Didem Leblebici, M.A.

Office hours take place online. Please send me an e-mail for an appointment.

Research Interests:

• Language Ideology
• Human-Machine Interactions
• Conversational AI
• Multilingualism / Translanguaging
• Posthumanist Sociolinguistics
• Mediated Discourse Analysis

Read more about research projects at the Chair of Language Use and Migration here.

Edited volume

• Kindler-Mathôt, Clara, Didem Leblebici, Giacomo Marinsalta, Till Rückwart, Anna Zaglyadnova. (eds.) (2025). “Un/Reale Interaktionsräume: Formen sozialer Ordnung im Spektrum medienspezifischer Interaktion”. Open Library Medienwissenschaft. Transcript Verlag. 

Journal articles

• Leblebici, Didem, May Rostom (2025). “'Alexa learned Arabic': A translanguaging and multimodal perspective on language and media ideologies”. In: Li Wei, Jenifer Ho, Maria Grazia Sindoni (eds.), Special Issue: Navigating across digital scenarios: Translanguaging and multimodal perspectives. Discourse, Context & Media. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcm.2025.100909
• Leblebici, Didem. (2024).“‘You are Apple, why are you speaking to me in Turkish?’ - the role of English in voice assistant interactions”. Multilingua: Journal of Cross-Cultural and Interlanguage Communication, 43(4): 455-485. https://doi.org/10.1515/multi-2023-0072

Book chapters

• Migge, Bettina, Britta Schneider, Didem Leblebici, Iker Erdocia, Mandy Lau, Auli Viidalepp, Beatrice Savoldi, Martina Podboj, Philipp Meer, Mohammad Alenezi & Agnese Sampietro. in press. “Conceptualising Language in the Human-Machine Era: Language Ideologies and Language as Data”. In David Sayers, Maggie Glass, Helen Kelly-Holmes & Robert Fuchs (eds.), Language in the Human-Machine Era: New technologies and the coming transformation of language. Boston, MA: MIT University Press.
• Schneider, Britta and Didem Leblebici (in prep.). “Language Ideologies and AI Technologies”. In: Philip Montgomery, Peter De Costa, Pramod Sah, Katie Bernstein (eds.) Bloomsbury Handbook of Language Ideologies. Bloomsbury.
• Leblebici, Didem and Britta Schneider (2025). "Digital assemblages and their English entanglements: Digital design, voice assistant use and smartphone setting choices of translingual speakers in Berlin”. In: Lee, Jerry Won & Sofia Rüdiger (eds.) Entangled Englishes. Routledge. 
• Leblebici, Didem (2025). “Einstimmen mit Sprachassistenten: Einblicke in monolinguales Bias in mehrsprachigen Settings”. In: Horst, Dorothea & Rita Vallentin (eds.) Sprache entgrenzen: Überlegungen zu einer kulturwissenschaftlichen Linguistik. Transcript Verlag. 
• Leblebici, Didem (2024). “Stylising the ideal user: Insights into experiences of Turkish voice assistant users in Germany”. In: Habscheid, Stefan; Tim Hector; Dagmar Hoffmann and David Waldecker (eds.) Voice Assistants in Private Homes. Media, Data and Language in Interaction and Discourse. Transcript Verlag.

Academic Blog Entries and Other Publications

• Lau, Mandy, Didem Leblebici, Britta Schneider (2022). “Sound-based corpora - histories, sources, biases”. In: Schneider, Britta & Bettina Migge (eds.) Changing Language Ideological Concepts in the Human-Machine Era – Questions, Themes and Topics. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.25867.36649

since May 2026

• Erasmus+ project LinguaLink AI: Connecting cultures in social care at the European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder)
• PI for the work package "Selecting and educating on AI translation tools"
• Member of the consortium (tasks, deliverables, budget, coordination) 

since October 2021

• Researcher and lecturer (wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin) at European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder)
• PhD Thesis: "Negotiating Technology’s Practical and Ideological Entanglements: A Sociolinguistic Study of Multilingual Users and AI Voice Assistant Interfaces" supervised by Prof. Dr. Britta Schneider (University of Vienna) and Prof. Dr. Crispin Thurlow (University of Bern)

January - May 2024

• Visiting PhD Student / Erasmus+ Trainee at University College Dublin (under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Bettina Migge)

April 2020 – September 2021

• Tutor (wissenschaftliche Hilfskraft) at the European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder)

November 2019 – November 2020

• Research assistant (wissenschaftliche Hilfskraft) at Berlin International University of Applied Sciences

2019-2021

• Master of Arts in Language - Media Society at European University Viadrina
• M.A. Thesis: "Language Ideologies in Human-Machine Interaction: A Qualitative Study with Voice Assistant Users" (Supervisors: Prof. Dr. Britta Schneider & Dr. Rita Vallentin)
• Final grade: 1,1 Distinction/mit Auszeichnung

April 2018 – September 2019

• Student assistant at the University of Bonn,  IT and Data Center

2015-2019

• Bachelor of Arts in English Studies & Media Studies at the University of Bonn
• B.A. Thesis: "Gender stereotypes and postfeminism: An analysis of selected digital lifestyle publications on Instagram"

Awards & Funding

2026-2029 - Erasmus+ KA220 Funding for the project "LinguaLink AI: Connecting Cultures in Social Care"

2026 - DAAD Conference funding for "Sociolinguistics Symposium" in East London, South Africa

2024 - Open Library Community Medienwissenschaft funding for the open access publication for the anthology "Un/Reale Interaktionsräume” in transcript Verlag 

2024 - DAAD Conference funding for "Critical Approaches to Discourse Analysis Across Disciplines" in Poznań, Poland 

2024 - Erasmus+ Scholarship for exchange semester at University College Dublin, Ireland

