Agnieszka Stępkowska

Agnieszka Stępkowska – associate professor at the University of Szczecin. She is a graduate of English studies at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. She received her Ph.D. in English linguistics from Adam Mickiewicz University. Since 1999 she has been a certified translator and court interpreter of English. She also knows German (ZOP – C2 level) and Italian (CELI 3 – B2 level). She was awarded a postdoctoral degree in linguistics with a sociolinguistic major at the University of Wrocław. Her research interests focus on multilingualism which she explores in her monograph Multilingualism and English – The canton of Zurich as a linguistic paradigm, Peter Lang, 2013.

Earlier, her professional activity included the cooperation with Głos Wielkopolski Publishing House in Poznań, for which she conduced interviews with many prominent figures on the political scene, including Henry Kissinger, Joschka Fischer, Javier Solana, as well as the presidents of the European Parliament – Klaus Hänsch, Pat Cox and Hans Gert Pöttering. As a representative of the editorial staff she was present at the UNO Millennium Summit in New York, and went on several study trips to Brussels, Berlin, Hannover, Maastricht and Strasbourg. Between 2001–2007 she was the main consultant for the EU in the Marshal’s Office of Wielkopolska Region.

E-mail: agnieszka.stepkowska@usz.edu.pl

Research interests

  • sociolinguistics and the sociology of language
  • multilingualism
  • language contact with special reference to English
  • English in the linguistic and cultural context of Switzerland
  • globalization of English
  • English as a lingua franca

Selected publications

Monographs

  1. Stępkowska, Agnieszka 2011. English loanwords in Polish naval vocabulary. Wrocław: Oddział Polskiej Akademii Nauk we Wrocławiu.
  2. Stępkowska, Agnieszka 2013. Multilingualism and English: The canton of Zurich as a linguistic paradigm (Warsaw Studies in English Language and Literature. Vol. 14). Frankfurt am Main – New York: Peter Lang.
    [Reviewed in English Today (April 2016, Cambridge University Press), English as an intra-national language in Switzerland by Jean-François Brunelière; available on Cambridge Journals Online 2016 doi: 10.1017/S0266078416000109]

Articles related to the Swiss issues in scientific periodicals

  1. Stępkowska, Agnieszka 2010. Cantonal identity and the question of English as an intra-national language. Styles of Communication 2 (1): 126–139.
  2. Stępkowska, Agnieszka 2011. Swiss multilingualism: Society vs. individuals. Philologica Wratislaviensia: Acta et Studia 4: 153–161.
  3. Stępkowska, Agnieszka 2011. Polityka językowa w zakresie nauczania pierwszego języka obcego w wielojęzycznym kraju na przykładzie Szwajcarii: Inspirujące doświadczenia. Neofilolog 37: 213–225.
  4. Stępkowska, Agnieszka 2012. Language shift in the Raeto-Romansh community. Philologica Wratislaviensia: Acta et Studia 9: 201–212.
  5. Stępkowska, Agnieszka 2012. Romansh: A politically viable language minority. Linguae Mundi 6: 127–142.
  6. Stępkowska, Agnieszka 2012. Diglossia: A critical overview of the Swiss example. Studia Linguistica Universitatis Iagellonicae Cracoviensis 129 (3): 199–209.
  7. Stępkowska, Agnieszka 2012. The question of English-based multilingualism in Switzerland. Proceedings of the 3rd ROASS Conference, University of Bacău; 104–115.
  8. Stępkowska, Agnieszka 2013. Collective aspects of communication: The Italian-speaking Swiss. Poznańskie Spotkania Językoznawcze 26: 9–18.
  9. Stępkowska, Agnieszka 2013. O pragmatyzmie językowym w Szwajcarii w kontekście języka angielskiego: Perspektywa makro-socjolingwistyczna. Linguistica Copernicana 1 (9): 291–304.
  10. Stępkowska, Agnieszka 2016. Swiss paradigm of multilingualism and English. In: Patricia Ronan (ed.) Perspectives on English in Switzerland. [Special issue]. Cahiers de l‘ILSL 48: 79–92.

 Chapters related to the Swiss issues in collective publications

  1. Stępkowska, Agnieszka 2013. Identity and language ideologies: The Swiss case. In: Janusz Badio – Kamila Ciepiela (eds.) Language, action, interaction (Łódź Studies in Language. Vol. 31). Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang; 101–111.
  2. Stępkowska, Agnieszka 2014. Multilingual practice and English in interpersonal contacts: The example of the canton of Zurich. In: Piotr Chruszczewski – John R. Rickford (eds.) Languages in Contact 2012 (Languages in Contact. Vol. 1). Wrocław: Wyd. Wyższej Szkoły Filologicznej; 149–163.
  3. Stępkowska, Agnieszka 2015. Second language acquisition in the canton of Zurich: The Swiss are fond of English. In: Krzysztof Kosecki – Janusz Badio (eds.) Empirical methods in language studies. 37. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang; 73–82.