Prof. W.P.M.S. Spooren (Wilbert)
Professor emeritus - Centre for Language Studies
Professor emeritus - Department of Modern Languages and Cultures
As of November 2024 Wilbert is confidential advisor scientific integrity of Radboud University.
Wilbert's research concerns the role of language in optimizing communication in different genres. More specifically he has investigated how people rely on structural signals in planning or interpreting a discourse, and how this depends on the genre of the discourse.
Wilbert has supervised PhD theses on such varied topics as subjectivity in news discourse, the persuasive effects of layout in advertising, the conceptual and linguistic complexity of nominalization, the effectiveness of using Twitter to create feelings of safety, Dutch and English sentence complexity in different genres, the relationship between police interrogations and the police record of such an interrogation, and the use of narratives in computer games.
Wilbert's retirement started in September 2023.
Keywords
Text structure, text optimization, discourse complexity, genres, new media
- Text structure and text quality