Degrees Held
- PhD in Linguistics graduated 97-06 (University of Hamburg)
- Master of Arts in English Language, Literature, and Culture (University of Hamburg)
Research Interests
- Psycholinguistics
- Multilingualism
- African discourse and text structures
- Language Maintenance, Revitalisation, and Planning
- Event conceptualization and verbalization
- Language Acquisition (first and subsequent)
- Applied Linguistics
- Semantics and Pragmatics
- Figurative language
Teaching Interests
- Psycholinguistics
- The interplay between language and thinking
- Language acquisition
- Multilingualism
- Reasoning skills
- Professional attributes and soft skills
- Blended learning and teaching
Selected Publications
Books
Journal Articles
Chapters In Books
Books
- Härtl, H. & H. Tappe (eds.) (2003). Mediating between Concepts and Grammar (Trends in Linguistics 152). Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI: 10.1515/9783110919585
- Tappe, H., (1999). Der Spracherwerb bei Corpus-Callosum-Agenesie: Eine explorative Studie. [Language acquisition in corpus callosum agenesis]. Tübingen: Narr. ISBN-13: ‎ 978-3823347224 Der Spracherwerb bei Corpus-Callosum-Agenesie
Journal Articles
- Aljoundi, E. K., & Tappe, H. (in preparation). Metaphorical insights into traditional pedagogies: A cross-cultural analysis of educational metaphors in Arabic and German
- Tshetu, P. & Tappe, H. (under review) Mitigating online misogyny in political discourse: A comparative linguistic analysis of social media posts directed at Zimbabwean and South African female political actors
- Amini Ngabonziza, J.D. & Tappe, H. (under review) A case for inclusive multilingual pedagogies and social justice: Multilingual realities and monolingual language policies in Rwanda.
- Sibisi Mashezi, M. & H. Tappe (2025), Discipline-specific terminology in an indigenous language of South Africa as panacea to the inaccessibility of academic spaces: Perspectives from isiZulu L1 students, International Journal of Language Studies, 19(4), 115-138Â https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15631536
- Aljoundi, E. K., & Tappe, H. (2024). Idea generation and planning time in second language academic writing: An empirical investigation at Howard College Campus, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa. Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies, 43(1), 71–88. DOI: 10.2989/16073614.2024.2336586
- Nyangiwe, B. & Tappe H. (2021) Politeness constructions in written business communication: A plea for African politeness strategies. South African Journal of African Languages. 41(1). 44-54. DOI:Â 10.1080/02572117.2021.1902133
- Sibisi, M. & Tappe, H. (2020) Contemporary isiZulu poetry as a tool to enhance access to academic content. Nordic Journal of African Studies. 29(1), 1-29. DOI:Â 10.2989/16073614.2020.1822191
- Sibisi, M. & Tappe, H. (2020) Event verbalization in isiZulu L1 and English L2: A comparative analysis with special reference to tense and aspect. Southern African Linguistics and Applied Linguistics Journal. 38(3), 200-221. DOI: 10.2989/16073614.2020.1822191
- Hara, A & H. Tappe (2016), Inference generation and text comprehension in bilingual children: A case study. Literator; Vol 37, No 2, 1-13. DOI:Â 10.4102/lit.v37i2.1287
- Tappe, H. & A. Hara (2013), Language specific narrative text structure elements in multilingual children. Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics Plus, 42, 297-331. DOI:Â https://doi.org/10.5842/42-0-160
- Klippel, A., H. Tappe, L. Kulik, P. U. Lee. (2005), Wayfinding Choremes – A Language for Modelling Conceptual Route Knowledge. Journal of Visual Languages and Computing, 311–329. DOI: 10.1016/j.jvlc.2004.11.004
- López A., H. Tappe & C. Habel (2004), The taxonomic representation of common events: A research report. Psykhe: Revista de la Escuela de Psicologia. Vol. 13/ 1, 191-197. DOI: 10.4067/s0718-22282004000100015
- Lee, P., H. Tappe & A. Klippel (2002), Acquisition of landmark knowledge from static and dynamic presentation of route maps. Künstliche Intelligenz-Themenheft: Spatial Cognition, 32-35. (PDF) Acquisition of Landmark Knowledge from Static and Dynamic Presentation of Route Maps.
