Goethe-Universität

Forschung-und-Lehre

Dr. Christoph Bracks

SKW, 5. Stock, Raum 05.B106
Nonnenstr. 40b, 04229 Leipzig, Germany
Mobile: +49-176-21685780
Email: bracks[at]em.uni-frankfurt.de

Positions

since 06.2025:	Senior Lecturer, Inst. for Southeast Asian Studies, Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany
06.2023-05.2025:	PI, ELDP-financed Individual Postdoctoral Fellowship, Inst. for Southeast Asian Studies, Goethe Univ. Frankfurt, Germany: Masep: A collaborative documentation
04.2021–06.2023:	Senior Lecturer, Inst. for Southeast Asian Studies, Goethe Univ. Frankfurt, Germany
01.–06.2021:	Post-doctoral Research Fellow, Collaborative Research Centre (CRC 1252),"Prominence in Language", Univ. of Cologne, Germany
2017–2020:	Doctoral Research Fellow, Collaborative Research Centre (CRC 1252), "Prominence in Language", University of Cologne, Germany
01.-04-2017	Research Assistant, Inst. for General Linguistics, Univ. of Cologne, Germany

Education

Academic Degrees

Oct. 21, 2021	PhD in General Linguistics, Univ. of Cologne — PhD thesis on “Intonation Units and Grammatical Units in Totoli”
2017–2020:	PhD in General Linguistics, Collaborative Research Centre (CRC 1252), "Prominence in Language", University of Cologne, Germany — PhD thesis on "Intonation Units and Grammatical Units in Totoli" (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10559070)
2015–2017:	MA in General Linguistics, Univ. of Cologne — BA thesis on “Andative and Venitives in Totoli”
2015:	Study visit at UNAS — Universitas Nasional Jakarta, Indonesia
2013–2016:	MA in Islamic Studies, Univ. of Brunei Darussalam — MA thesis on “The Sultanate of Sulu”, SOASCIS Center, UBD — Universiti Brunei Darussalam
2011–2014:	BA in General Linguistics and Islamic Studies, Univ. of Cologne — BA thesis on “Noun-Verb distinction in Waray-Waray”

Languages

Fully proficient: English, Malay/Indonesian, French, German (native speaker).

Conversational: Arabic (Standard), Khmer/Cambodian, German Sign Language

Publications and Archives

Monographs

Bracks, Christoph. 2024. Compound Intonation Units in Totoli: Postlexical prosody and the prosodysyntax interface (Topics in Phonological Diversity 2). Berlin: Language Science Press. doi: 10.5281/zenodo.10559070

Edited Volumes

Bracks, Christoph, Arndt Graf & Patrick Keilbart (eds.). 2024. Towards the next 40 years of Southeast Asian Studies in Frankfurt. Festschrift in honour of Bernd Nothofer. (Frankfurt East Asian Studies Series). Frankfurt: Iudicium.

Journal Articles

submitted Bracks, Christoph. submitted. Masep [Illustrations of the IPA]. [Submitted to Journal of the International Phonetic Association]

submitted Bracks, Christoph & Nikolaus P. Himmelmann. submitted. How long does it take for a language to disappear? Rapid and radical language shift in the village of Gio (Sulawesi, Indonesia). [Submitted to Language in Society]

to appear Bracks, Christoph. to appear. Totoli [Illustrations of the IPA]. Journal of the International Phonetic Association

Bracks, Christoph, and Owen Edwards 2026. The Languages of Atauro Island. Oceanic linguistics 65(1). 94–128. doi: 10.1353/ol.2026.a986155

Bracks, Christoph, and Fabian C. Moss. 2022. Totoli’s Art of Lelegesan: Analyzing Sociocultural Context and Musical Content. In In Proceedings of the 10th international workshop on folk music analysis. 2021 Bracks, Christoph.

