cognitive poetics), digital fiction, politeness theory and language and gender studies.
Curriculum vitae
I hold a Bachelor’s Degree in liberal arts from University College Roosevelt in the Netherlands and a Master’s Degree (distinction) in Literary Linguistics from the University of Nottingham (UK). I obtained my PhD in English Language and Linguistics in 2015 from the University of Sheffield (UK). My PhD thesis offered a cognitive discursive approach to the study of linguistic identity and focused on how settled Chinese migrants and British-born Chinese people construct their identities linguistically. I analysed interview data using a combination of methods from sociolinguistics and stylistics, with special emphasis on the cognitive discourse framework, Text World Theory. I argued that Text World Theory is well-suited to the analysis of oral discourse because it is able to manage the complexity and multi-layeredness of identity.
Publications
van der Bom, I., & Pfundt, J. (2021). Student and Teacher Perceptions of Teaching and Learning in Times of Covid. International Journal of TESOL Studies, 3(1), 197-216. https://doi.org/10.46451/ijts.2021.03.06
van der Bom, I., & Paterson, L. L. (2021). Postscript: Reflections on establishing the Journal of Language and Discrimination, Journal of Language and Discrimination, 5(2).
van der Bom, I., Skains, L., Bell, A., & Ensslin, A. (2021). Reading hyperlinks in hypertext Fiction: an empirical approach. In A. Bell, S. Browse, A. Gibbons & D. Peplow (Eds.), Style and response: Minds, media, methods (pp. 123–141). John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/lal.36.07van
van der Bom, I., & Paterson, L. L. (2020). Revisiting the welfare state through the decades: Investigating the discursive construction of the welfare state in the Times from 1940 to 2009. In. E. M. Gómez-Jiménez & M. Toolan (Eds.), The discursive construction of economic inequality: CADS approaches to the British media (pp. 49-67). Bloomsbury. http://dx.doi.org/10.5040/9781350111318.0012
Bell, A., Ensslin, A., van der Bom, I., & Smith, J. (2019). A reader response method not just for ‘you’. Language and Literature, 28(3), 241-262. http://doi.org/10.1177/0963947019859954
Ensslin, A., Bell, A., Smith, J., van der Bom, I., & Skains, L. (2019). Immersion, digital fiction, and the switchboard metaphor. Participations, 16(1), 320-342. http://www.participations.org/Volume%2016/Issue%201/16.pdf
Bell, A., Ensslin, A., van der Bom, I., & Smith, J. (2018). Immersion in digital fiction. International Journal of Literary Linguistics, 7(1), 1-22. http://doi.org/10.15462/ijll.v7i1.105
van der Bom, I., Paterson, L. L., Peplow, D., & Grainger, K. (2018). “It’s not the fact they claim benefits but their useless, lazy, drug taking lifestyles we despise”: Analysing audience responses to Benefits Street using live tweets. Discourse, Context & Media, 21, 36-45. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcm.2017.11.003
Turner, G., Mills, S., van der Bom, I., Coffey-Glover, L. Paterson, L. L., & Jones, L. (2018). Opposition as victimhood in newspaper debates about same-sex marriage, Discourse & Society. 29(2), 180-197. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926517734422
van der Bom, I. (2018) Constructing and deconstructing the 2017 Catalan secession crisis. In J. Schmied & I. van der Bom (Eds.), Working with media texts: Deconstructing and constructing crises in Europe (pp. 165-196). Cuvillier Verlag.
van der Bom, I. (2016) Speaker enactors in oral narrative. In J. Gavins, & E. Lahey (Eds.), World building: Discourse in the mind. (pp. 91–108). Bloomsbury. http://dx.doi.org/10.5040/9781474295444.ch-006
van der Bom, I. (2015). Text World Theory and stories of self: A cognitive discursive approach to identity [Doctoral dissertation, University of Sheffield]. White Rose eTheses Online. https://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/10110/
van der Bom, I. & Mills, S. (2015) A discursive approach to the analysis of politeness data, Journal of Politeness Research 11(2), 179–206. https://doi.org/10.1515/pr-2015-0008
van der Bom, I. & Grainger, K. (2015) Journal of Politeness Research: Introduction, Journal of Politeness Research 11(2), 165–78.
