Prof Dr Annette Leßmöllmann

Annette Leßmöllmann is a linguist and cognitive scientist by training and she holds the chair of science communication and linguistics at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. In her inter- and transdisciplinary research she investigates on the rhetoric of polarised discourse, “epistemic wars” and the relevance of common ground in communication, public dialogue on and trust in AI, and the phenomenon of “feeling left out” in science communication, among others. She is co-editor of wissenschaftskommunikation.de.

Social Meaning conveys clues concerning, i.e., the identity of a speaker. If someone calls Kamala Harris a “brat”, this rhetoric move can tell their interlocutors a lot about the social group this person belongs to (or the group they want to be accepted by). Annette Leßmöllmann would like to investigate and discuss the relevance of social meaning in public dialogue about science, and how this relates to issues of common ground and trust in science, especially in polarised discourse.