- Jekat, S, H. Tappe, H. Gerlach & T. Schöllhammer (1997), Dialogue Interpreting: Data and Analysis. Verbmobil-Report 189, Universität Hamburg. Publikationen der UdS: Dialogue interpreting : data and analysis
Chapters In Books
- Heike Tappe, Mfundo Mawela, Nokwazi Ngcobo, and Lindokuhle Ngcobo (under peer review) The Making of Amatemu Kawonkewonke: Decisions and Design Principles Behind a Bilingual Glossary at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) University of KwaZulu-Natal submitted to Juliet Ramohai; Maleshoane Rapeane-Mathonsi; Erevbenagie Usadolo; Siyabonga MdluliBridging (eds) Knowledge and Society: Learning and Teaching, Language, and Community Development in Higher Education
- Sebolelo Lesenyeho and Heike Tappe (under peer review) Social Meaning in African Languages: The case of address terms in Sesotho submitted to Juliet Ramohai; Maleshoane Rapeane-Mathonsi; Erevbenagie Usadolo; Siyabonga MdluliBridging (eds) Knowledge and Society: Learning and Teaching, Language, and Community Development in Higher Education
- Tappe, H. (accepted) Stuck between top-down language policy and grassroots demands. How we may accelerate contemporary South Africa’s search for a middle ground to alleviate its literacy crisis. To appear in M. Goldbach and P. Larrañaga (eds.).
- Tappe, H. (2018). What about Southern African story grammar? Promoting language specific macrostructures in educational settings. In J. Kandybowicz, T. Major, H. Torrence, P.T. Duncan (eds.). African linguistics on the prairie: Selected papers from the 45th Annual Conference on African Linguistics (pp. 51-64). Berlin: Language Science Press. https://doi.org/10.5281/ZENODO.1251714
- Tappe, H. (2013) Morphological code-mixing: The case of Zulu agreement in English. In Holden Härtl (ed.). Interfaces of morphology. (Studia Grammatica). (263-287). Berlin: Akademie Verlag. Morphological code-mixing: The case of Zulu agreement in English*
- Tappe, H. (2009) My ways to Rome: Routes to multilingualism. In E. Todeva and J. Cenoz (eds.) The multiple realities of Multilingualism: Personal narratives and researchers’ perspectives. (75-92). Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI:Â 10.1515/9783110224481.75
- Klippel, A., H. Tappe & C. Habel (2004), Pictorial representations of routes: Chunking route segments during comprehension. In: F. Freksa, W. Brauer, C. Habel & K.F. Wender (eds.), Spatial Cognition III. (pp. 11-33). Heidelberg & Berlin: Springer Verlag. DOI: 10.1007/3-540-45004-1_2 Pictorial representations of routes: Chunking route segments during comprehension – Wageningen University & Research
- Lee P.U., A. Klippel & H. Tappe (2004), The effect of motion in graphical user interfaces. Proceedings of the 3rd International Symposium on Smart Graphics. Heidelberg & Berlin: Springer Verlag. DOI: 10.1007/3-540-37620-8_2
- Tappe, H. & H. Härtl (2004), Mediating between concepts and grammar–Processing structures. In: Härtl, H. & H. Tappe (Eds.), Mediating between Concepts and Grammar. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI: 10.1515/9783110919585.1
- Tappe, H., H. Härtl & S. Olsen (2004), Thematic information, argument structure, and discourse adaptation in language production. In T. Pechmann (ed.), Multidisciplinary Approaches to Language Production. (139-170). Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI: 10.1515/9783110894028.139
- Lee, P., H. Tappe & A. Klippel (2002), Acquisition of landmark knowledge from static and dynamic presentation of route maps. In: W. Gray & C. Schunn (Eds.). Proceedings of the twenty-fourth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. (p. 1017). Fairfax, Virginia. (PDF) Acquisition of Landmark Knowledge from Static and Dynamic Presentation of Route Maps.