Bracks, Christoph. 2021. The Intonation Unit in Totoli.Oceanic linguistics 60(1). 103–132. doi: 10.1353/ol.2021.0003 2020

Devylder, Simon, Christoph Bracks, Misuzu Shimotori & Poppy Siahaan. 2020. Carving the body at its joints: Does the way we speak about the body shape the way we think about it? Carving the body at its joints: Does the way we speak about the body shape the way we think about it?. Language and Cognition 12(4). 577-613. doi: 10.1017/langcog.2020.13

Kaland, Constantijn, Christoph Bracks & Nikolaus P. Himmelmann. 2018. Repetition reduction in Papuan Malay prosody. In Proceedings of the 9th international conference on speech prosody Poznań, Poland. 10–14. 2014

Bracks, Christoph Alexander. 2014. Das Sultanat Brunei rückt politisch ins religiöskonservative Lager. [The Sultanate of Brunei’s political shift toward religious conservatism.] Südostasien— Zeitschrift für Politik • Kultur • Dialog 30(3). 31-32. doi: 10.11588/soa.2014.3.3380

Book Chapters

to appear Gasser, Emily, & Christoph Bracks 2026. The Position and History of Yoke within Austronesian: A First Look. In Antoinette C.J. Schapper & Laura Arnold (eds). Handbook of the SHWNG Languages. Berlin: Language Science Press.

Bardají, Maria, Rowena Garcia, Christoph Bracks & Evan Kidd. 2026.The acquisition of symmetrical voice systems: Comparative notes on Tagalog, Indonesian, and Totoli. In Riesberg, Sonja, Uta Reinöhl & Birgit Hellwig (Eds). The documentarist turn: From observable linguistic behaviour to typological generalizations. Studies in Language Companion Series 240. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. doi: 10.1075/slcs.240.22bar

Bracks, Christoph. 2024. Digitized fieldwork in a digitized world: New possibilities for documenting and researching un(der-)described languages. In Christoph Bracks, Patrick Keilbart & Arndt Graf (eds.), Towards the next 40 years of Southeast Asian Studies in Frankfurt. Festschrift in honour of Bernd Nothofer (Frankfurt East Asian Studies). Frankfurt: Iudicium.

Bracks, Christoph & Maria Bardají i Farré. 2023. Broadening language documentation with child language data: First-hand experience from Tolitoli. In Hellwig, Birgit, Shanley E. M. Allen, Lucinda Davidson, Rebecca Defina, Barbara F. Kelly, & Evan Kidd (Eds).The Acquisition Sketch Project. Language Documentation & Conservation Special Publication no. 28. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.

Grants

2023 Individual Postdoctoral Fellowship (IPF0421) by ELDP—Endangered Languages Documentation Programme

2022 Early Career Research Grant by the University of Frankfurt

2021 PhD Publication Support Katharina Niemeyer-Grant, University of Cologne

Research Cooperation

since 2026:	Associated Researchers at Multimodal Communication (MultiCom), Goethe University, Germany
Oct. 2026:	Cooperation with UNCEN - Universitas Cenderawasih (Jayapura, Indonesia)—MoU on the cooperation on a Center for the Documentation of Papuan Languages
2022:	Cooperation with Dr. Katubi, BRIN - National Research and Innovation Agency, Indonesia— with with Dr. Katubi on joint Language Documentation Project on the language Masep (Papua, Indonesia) (Research Permit BRIN, Republik Indonesien: No. 180/SIP/IV/FR/9/2022)
2017-2020:	Research Fellow, Collaborative Research Centre (CRC 1252), “Prominence in Language", University of Cologne, Germany
2018:	Cooperation with LIPI - Indonesian Institute of Sciences—with with Dr. Katubi on joint Language Documentation Project of the language Totoli (Central Sulawesi, Indonesia) (Research Permit RISTEKDIKTI, Republik Indonesien: No. 197/SIO/FRP/E5/Dit.KI/VII/2018)

Honours & Awards

2026:	Honorary Award of the DELAMAN—Digital Endangered Languages and Musics Archives Network for the documentation archive: Masep: A collaborative documentation
August 16, 2016:	Election as representative of the winners of the International Essay and Speech Competition of the Ministry of Culture and Education of the Republic of Indonesia
June 4, 2016:	German winner of the International Essay and Speech Competition of the Ministry of Culture and Education of the Republic of Indonesia
November 2, 2013:	Best Performance Award, “SOASCIS-ASAFS Second Joint International Seminar 2013” — Kyoto Univ. (Prof. Dr. Yasushi Kosugi) and Univ. of Brunei Darussalam (Prof. Dr. Osman Bakar)
2013–2016:	Scholarship awarded by the Bruneian Ministry of Foreign Affairs for a Master’s course in Islamic Studies, Univ. of Brunei Darussalam (UBD)

Teaching & Supervision

Supervision

PhD — on-going: PhD thesis Pg. Ashrol Rahimy bin Pg. Damit — Title: “Language Maintenance and Language Shift of Tutong (Brunei)”

