Research profile

How do language and discourse shape knowledge, culture, and social realities?

Drawing on critical discourse analysis, cognitive linguistics, and work at the semantics–pragmatics interface, I study historical and contemporary corpora to show how language—across media, medicine, education, and science—frames reality, encodes hierarchies, and normalizes or contests social difference. While my primary empirical focus may vary, the theoretical and methodological frameworks I employ are inherently translinguistic, allowing for broader insights into language as a social practice.

More specifically, I examine how language shapes knowledge, professional competence, and social inequality across these domains, working with both historical and contemporary data. A central strand of this work analyzes conceptual frames and metaphors as mechanisms through which evaluative stances, authority claims, and social classifications are naturalized in discourse.

Drawing on traditions of ideology critique and scholarship on language and inequality, I investigate how discourse encodes, normalizes, or challenges hierarchies. These hierarchies include those related to racism in institutions, classism, colonial legacies, gendered differentiation and biomedical value systems.

Extending this work into applied contexts, my application‑oriented research focuses on domain‑specific language use and leverages the Digital Humanities, Natural Language Processing‑driven automation, and user‑centered tool design. I integrate qualitative discourse analysis with corpus‑based and computer‑assisted methods.

Methodologically, I combine qualitative discourse analysis with corpus‑based and computer‑assisted approaches.

Latest Projects

Critical Discourse Analysis and Corpus Linguistics

  • Ph.D. Thesis: Race Hygiene and Eugenics in Germany Around 1900 (Technische Universität Darmstadt)
  • Master Thesis: A corpus-based study of the "Arab Spring" in Germany’s public media discourse (Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg).

Digital Humanities and Natural Language Processing:

  • Automatic Metaphor Detection and Clustering in Contemporary and Historical Texts (Technische Universität Darmstadt)
  • Automatic Classification of Medical Multiple-Choice Questions (Institut für medizinische und pharmazeutische Prüfungsfragen (IMPP))
  • Medical Ontologies and Knowledge Bases for High-Stakes Assessments (Institut für medizinische und pharmazeutische Prüfungsfragen (IMPP))
  • Development of Assistance Tools for Medical Assessments (Institut für medizinische und pharmazeutische Prüfungsfragen (IMPP))

Publications

Publications
In prep.

Núñez, A. Sprachliche Wissenskonstitution im rassenhygienischen Diskursausschnitt um 1900. Eine diskurslinguistische Analyse ausgewählter Publikationen des Preisausschreibens ‹Natur und Staat: Beiträge zur naturwissenschaftlichen Gesellschaftslehre›. 
2025

Sessler, M.-L. & Núñez, A. (2025). Mindful Leadership in der IT. Online Edition [peer-reviewed].
2023

Reich, J. & Núñez, A. (2023). «We drummed it into them so they can go whistle for it!» – Non-vocal forms of communication in Oto-Manguean languages, Pirahã and Bora. In H.-W. Heister et al. (Hrsg.), Word Art + Gesture Art = Tone Art (S. 243-255). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20109-7_15
2021

Núñez, A. (2021). Der Arabische Frühling – eine (westliche) Revolution? Lexemindizierte Wissenskonstitution in Printmedienkommentaren (2010–2011). Zeitschrift für Diskursforschung, 1, 40–63. https://doi.org/10.3262/ZFD2001040 [peer-reviewed].
2020

Adler, M. et al. (inkl. Núñez, A.) (2020). Digitale Philologie: Das Darmstädter Modell (Working Papers 1). TU Darmstadt. https://doi.org/10.25534/tuprints-00012476
2020

Núñez, A., Lindner, M., Hinding, B., Schlasius-Ratter, U., Schillings, V. & Jünger, J. (2020). imppACT – Wege zur automatischen Klassierung medizinischer Prüfungsfragen (GMA-Proceedings). Zürich. https://doi.org/10.3205/20gma024 [peer-reviewed].
2018

Núñez, A., Gerloff, M., Do Dinh, E.-L., Rapp, A., Gehring, P. & Gurevych, I. (2018). A “Wind of Change” – shaping public opinion of the Arab Spring using metaphors. Digital Scholarship in the Humanities. https://doi.org/10.1093/llc/fqy058 [peer-reviewed].
2018

Núñez, A., Hinding, B. & Jünger, J. (2018). Gut kommunizieren? Es lohnt sich! In J. Jünger (Hrsg.), Ärztliche Kommunikation (S. 41-50). Schattauer.
2016

Do Dinh, E.-L., Gerloff, M. & Núñez, A. (2016). Metaphern digital – auf dem Weg von der Annotation zur automatischen Detektion. DHd 2016 Abstracts (S. 297-300). [Online-Edition] [peer-reviewed].
2014

Núñez, A. (2014). Wenn das ‹Embodiment› politisch wird: Das Image-Schema PATH und seine Realisierung im Mediendiskurs zum «Arabischen Frühling». In F. Polzenhagen et al. (Hrsg.), Cognitive Explorations into Metaphor and Metonymy (S. 149-164). Peter Lang.
Science Communication
2024

Núñez, A., Ayan, E. & Jacobs, H. (2024, June 19). Interview with Glen Layne-Worthey. [Podcast episode].  CoreDH (Episode 6). Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations. [Link zur Episode]. 

2023 Núñez, A., Ayan, E. & Jacobs, H. (2023). Interview with Dr. Nadezhda Povroznik. [Podcast episode].  CoreDH (Episode 5). Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations. [Link zur Episode].

Teaching

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Autumn 2025 Lecturer University of Bern – Institute of General Linguistics BA Seminar “Semantics/Pragmatics” (2 SWS)
Mar 2025–present Lecturer Hochschule Worms – Computer Science MA Vorlesung “Wissenschaftliches Arbeiten“ (4 SWS) (Applied Computer Science & Business Informatics)
2008–2011 Tutor Ruprecht-Karls- Universität Heidelberg – German Linguistics BA tutorial “Introduction to Linguistics” (2 SWS)

CV

Education
Year(s) Degree Institution
Autumn 2025 PhD in German Linguistics Technische Universität Darmstadt
2006–2012 Magistra Artium (German Studies & European Art History) ≈ MA Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg
2007–2008 Visiting Study: European Art History Università degli Studi di Siena
2003–2006 German Studies & Aesthetics/Art History ≈ BA Universität Kassel
Academic and Professional Employment
Year(s) Role Institution
08/2024–present Project Lead “FH‑Personal” Hochschule Worms
01/2023–03/2024 Doctoral Researcher (completion phase) Technische Universität Darmstadt
03/2022–01/2023 Scientific Coordinator (Department: Psychotherapy) Institut für medizinische und pharmazeutische Prüfungsfragen (IMPP), Mainz
05/2019–03/2022 Linguist (Department: IT & Assessment) Institut für medizinische und pharmazeutische Prüfungsfragen (IMPP), Mainz 
10/2017–01/2019 Research Associate (R&D) Institut für Kommunikations- und Prüfungsforschung (gGmbH), Heidelberg
12/2014–09/2017 Doctoral Fellow, Digital Humanities (KDSL) Technische Universität Darmstadt
12/2013–11/2014 Research Assistant Universitätsklinikum Heidelberg – Kompetenzzentrum für Prüfungen in der Medizin, Baden-Württemberg
2004–2012 Student Research Roles Univ. Heidelberg; Univ. Kassel