- Tappe, H., (2000), Perspektivenwahl in Beschreibungen dynamischer und statischer Wegeskizzen. [Choice of perspective in descriptions of dynamic and static sketch-maps] In: C. Habel & C. v. Stutterheim (Hrsg.): Räumliche Konzepte und sprachliche Strukturen. (pp. 69-97). Tübingen: Niemeyer. DOI: 10.1515/9783110952162.69
- Guhe, M., C. Habel & H. Tappe (2000), Incremental event conceptualization and natural language generation in monitoring environments. (85-92). Proceedings of First International Conference on Natural Language Generation – INLG 2000. Mitzpe Ramon, Israel. DOI: 10.3115/1118253.1118266.
- Habel, C. & H. Tappe (1999), Processes of segmentation and linearization in describing events. In: R. Klabunde & C. v. Stutterheim (Hrsg.), Representations and Processes in Language Production. (pp. 117-153). Wiesbaden: Deutscher Universitätsverlag. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-322-99290-1_5
- Tappe, H., (1999) Schichten konzeptueller Repräsentation: Integration und Separierung. [Layers of conceptual representation: Integration and separation] In: I. Wachsmuth & B. Jung (Hrsg.), KogWis99: Proceedings der 4. Fachtagung der Gesellschaft für Kognitionswissenschaft. (pp. 104-110). St. Augustin: Infix. Microsoft Word – tappe.doc
- Tappe, H. & C. Habel (1998), Verbalization of dynamic sketch maps: Layers of representation in the conceptualization of drawing events. Proceedings of the Cognitive Science Conference; Madison WI, August, 1.–4., 1998. Verbalization of Dynamic Sketch Maps: Layers of Representation in the Conceptualization of Drawing Events
- Tappe, H. & F. Schilder (1996), Coherence in spoken discourse. In: Proceedings the 17th International Conference on Computational Linguistics (COLING ’98) and of the 36th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL ’98). (pp. 1294-1298). Montréal, Québec, Canada: Université de Montréal. DOI: 10.3115/980691.980780
- Tappe, H.M.E., (1997), Nouns and verbs in language acquisition. In M.G. Shafto & P. Langley (eds.), Proceedings of the Nineteenth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Nouns and Verbs in Language Acquisition
- Tappe, H.M.E., (1997), Language acquisition and agenesis of the corpus callosum (ACC). In: A. Sorace, C. Heycock & R. Shillcock (eds.), Language Acquisition: Knowledge Representation and Processing. Proceedings of GALA ’97. (pp. 497-501). Edinburgh: Human Communication Research Centre. Language acquisition : knowledge representation and processing – University of Victoria
- Tappe, H. (1995), Der frühe Spracherwerb bei Corpus callosum Agenesie: Hypothesen über Erwerbsprobleme im Bereich der Nomina. [Early language acquisition in corpus callosum agenesis: Hypotheses on acquisitional problems for nouns]. In: M. Knauff & A. Heinecke (Hrsg.), Frühjahrsworkshop der Graduiertenkollegs Kognitionswissenschaft Freiburg-Hamburg-Saarbrücken 12.-14. Mai 1995. GK-Kognitions-wissenschaft Saarbrücken: Bericht Nr. 5, 27-29
Community Involvement
- (recurrent) Reviewer for Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics
- (recurrent) Reviewer Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies
- (recurrent) external examiner for various national and internation universities
- (recurrent since 2013) Meta-Reviewer for the annual Cognitive Science Conference organised by the Cognitive Science Society (CSS), Seattle, USA
- (2021-2024) Member of the task team for the development of the university-wide compulsory undergraduate module on Critical Social Justice and Citizenship
- (2021-2023) Language Policy Task Team, College of Humanities, the University of KwaZulu-Natal
