Catharina Peersman

Dr. Catharina Peersman (°1981) is a historical sociolinguist, passionate about languages and their complex relation to society.   Catharina is coordinator internationalisation of the Faculty of Languages and Humanities, at the VUB.  Earlier job experiences From October 2021 to September 2022, she was assistant-professor in French linguistics at the VUB. From September 2014 to September 2021, she was head of school (directeur secundair onderwijs) of ZAVO (Zaventems Vrij Onderwijs, Sept. 2014-Aug. 2016) and of Hasp-O Zepperen (Sept. 2016-Sept. 2021). From September 2012 to August 2014, she was a lecturer in French Studies at the University of Sheffield (UK).  As a postdoctoral research fellow, she worked at the University of Minnesota (H. Van Wayenbergh of the Hoover Foundation Fellow for the Belgian American Educational Foundation) and the KULeuven in Belgium (Research Foundation Flanders - FWO) from Sept. 2009 tot Aug. 2012.  Studies/degrees  Catharina studied Romance Languages in Leuven (2003), specializing in French Linguistics. For her Master’s Thesis ‘Les chartes en ancien français antérieures à 1300 de l’abbaye de Ninove. Edition et analyse’, she was awarded the F.J. Mertens Prize. In 2004, she was seriously busy specializing in both Medieval Studies and Translation (governmental French & English) while finishing her teaching formation (all at the KULeuven). From October 2004 to September 2009, she was a PhD researcher, although she already defended her PhD in May 2009 ("L'essor et l'emploi des langues vernaculaires dans les chartes de l'abbaye de Ninove (1137-1350), avec une attention particulière pour l'ancien français"). 

Selected publications

• Peersman, C. – Rutten, G. – Vosters, R. 2015. “Chapter 1. Romance-Germanic encounters along the language border: past, present and future.”. In: C. PEERSMAN – G. RUTTEN – R. VOSTERS eds., Past, Present and Future of a Language Border. Germanic-Romance Encounters in the Low Countries. (Language and Social Life 1), 1-16. De Gruyter. 
• Peersman, C. 2015. “Chapter 5. Constructing identity: language and identity in the narration of the Franco-Flemish conflict (1297-1305)”. In: C. Peersman – G. Rutten – R. Vosters eds., Past, Present and Future of a Language Border. Germanic-Romance Encounters in the Low Countries. (Language and Social Life 1), 91-114. De Gruyter. 
• Peersman, C. 2012. “Chapter 35. Written Vernaculars in Medieval and Renaissance Times”. In: Hernández-Campoy & Conde-Silvestre eds., Handbook of Historical Sociolinguistics (Blackwell Handbooks in Linguistics), 639-654. Blackwell Publishers. 
• Peersman, C. 2012. L’essor des langues vernaculaires dans les chartes de Ninove. Perspectives sociolinguistiques sur l’essor et l’emploi de l’ancien français dans les chartes de l’abbaye (1137-1350). Presses académiques francophones. 304p. 
• Peersman, C. 2009. ‘Une approche actuelle de matériaux médiévaux: les chartes de l’abbaye de Ninove sous l’angle de la sociolinguistique historique’. In : D. Aquino, S. Cotelli, A. Kristol éds., Sociolinguistique historique du domaine gallo-roman. Enjeux et méthodologies, 161-185. Bern : Peter Lang. 
• Peersman, C. 2008. ‘De opkomst van de volkstalen in de oorkonden van de abdij van Ninove. Case-study van een bewogen eeuw (1250-1350)’. Handelingen van de Koninklijke Zuid-Nederlandse Maatschappij voor Taal-, Letterkunde en Geschiedenis LXI, 129-145. 
• Peersman, C. 2008. ‘French medieval charters: a lexicographic case-study’. In: M. Mooijaert & M. van der Wal eds., Yesterday’s Words: Contemporary, Current and Future Lexicography, 241-251. Cambridge – Leiden: Cambridge Scholars Press. 
• Peersman, C. 2006.’Du latin aux langues vernaculaires. Les traces explicites des langues parlées dans les chartes latines’. Studies van de Belgische Kring voor Linguïstiek / Travaux du Cercle Belge de Linguistique / Papers of the Linguistic Society of Belgium 1.