Navigation: Main Content Sections

Andrea Golato

Associate Dean, Graduate College, Associate Professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures
Associate Professor of Linguistics
Associate Professor of European Union Center
Associate Professor of Second Language Acquisition and Teacher Education
Associate Professor of LAS Global Studies
Associate Professor of French

User Photo

Contact Information:

  • Address:
    Germanic Lang & Lit
    209 For Lang Bldg
    707 S Mathews
    M/C 178
    Urbana, IL 61801
  • Office Hours:
    • Th 12-1pm
  • Telephone: (217)244-3248
  • Email:

  • Visit Website

Education

Ph.D. University of Texas at Austin

Biography

Andrea Golato received a Diplom (equivalent of M.A.) in translation studies and interpretation (German/English/Spanish, with a focus on Business/Economics) from the Johannes-Gutenberg Universität Mainz-Germersheim in 1992 and her Ph.D. in German Applied Linguistics from the University of Texas at Austin in 1997. After teaching for two years at the University of Oregon, she joined the faculty at Illinois in 1999. She holds appointments in German and Linguistics and is an affiliated faculty member in the Second Language Acquisition and Teacher Education (SLATE) Program, the European Union Center, the Center for Translation Studies, and the Academy for Entrepreneurial Leadership.

Her research interests lie primarily in Conversation Analysis, and investigates the connection between grammar and interaction on the one hand, and language use in different cultures on the other. She has published on reported discourse, compliments and compliment responses and various functions of repair in German. She is currently involved in two major research projects.

The first one investigates German response tokens (such as ach, achso, achja, naja, tja, jaja, etc.) in terms of their functions and use. Response tokens are ubiquitous in spoken interaction and provide systematic means through which members of a speech community accomplish interactional, cognitive, and affective actions. Thus, response tokens have profound implications for fundamental issues in managing human sociality. By comparing German response tokens to tokens in other languages (e.g., American English, Japanese, etc.), Andrea Golato also address the cultural (non)specificity of the various practices under investigation.

The second project, which she is working on with Peter Golato, a psycholinguist, investigates the development of L2 pragmatic comprehension. Specifically, they are investigating the acquisition of culturally determined language use (such as compliments, greetings, etc. but also different meanings conveyed through varying word order and phonetic stress) through a hybrid, ethnomethodological-experimental perspective.

With respect to pedagogy, Andrea Golato is interested in German for specific purposes (e.g., Business German), and multimedia in the classroom.

In the Department of Germanic Languages, Andrea Golato is the coordinator of the Business German program. She also teaches undergraduate classes in German language, and graduate and undergraduate classes in German applied linguistics (conversation analysis, pragmatics, and sociolinguistics).

Publications

Books

  • Golato, Andrea. Compliments and Compliment Responses: Grammatical Structure and Sequential Organization. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2005.
  • Maria, Egbert, and Andrea Golato. A Practical Primer for Developing a Business German Program. Houston: Goethe-Institute, 1997.
  • Egbert, Maria, Grit Liebscher, and Andrea Golato. Aktuelle Videos für Wirtschaftsdeutsch. Cherry Hill, NJ: American Association of Teachers of German, 1995.
  • Swaffar, Janet, and Andrea Vlatten [Golato]. Treffpunkt Deutsch. Videobegleitbuch. . Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1994.

Book Contributions

  • Egbert, Maria, Andrea Golato, and Jeffrey D. Robinson. "Repairing Reference." Comparative Studies in Conversation Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. 104-132.
  • Golato, Andrea. "“Self-quotation in German: Reporting on past decisions.." Reported Discourse: A Meeting Ground for Different Linguistic Domains . Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2002. 49-70.
  • "Some First Steps for Incorporating Instructional Technology into Business German." The Global Connection: Issues in Business German. Stuttgart: Popp Verlag, 2002. 46-65.

Journal Articles

  • Barske, Tobias, and Andrea Golato. "German so: Managing sequence and action." Text & Talk 30.3 (2010): 245-266.
  • Golato, Andrea. "Marking understanding versus receipting information in talk: achso. and ach in German interaction." Discourse Studies 12.2 (2010): 147-176.
  • Golato, Andrea. " Comparing single and double sayings of the German response token ja and the role of prosody: A conversation analytic perspective.." Research on Language and Social Interaction 31.3 (2008): 1-30.
  • Golato, Andrea. "German ach and achso in repair uptake: Resources to sustain or remove epistemic asymmetry." Zeitschrift fuer Sprachwissenschaft 27 (2008): 7-37.
  • Betz, Emma, and Andrea Golato. "Remembering relevant information and withholding relevant next actions: The German token achja." Research on Language and Social Interaction 41.1 (2008): 55-98.
  • Maheux-Pelletier, Genevieve, and Andrea Golato. "The organization of repair and membership categorization in French." Language in Society 37.5 (2008): 689-712.
  • Golato, Andrea, and Carmen Taleghani-Nikazm. "The negotiation of face in chats." Multilingual 25 (2006): 293-322.
  • Schoenfeldt, Juliane, and Andrea Golato. "Repair in chats: A conversation analytic approach." Research on Language and Social Interaction 36.3 (2003): 241-284.
  • Golato, Andrea. "Studying compliment responses: A comparison of DCTs and recordings of naturally occurring talk." Applied Linguistics 24.1 (2003): 90-121.
  • Golato, Andrea. "German compliment responses." Journal of Pragmatics 34.5 (2002): 547-571.
  • Golato, Andrea. "Grammar and interaction: reported discourse and subjunctive in German." Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft 22.1 (2002): 24-55.
  • "Und ich so / und er so [and I’m like / and he’s like]: An innovative German quotative for reporting on embodied actions." Journal of Pragmatics 32.1 (2000): 29-54.
  • Swaffar, Janet, and Andrea Vlatten [Golato]. "A sequential model for video viewing in the FL curriculum." Modern Language Journal 81.2 (1997): 175-188.

Courses Taught

  • GER 320 Business German
  • GER 321 German for Economics
  • GER 588 Culture in Communication
  • GER 588 Educational Entrepreneurship, Teaching Language Across the Curriculum
  • GER 588 Pragmatics in Second Language Learning and Teaching
  • GER 588 Repair in Native/Non-native Speaker Interaction