Dietmar Zaefferer

Mission Statement

I am professor emeritus for Theoretical Linguistics and German Linguistics.

In the first years of this century the extremely clever experimental design of Lera Boroditsky’s studies managed to undermine my deep skepticism about Neo-Whorfianism, so I encouraged my students to have a closer look. After several failed replications my skepticism regrew. Similarly with other early cases of experimental linguistics- a PhD dissertation I supervised dared to challenge a publication in the prestigious journal Language and got as much as five replication failures. Since then I am a strong supporter of OS (my recent study on new words includes a self-replication). I signed the Peer Reviewers’ Openness Initiative, and I encourage every student to observe Open Science practices.