MA — on-going: MA thesis by Sabrina Wingenfeld — Title: “Constructing the "White Savior": Heroization and Othering in the online Marketing of German Short-Term Voluntourism Projects with focus on Waste Management in Indonesia”

MA — 2024: MA thesis by Johannes Messerschmidt — Title: “Fricatives Undercover – The Impact of Face Masks on the Acoustic Properties of Fricatives During the COVID-19 Pandemic”

MA — 2024: MA thesis by Annalena Hutter — Title: “An Apparent-Time Study on Sound Change in the Fortis–Lenis Contrast in a Regional Variety of German: An Investigation of the Production of Voice Onset Time and Vowel Duration by Two Age Groups in Central Bavarian"

MA — 2023: MA thesis by Roxana Richter — Title: “Studies on the Production and Perception of Vowels in Romanian, as well as the Definitive Determination of the Realizations of the Phonemes /e/ and /o/"

MA — 2023: MA thesis by Madlen Kempf — Title “Cognitive Communication Disorders in Parkinson’s Disease”

MA — 2023: MA thesis by Nicolas Sentef — Title: “Phonetic Interference among Dialect Speakers in the Baden Murg Valley upon Switching to Southwestern Standard German—A Contribution to Research on Language Awareness”

BA — 2026: BA thesis by Laura Lindenberger —Title: “Between Hallyu and Hijab: Cultural Identity and the Influence of Korean Media on Malaysian Youth”

BA — 2022: BA thesis by Sabrina Wingenfeld — Title: “Blockchain Technology in Development Policy: Application Options in Indonesia During the COVID-19 Pandemic"

Workshops

2022, Feb 8:	Inaugural Workshop on the Documentation of Papuan Languages Cenderawasih Univ. (UNCEN), Jayapura, Indonesia
2022, Sept 6:	Language Documentation Corpora: What is that and what are they good for? Center for Research and Preservation of Languages and Literature at the Indonesian National Research Agency (BRIN), Jakarta, Indonesia.
2022, Sept 6:	Linguistic Research in the Digital Era; together with Grace Jane Mantiri and Aleda Mawene. Cenderawasih Univ. (UNCEN), Jayapura, Indonesia.
2022, Feb 8:	Inaugural Workshop on the Documentation of Papuan Languages; together with Grace Jane Mantiri and Aleda Mawene. Cenderawasih Univ. (UNCEN), Jayapura, Indonesia.
2019, Jun 12–14:	LateX Workshop Inst. for General Linguistics, Univ. of Cologne, Germany
2018, Nov 1–2:	Language Documentation Workshop Linguistic Society Indonesia, Jakarta, Indonesia

Seminars

summer term, 2022:	Indonesian literature: Harimau, Harimau! by Mokhtar Lubis Seminar, Inst. for Southeast Asian Studies, Goethe Univ. Frankfurt, Germany
summer term, 2022:	Austronesian linguistics: Robert Blust’s contributions Seminar, Inst. for Southeast Asian Studies, Goethe Univ. Frankfurt, Germany
winter term, 2021–2022:	Austronesian comparative linguistics Seminar, Inst. for Southeast Asian Studies, Goethe Univ. Frankfurt, Germany
summer term, 2021:	Indonesian literature: Pramoedya Ananta Toer Seminar, Inst. for Southeast Asian Studies, Goethe Univ. Frankfurt, Germany
summer term, 2021:	Language, Politics, and Society in Southeast Asia Seminar, Inst. for Southeast Asian Studies, Goethe Univ. Frankfurt, Germany
summer term, 2021:	Introduction to Old Javanese Studies Seminar, Inst. for Southeast Asian Studies, Goethe Univ. Frankfurt, Germany
summer term, 2021:	Language contact and language attitudes Guest lecture, Inst. for General Linguistics, Univ. of Cologne, Germany

Language Courses

since 2021	regularly Indonesian I–IV Language course, Inst. for Southeast Asian Studies, Goethe Univ. Frankfurt, Germany
since 2021	regularly Old Javanese Language course, Inst. for Southeast Asian Studies, Goethe Univ. Frankfurt, Germany
2018–2020	Indonesian I–II Tutorial, Dept. of Middle Eastern and South East Asian Studies, Univ. of Cologne, Germany
2017–2018	Indonesian Language courses, Adult Education Center (VHS), Cologne, Germany.