Professor Dr Bernd Heine FBA

Linguistics and African Studies

Elected 1996

Fellow type
International Fellow
Year elected
1996

Bernd Heine is Emeritus Professor at the Institute of African Studies (Institut für Afrikanistik und Ägyptologie), of the University of Cologne, Germany. His main interest is in understanding language structure and language usage in all their manifestations. While being concerned primarily with the 2000-odd African languages, he has also published books and papers dealing with languages across the world. A major theme in his work is how languages change. To this end, he has contributed to grammaticalisation theory and he has also worked on the origin and evolution of human languages. More recently, his research shifted to the study of conversations and texts, proposing a new analytic framework called discourse grammar.

He has held visiting professorships in Europe, North America, South America, Australia, Africa, and Eastern Asia (Japan, South Korea, China). And he has been a Fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford, USA (1999-2000), the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study (NIAS), Wassenaar (2005-2006), and Tokyo University of Foreign Studies (2008-2009).

Current post

Professor Emeritus, University of Cologne

Past appointments

University of Cape Town Visiting Professor

2015 - 2015

Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, China Yunshan Chair Professor

2014 - 2016

Chonnam National University, Gwangju, South Korea Visiting Professor

2009 - 2011

Tokyo University of Foreign Studies Visiting Professor and Fellow

2008 - 2009

École des Hautes Études (CRLAO), Paris Visiting Professor

2007 - 2007

Federal University, Rio de Janeiro Visiting Professor

2007 - 2007

University of Hamburg Visiting Professor

2006 - 2006

University of Graz Visiting Professor

2005 - 2005

Dartmouth College, New Hampshire Visiting Professor

2002 - 2002

LaTrobe University, Melbourne Visiting Professor

1994 - 1995

University of Cologne Professor

1978 - 2004

University of Nairobi Visiting Professor

1975 - 1978

Publications

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