Dr. Melissa Schuring

Melissa Schuring studied Linguistics and Literature at the University of Antwerp, where she obtained her BA (2019) and MA degree (2020) with a focus on Dutch and French linguistics. In October 2020, Melissa joined the QLVL (Quantitative Lexicology and Variationist Linguistics) research group at KU Leuven to pursue a PhD. In November 2024, she defended her dissertation “Between observation and elicitation. A multi-methods analysis of English in preadolescents’ Belgian Dutch”, based on the results of PROJECT OMG. Continuing her research on language contact and the influence of English on Dutch, Melissa started a postdoctoral position within the Brussels Centre for Language Studies (BCLS) in the same year. 

Research interests

contact linguistics – developmental sociolinguistics – anglicism research – youth language – child language – roleplay research

Melissa’s research interests lie in the fields of (developmental) sociolinguistics, language contact and language variation and change. In her PhD, she focused on how children learn the social meaning of English lexemes in Belgian Dutch. Thus, she has specifically developed expertise in (1) child- and youth language;  (2) anglicism research and English in Dutch and (3) child-friendly methods in sociolinguistics (including roleplay, socio- and metalinguistic interviews). 

Selected publications

• Schuring, M., Rosseel, L., Zenner, E. (2025). Children’s emerging sociolinguistic expectations towards social roles: a triangulated approach. Linguistics Vanguard, in press. 

• Schuring, M., Rosseel, L., Zenner, E. (2024). Expectation through imitation: towards a unified protocol for roleplay in developmental sociolinguistics. Language Sciences, 104, Art.No. 101635. doi: 10.1016/j.langsci.2024.101635 

• Schuring, M., Rosseel, L., Zenner, E. (2023). Says who? Language regard towards speaker groups using English loanwords in Dutch. Folia Linguistica. doi: 10.1515/flin-2023-2022 

• Schuring, M., Zenner, E. (2022). English from scratch: Preadolescents’ developing use of English lexical resources in Belgian Dutch. Frontiers in Communication, 6 (Englishes in a Globalized World: Exploring Contact Effects on Other Languages), Art.No. 788768, 1-15. doi: 10.3389/fcomm.2021.788768

Full list of publications