2023 - DAAD Conference funding for "Approaches to Digital Discourse Analysis 4" in Klagenfurt, Austria

2023 - First Place in Moodle Competition in Teaching awarded by Zentrum für Lehre und Lernen in Viadrina

2022 - ZeM, Brandenburgisches Zentrum für Medienwissenschaften funding for conference organisation "un:reale Interaktionsräume"

2021 - DAAD Prize for outstanding achievements of international students studying at German universities
awarded by European University Viadrina

• Sociolinguistic Approaches to AI Technologies (SS 26)
• Academic Writing with AI: Applying the New Guidelines in Practice (SS 26)
• Literature Research, Citations, and Writing for Academia (winter term 25/26)
• Identities and Ideologies on Social Media (winter term 25/26)
• Language, Migration and Social Media (WS 24/25)
• Language and Smartphones (WS 23/24)
• Language in the Human-Machine Era (SS 23)
• Pragmatics: Language, Context and Meaning (WS 22/23 + SS 24)
• Fundamental Concepts of Sociolinguistics (SS 22)
• Language Theories - Approaches and Schools of Modern Linguistics (WS 21/22)
• Schreibdidaktisches Tutorium für die Vorlesung "Einführung in die Kulturwissenschaften" bei Prof. Klaus Weber (WS 20/21,SS20,SS21)

Conference and panel organization

10-12 July 2024 - Panel “Negotiating (Non)Humanness. Drawing and Crossing Boundaries between Humans and Others”
Critical Approaches to Discourse Analysis Across Disciplines in Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland
with Miriam Lind, Britta Schneider, Theresa Schweden, Lena Späth und Rita Vallentin

21 June 2024 - PhD Viadrilinguistics Summer Workshop for Postgraduate Students at European University Viadrina 
with David Pappalardo

4-5 November 2022 - Graduates' Conference “un:real Spaces of Interaction. Forms of Social Order in the Spectrum of Media-specific Interaction”  in Potsdam / an event within the ZeM’s annual focus on “Digital Realities”
with Clara Kindler-Mathôt, Giacomo Marinsalta, Till Rückwart, Anna Zaglyadnova

October 2020 - Poster session in “B/Ordering Cultures” Conference. Organised by the Cultural Studies Society (KwG) in European University Viadrina

Talks in conferences and workshops (selection)

8/2026 “AI as Linguistic Authority: Voice Assistants as “Native” Speakers in Multilingual Contexts” at Sociolinguistics and AI at University of Copenhagen, Denmark

7/2026 “Living with Voice Assistants: Multilingual Practices at the Online-Offline Nexus” at Sociolinguistics Symposium at University of Forth Hare, South Africa

5/2025 “Discourse analysis of conversational AI: Ethical and methodological challenges” at Approaches to Digital Discourse Analysis 5 at Tilburg University, Netherlands

12/2024 “Rethinking Methodologies in Studying Conversational AI Discourse”
Social Sciences and Artificial Intelligence: Theory and Practice in Istanbul University, Turkey

12/2024 Guest lecturer in Hauptseminar “Language Attitudes and Ideologies” by Dr. Maggie Glass in TU Dortmund, Germany

12/2024 "Posthumanist perspectives on sociolinguistics: Navigating the everyday multilingual entanglements in AI voice assistant interactions”
PhD Colloquium by Prof. Dr. Crispin Thurlow in Universität Bern, Switzerland 

10/2024 “”It’s because our accent is weird”: Voice-user interfaces as linguistic authorities in multilingual contexts”
Ideoling - International Symposium on Language Ideologies and Attitudes in Palma, Spain

09/2024 “Between neutrality and authenticity: AI voice assistants as linguistic authorities in multilingual contexts”
Whole Action Conference Language in the Human-Machine Era  / 2-3 September 2024 in UC Louvain, Belgium

07/2024 "Language Ideological Perspectives on Human-AI Boundaries"
Critical Approaches to Discourse Analysis Across Disciplines in Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland

03/2024 Invited talk with May Rostom: "'Alexa learned Arabic': A translanguaging and multimodal perspective on language and media ideologies" 
COST Action Network Language in the Human-Machine Era - Working Group 6: Ideologies, beliefs and attitudes (Online talk)

10/2023 with May Rostom: "'The dialect is provocative, how can they not put it in Egyptian?': Metalinguistic comments about the voice assistant Alexa on YouTube"
Approaches to Digital Discourse Analysis 4 (Klagenfurt, Austria)

07/2023 "Alexa in multilingual polymedia environments: A case study on the role of smartphones in voice assistant interactions"
The 18th International Pragmatics Conference (Brussels, Belgium)

05/2023 "Implications of Monolingual Bias in Superdiverse Societies" (Poster)
Speech Technology Summer School University of Groningen (Leeuwarden, Netherlands)

11/2022 Panel discussion on Conversational AI
Moderation of the panel with the guests Timo Kaerlein, Marie-Theres Fester-Seeger, and Tim Hector
Graduates’ Conference “un:real spaces of interaction” (University of Applied Sciences Potsdam, Germany)

07/2022 "Constructing Language(s) and AI in Voice Assistant Interactions of Turkish-Speaking Users"
2nd International Whole Action Conference Language in the Human-Machine Era (Jyväskylä, Finland)

05/2022 "Language Ideologies in Voice Assistant Interactions: Cultural Constructions of Humans, Machines and Language in Multilingual Settings" 
Posthumanismus. Transhumanismus. Jenseits des Menschen? 7. Jahrestagung der Kulturwissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft / (Graz, Austria)

Peer reviewer for journals and conferences

• AI & Society
• Social sciences & humanities open
• Sociolinguistics Symposium 2026
• Current Sociology