I am a professor of English as a second/foreign language, and currently work as the Vice Dean for Research at the Faculty of Education in Hamar/Lillehammer. This is part of Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences (formerly Hedmark University of Applied Sciences).

My research interests are metaphor and learner language, with a focus on Norwegian L2 English, as well as L2 Norwegian. 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 Metaphor Identification Procedure (MIPVU). I was also responsible for collecting the Norwegian version of the LINDSEI corpus (spoken learner English). The interviews and transcriptions are now completed and have been sent to Louvain to be included in the second edition of LINSEI. I have carried out some preliminary research on the data on communication strategies, prepositions, and phrasal verbs. I am currently involved in compiling the TraWL corpus (Tracking Written Learner Language), a longitudinal corpus of English texts written by Norwegian pupils aged 10 – 19. I also research metaphors written by L2 learners of Norwegian, from texts collected in the Norwegian Second Language Corpus.

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. In addition, I research metaphor in other types of discourse, such as career guidance videos, American church marquees, the New Year’s Eve speeches of the Norwegian king and Danish queen, translation from Norwegian to English, etc. 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 volume entitled “Metaphor identification in multiple languages: MIPVU around the world” (accepted for publication at John Benjamins).

I am the review editor of the scientific journal “Metaphor and the Social World“, published by John Benjamins.

My work is registered in the Current Research Information System in Norway (Cristin): here.