Alan Cienki

Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam

Alan Cienki works in the field of cognitive linguistics, focusing on the semantic analysis of spoken language, metaphor, and gesture with speech. His main interest is in how speech and gesture reflect processes of conceptualization. The discourse of academics, politicians, and entrepreneurs are among his sources of data. He received his PhD from Brown University and taught linguistics as well as Russian at Emory University, where he was also Director of the Program in Linguistics. In 2006 he moved to Amsterdam, Netherlands, where he is now Associate Professor of Language and Communication at the Vrije Universiteit (VU/Free University).