van der Bom, I., Coffey-Glover, L. Jones, L., Mills, S., & Paterson, L. (2015) Implicit homophobic argument structure: Equal-marriage discourse in the Moral Maze, Journal of Language and Sexuality 4(1), 102-37. https://doi.org/10.1075/jls.4.1.04mil
Conference presentations and guest lectures
2023
“It's been a while since a book filled me with unbridled rage”: Narrativity and Embodied Cognition in My Year of Rest and Relaxation, English and Digital Linguistics Conference (EDL4). Chemnitz University of Technology, Germany. July 20.
2018
A Cognitive, Empirical Approach to Hyperlinks in Digital Fiction, Annual Conference of the Poetics and Linguistics Association (PALA). University of Birmingham, UK (collaborative project with Alice Bell, Astrid Ensslin & Lyle Skains). July 26.
2017
‘‘#NowWatching the News Series of #BenefitsStreet”: Using a Mixed Methods Approach to Analyse Immediate Audience Response on Twitter’. Corpus Linguistics & Digital Humanities Conference. Chemnitz University of Technology, Germany (collaborative project with Laura Paterson, David Peplow & Karen Grainger). 14 July.
‘Connecting communities through Digital Fiction: “Reciprocal impact”’. LitCom 1: A Conference on Literature and Communities, Connected Communities programme (AHRC, University of East Anglia); Norwich Writers’ Centre, UK (collaborative project with Alice Bell, Astrid Ensslin & Lyle Skains). 3 March.
2016
‘This is the only interpretation that saves you from being a psychopath’. Style and Response: Minds, Media, Methods Conference. Sheffield Hallam University, UK (collaborative project with Alice Bell, Astrid Ensslin & Lyle Skains). 11 November.
2014
‘Exploring the boundaries of self and stylistics in the discourse of a British-Chinese woman’. Annual Conference of the Poetics and Linguistics Association (PALA), University of Maribor, Slovenia. July.
Teaching
WS2023/2024
English for Academic Purposes (M_AA__1)
English for Academic Purposes (M_AA__3)
Multimedia Skills for Conferences, Meetings and Business Presentations (M_AA__3)
Thesis Consultation (M_AA__4)
SS2023
Online Publishing (M_AA__2)
Thesis Consultation (M_AA__4)
WS2022/2023
English for Academic Purposes (M_AA__3)
Multimedia Skills for Conferences, Meetings and Business Presentations (M_AA__3)
SS2022
Online Publishing (M_AA__2)
Thesis Consultation (M_AA__4)
WS2021/2022
English for Academic Purposes (M_AA__3)
Multimedia Skills for Conferences, Meetings and Business Presentations (M_AA__3)
SS2021
Online Publishing (M_AA__2)
Thesis Consultation (M_AA__4)
WS2020/2021 [Elternzeit]
English for Academic Purposes (M_AA__3)
SS 2020 [Elternzeit]
Online Publishing (M_AA__2)
WS 2019/2020 [Elternzeit]
English for Academic Purposes (M_AA__3)
SS 2019 [Elternzeit]
WS 2018/19
Reading (B_AA__4)
English for Academic Purposes (M_AA__3)
Multimedia Skills for Conferences, Meetings and Business Presentations (M_AA__3)
SS 2018
Online Publishing (M_AA__2)
Thesis Consultation (M_AA__4)
SS 2017
Semantics (B_AA__2)
I’ve taught the following courses at the University of Sheffield, Sheffield Hallam University and Nottingham University in the past (2011-2016):
- Multicultural & Intercultural Communication;
- Language in Use;
- Discourse & Society;
- Studying English;
- The History of Persuasion;
- Language & Literature;
- Creative Language Awareness;
- Describing Language;
- Introduction to Linguistics;
- Politeness;
- Practical Stylistics;
- Semantics;
- Sociolinguistics;
- Understanding Meaning
- Dutch conversation skills