- (2020-2024) External moderator of the Undergraduate Linguistics Programme at the University of Cape Town
- (2019-2023) Member of the GBV task team, College of Humanities, the University of KwaZulu-Natal
- (2019-2021) Chair of the GBV committee School of Arts, the University of KwaZulu-Natal
- (2021) Language Practice Degree development (advisory board member) Cluster level, School of Arts, the University of KwaZulu-Natal
- (2019) Member of the terminology development task team for Linguistics academic terms, Cluster level, School of Arts, the University of KwaZulu-Natal
- (2015-2024) NIHSS-Supervisor Cohort, College of Humanities, the University of KwaZulu-Natal
- (2006–2009) Member of the Quality Assurance Committee (College Level) College of Humanities, the University of KwaZulu-Natal
- (2005–2015) Member of the Higher Degrees Committee (School Level) School of Arts, the University of KwaZulu-Natal
- (2005) Member of Equity Committee (Faculty level) Faculty of Humanities, Development and Social Sciences, the University of KwaZulu-Natal
- (2005) Member of the Business Plan Convenor Team, Former School of Language, Literature and Linguistics, the University of KwaZulu-Natal
- (2004) Head of the School Plan Convenor Team, Former School of Language, Literature and Linguistics, the University of KwaZulu-Natal
- (2002–2004) Member of the Curriculum-Reform-Committee Humboldt University Berlin, Institute for English & American Studies, Linguistics Department
- (1999 & 2000) Reviewer for the American Cognitive Science Society (CogSci)
- (1995–1998) Advisor for the German Society for Cognitive Science Elected member to the first advisory council
- (1994-1995) Board member in the Doctoral Program in Cognitive Science
Teaching Expertise
- I have been teaching in the following undergraduate and postgraduate modules over the past 21 years
- LING101: Understanding Language (current)
- LING102: Introduction to Language Studies (current)
- LING204: The Multilingual Mind (current)
- LING301: Language and Power (past)
- LING709: Guided Study in Linguistics (Research Module) (past)
- LING711: Topics in Psycholinguistics (Honours) (past)
- LING714: Language Processing (Honours) (past)
- LING811: Topics in Psycholinguistics (Masters) (past)
- LING814: Language Processing (Masters) (past)
Student Supervision
Honours
Masters
PhD
Honours
- 1-2 Honours theses from 2004-2022 on various research topics in Psycholinguistics, Sociolinguistics, Education Linguistics and Applied Linguistics
Masters
- Ms Thandeka Maphumulo (2025): Urban isiZulu meets African storytelling: Narrative structure in 10–12-year-old children’s narrations of two wordless picture books.
- Ms Romaana Muhammad (2024): Selected speeches from three world leaders in reaction to the Covid19 pandemic: A comparative linguistic analysis
- Ms Mbali Jiyane (2017): Narrative text production in isiZulu speaking children from rural KwaZulu-Natal: A case study.
- Ms Carmen Kendal (2016): Narrative text structure elements in bilingual (isiZulu-English) children.
- Ms Mandisa Ndlovu (2016): Language specific features in isiZulu children’s tellings
- Ms Entisar Aljoundi (2015): Idea generation and planning time in second language writing: An empirical investigation
- Muhle Sibisi (2014): Tense and Aspect in bilingual (Zulu-English) speakers.
- Mr Njabulo Mpungse (2013): Spatial language and spatial cognition in bilingual (Zulu-English) speakers.
- Ms Julia Sutherland (2013): Transferability and Mobility in Idioms.
- Ms Rosanne O’Hara (2012): Language Proficiency and Reasoning: Solving the Latin Square Task in IsiZulu and English.
- Ms Man Xu (2011): Semantic Transparency and Conceptual Motivation in Chinese Compounds.
