At the interface between interdisciplinary media research on the one hand and cultural studies on the other, the team at the Chair of German Studies/Applied Linguistics investigates how various medial forms of the German language are used in conjunction with other sign systems to produce communicative everyday practices in private, institutional, organizational and public contexts of the present day. The investigation of current problems and objects within this framework is located on a more context-specific level than basic research in anthropology, sign/media and language theory, but benefits from an exchange with the latter, particularly in the methodological and methodological field.

In addition to face-to-face conversations and written text-mediated communication, the professorship also deals with staged audiovisuality (e.g. on television or YouTube) and, more recently, with the integration of language-processing digital media (e.g. smart speakers) into everyday social interaction and practice. A further current interest is in the media-based communicative processes that have become popular in contemporary society and the practical responses that are being found to the associated changing understanding of participation in institutional contexts.

The theoretical and methodological foundations include a theory of practice based on Wittgenstein's concept of language games, ethnographically extended linguistic conversation research and German text linguistics based on communication theory. Insofar as a culturally sensitive shaping of communicative relationships (e.g. in organizations) presupposes the analysis of the existing, knowledge-oriented and application-relevant research in this area of science are not in opposition, but stimulate each other.