Daniela Marcantonio

Dr. phil. Daniela Marcantonio joined Università della Svizzera italiana - USI in 2009, and she is currently working as lecturer for German Language and Literature, and as researcher at the Institute of Argumentation, Linguistics and Semiotics - IALS.

Her main research interests include Nonverbal Communication, Intercultural Communication, Semantics, Pragmatics, Argumentation and Studies on Second Language Acquisition.

Before joining USI she was Doctoral Researcher and Lecturer at the Technische Universität zu Berlin at the Fakultät für Sprach- und Kommunikationswissenschaft, Arbeitsstelle für Semiotik, TU - Berlin (Faculty of Communication Sciences -  Institute of Applied Linguistics and Semiotics). There, she studied Semiotics and Linguistics and then obtained her PhD in Semiotics, under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Roland Posner, with a thesis about the cognitive, semantic, and pragmatic differences between Germans and Italians in nonverbal communication with everyday gestures. 

She has lectured on the undergraduate level the classes "Introduction to General Linguistics" and "Text Linguistics", on the graduate and post-graduate level the class "Introduction to Nonverbal Communication", and furthermore, as co-lecturer together with prof. Dr. R. Posner the class "Logic of signs (Logik der Zeichen)".

She worked on the project "Berliner Lexikon der Alltagsgesten", funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft - DFG (German National Science Foundation), project leader Prof. Dr. R. Posner.

Moreover, she obtained a double degree in Philology  - with specialisation in German and Russian - in Italy and Germany. She was granted various stipends, which allowed her to study over long periods in order to complete her scientific research in Russia as well as in Germany. In Germany she also received a certificate from the Pädagogische Hochschule Freiburg with a focus on Foreign Language Teaching and Intercultural Pedagogy.

She is member of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Semiotik (German Society for Semiotics), and of the Deutscher Italianistenverband (German Society for Italian Studies).  

In addition, she obtained a high school teaching qualification in history, German, and Italian as foreign languages.

Furthermore, she was vice-director of the Goethe Institute Ticino. 

For selected publications and research activity, visit also her page on researchgate.net.