- Mr Chimwemwe Mayinde Mystic Kamanga (2010): Meaning in “Neaming”: Processing the Meaning of Transposed Morphological and Syntactic Order in Word Plays using the “Reverse Metaphor”.
- Ms Maxine Willox (2010): Language Policy Implementation in South Africa as Marketing Strategy.
- Ms Donna Thompson (2009): The Development of Text Comprehension Skills in Bilingual Children.
- Mr Stephen Kithinji Kindiki (2008): Attitude Markers in Kîîtharaka: A Systematic Account of their Usage, Semantic Meanings and Pragmatic Functions.
CO-SUPERVISION
- Estelle van der Merwe (2012): Landmark flexibility in Afrikaans.
- Ms Anna Groß (2007): Language and Code-Switching between IsiZulu and English in South African Hip-Hop
- Ms Julie Raju (2006): Standard versus Non-standard Varieties: IsiZulu and Umlazi Township Language.
PhD
- Ms Sebolelo Lesenyeno (2025): The contemporary use of address terms and referring expressions in Sesotho
- Ms Thabiso Moleya (2025): The role of language in shaping beauty ideals through social media platforms: The case of Black South African women
- Ms Prosper Hellen Tlou (2025): A linguistic exploration of native speakers’ attitudes towards orthographic variations in Tshivenda
- Ms Iris Auda (2025): A critical investigation of linguistic features in the indigenous, constructed script isiBheqe.
- Ms Romaana Muhammad (2025): Framing Reproductive Rights: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Abortion and IVF Legislation and Advocacy in the Post-Roe U.S., Investigating Linguistic Strategies, Power Dynamics, and Ideological Underpinnings in Pro-Life and Pro-Choice Narratives.
- Ms Zolile Sinenhlanhla Xulu (2025): A comparative analysis of metadiscourse markers in isiZulu (L1) and English (L2) for the development of persuasive writing skills in English second language students
- Ms Lipuo Motene (2025): The linguistic construction of sexualities through lexical choices and discourse strategies: A comparative analysis of male and female famo songs
- Ms Favour Solomon-Uriri (2024): Pragmatics and social media communication: Examining pragmatic acts in selected twitter comments of South Africans and Nigerians on nationwide xenophobic attacks in South Africa during 2019
- Mr Peter Tshetu (2023): Linguistic strategies for managing online reputation in the era of political trolling: The case of Twitter-discourse between Zimbabwean political actors.
- Ms Muhle MaShezi Sibisi (2022): Cognitive, affective and behavioural aspects of attitude in isiZulu L1 tertiary students towards discipline-specific terminology in isiZulu and isiZulu as an academic language.
- Ms Bulelwa Nyangiwe (2021): What about speech acts? A comparative analysis of speech acts in isiZulu and English for the development of business writing skills in English second language learners
- Mr Amini Jean de Dieu Ngabonziza (2020): Multilingual writing pedagogy for African languages in the monolingual education setting: Literacy development for multilingual children in Rwanda (grades 1-3)
- Ms Mbali Jiyane (2019): Microstructural linguistic features in the narrations of Southern African 10-12-year-old children
- Mr Philothe Kabasele (2017): Morphological transfer in trilingual (Lingala, French, English) speakers.
- Ms Agness Hara (2014): Text comprehension in multilingual children: Mental representation and narrative text structure.
- Ms Kerry Jones (2013): Language attitudes and inter-generational language transfer in !Xun and Khwedam communities in Platfontein (RSA)
- Ms Magda Altman-Hartzell (2012): Traditional Views on Embodiment: A Cognitive Semantic Analysis of Terminology in Indigenous Medical Systems.
- Mr Sandiso Ngcobo (2011): Foundation in Commerce Students’ Perceptions on the Multilingual Instruction Policies at Mangosuthu University of Technology.
CO-SUPERVISION
- Mr Prosper Takavarasha (2013): Of patriots and traitors: A corpus-based discourse analysis of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe’s Epideictic Rhetoric (1980-2013Replace this text with your list, using the format above